09 Quad Startup: Longtime to Grey Screen...

[whyrichard]

Hey Guys,

My 09 quad takes a very long time (a minute it seems or more) to get to the grey apple screen (or the bootcamp disk selection screen when pressing alt) from either a cold starup or a restart. once past the grey screen starup is quite fast with the ssd's, but getting to the grey screen takes waaaay tooo long.

a minute or more is way longer then i think it should...

My disk arrangment is as follows:
bay 1 -osx sl: 80gb intel ssd
bay 2 -storage: 1T wd caviar black
bay 3 -time machine: 1T wd caviar black
bay 4 -win7: 80gb intel ssd

what can i do to make this process much snappier?


thanks,
r.

 

[Hellhammer]

Try OnyX

 

[cutterman]

Check 'All Messages' in console to see if any errors are logged during start up.

 

[666sheep]

Check Startup Disk in System prefs, set your boot drive to desired.
You may also zap PRAM and see if it all will shorten your boot time.

 

[Harry6]

Check Startup Disk in System prefs, set your boot drive to desired.
You may also zap PRAM and see if it all will shorten your boot time.

Hi there, Good thing that I visited this forum! because I just bought a Mac Pro with 16GB RAM and couple of 500GB HD (Bay 1 and 4th slot) I used to have 24 inch iMac b4 but for some reason I don't see much of a difference in speed wise!! can any one tell me what am I doing wrong!! or does it needs some kind of setting?? as I am almost zee to technical side. It has 2x2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon with 16GB 800 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM and my stsrtup disk is Bay-1
I am using Snow leopard.

Graphic side: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT:

Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
Type: GPU
Bus: PCIe
Slot: Slot-1
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 512 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0602
Revision ID: 0x00a2
ROM Revision: 3233
Displays:
Cinema HD:
Resolution: 2560 x 1600
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Rotation: Supported
Display Connector:
Status: No Display Connected



Many thanks for help.

 

[Hellhammer]

Hi there, Good thing that I visited this forum! because I just bought a Mac Pro with 16GB RAM and couple of 500GB HD (Bay 1 and 4th slot) I used to have 24 inch iMac b4 but for some reason I don't see much of a difference in speed wise!! can any one tell me what am I doing wrong!! or does it needs some kind of setting?? as I am almost zee to technical side. It has 2x2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon with 16GB 800 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM and my stsrtup disk is Bay-1
I am using Snow leopard.

Many thanks for help.

So what exactly is slow? Boot time? In boot time your iMac and MP are pretty equal as both have 7200rpm SATA drive

 

[Harry6]

So what exactly is slow? Boot time? In boot time your iMac and MP are pretty equal as both have 7200rpm SATA drive

For a start when I switch my computer on, it takes about 1.5 minutes!! I am not sure whether it is slow or normal.

2nd thing is when I use Photoshop plug ins it takes more or less the same time as my old machine was taking which had only 4GB RAM.

Also it takes about 30 seconds to open PS... is it normal!! I am using all Topaz filters and Plug in suite 5.
By the way.... I have Two external drive of 500GB each and One 2TB which I am using for back up (Time Machine) they are all seagate and 7200 rpm.

Cheers... really appreciate your help.

 

[Hellhammer]

For a start when I switch my computer on, it takes about 1.5 minutes!! I am not sure whether it is slow or normal.

2nd thing is when I use Photoshop plug ins it takes more or less the same time as my old machine was taking which had only 4GB RAM.

Also it takes about 30 seconds to open PS... is it normal!! I am using all Topaz filters and Plug in suite 5.
By the way.... I have Two external drive of 500GB each and One 2TB which I am using for back up (Time Machine) they are all seagate and 7200 rpm.

Cheers... really appreciate your help.

See my post above, give OnyX a try

 

[666sheep]

OnyX and Repair Permissions (what OnyX also does) are worthless in most cases, and for sure will not shorten boot time of any Mac. This is more like placebo. Don't bother with it.

 

[Harry6]

Hi, I did gave it a try but it seems that there is no bugs or anything because result was ok. Having said that, it has not improved the speed! meaning perhaps it is normal !!

I also use software call "Clean my Mac" every day to keep my Mac clean.

Regardless, I appreciate your help.
Cheers.

 

[Loa]

Having said that, it has not improved the speed! meaning perhaps it is normal !!

As things stand now, the two main differences between an iMac and a Mac Pro running at the same clock speed are these:

-Performance gains only when using apps that are multi processor aware
-Expansion possibilities (optical drives/hard drives/SSDs, PCI-e slots, RAM, video cards, etc...)

If your apps can't use the extra processors in the Mac Pro, you won't see much of a difference. And if you don't need/use some of the possible expansions, again you won't see much difference.

There are a lot of other (theoretical) factors that make the Mac Pro faster. But if you're looking for "day and night" performance increases, only multi-processor aware apps (like Photoshop CS5 in your case) will let you see them.

The multi core hype is just that for most people: hype. For the majority of users, a 2 core 4GHz Mac Pro would be a lot faster than a 16 core 2.66GHz Mac Pro. In time, more apps will be coded to be aware of the extra processors, but a lot of apps simply "can't" be made multi-processor aware as their processes are sequential in nature. IMO, multi-core machines are a stopgap measure until we can get truly faster processors. Having two processors makes sense for most users. Conversely, eight and up is a "waste" for most users.

Loa

 

[Harry6]

Computer speed

Hi Loa,

Well explained, Really appreciate.

While I am with you... One question, At present I am using CS4 (will be getting CS5 by Friday) and some time.. infect many time I get message saying can not complete your request because of there is not enough RAM available ! while I have 16GB RAM on my computer. However, I have also noticed that PS only shows me maximum of available RAM 3072.MB.

Is there any way we can increase this RAM in to PS?

Thanking you.
Harry
http://www.pphotographi.com

 

[Apple Corps]

Harry6 - first thing to speed things up is to sleep your MP instead of turning it off

Next - to save time dispense with "Clean my Mac" on a daily basis - doubt it does much.

Next - replace your 500 GB boot / app drive with a newer ssd - keep all your data on the 7200 rpm drives.

Recognize - as previously stated - that the MP advantage comes in expansion & customization. Speed can be significant in those few cases where the software take advantage of multiple cores.

Please go into Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor and show us what you pages in/out are showing. 16 GB is gobs of memory.

 

[Apple Corps]

Harry6 - look at your MP box and see if you purchased one of the current Nehalem Xeon based versions.

 

[cutterman]

Is there any way we can increase this RAM in to PS?

Thanking you.
Harry
http://www.pphotographi.com

Harry, the 64 bit version of Photoshop available in CS5 will utilize much more of your available RAM. You are observing expected free memory for a 32 bit program.

 

[Loa]

many time I get message saying can not complete your request because of there is not enough RAM available ! while I have 16GB RAM on my computer.

This should not be happening. Even though CS4 can only use 3GB of RAM, OS X is very intelligent in the way it handles RAM needs above those first 3GB. Before I switched to CS5, I saw significant performance gains by going up to 8GB of RAM. But even with the original 3GB, I never got a "not enough RAM" error. Are you getting this error when using a specific plug-in or filter?

In any case, getting CS5 will solve your "not enough RAM" situation. If it doesn't, then you have an underlying problem.

I second the "get yourself a SSD" advice. On the other hand, it won't do anything for you in Photoshop. A SSD as boot drive will greatly increase the overall "speedyness" of your Mac (and some very specific apps), but won't make any difference at all while working with Photoshop.

In fact, 16GB of RAM and CS5 is just about everything you can do to speed Photoshop up.

Loa

 

[alphaod]

My Mac Pro takes a minute or two to get past the grey screen.

I noticed if I remove all my drives but the the default boot volume, it will only take seconds.

 

[666sheep]

Hmm, your boot times seems a little long to me. My 2006 with 5 drives (4 mechanical and SSD connected to ODD port) boots up: from SSD 28 sec (Intel G2, 10.5.8), with mechanical (stock 250 GB Seagate, 10.4.11) in 38 sec. Measured from pushing Power button to fully functional desktop.

 

[Harry6]

Harry6 - look at your MP box and see if you purchased one of the current Nehalem Xeon based versions.

I know I don't have Nehalem.

 

[Hellhammer]

My Mac Pro takes a minute or two to get past the grey screen.

I noticed if I remove all my drives but the the default boot volume, it will only take seconds.

Are you sure you have selected your OS X partition/drive as boot up volume?

 

[Harry6]

Are you getting this error when using a specific plug-in or filter?

In any case, getting CS5 will solve your "not enough RAM" situation. If it doesn't, then you have an underlying problem.

I second the "get yourself a SSD" advice. On the other hand, it won't do anything for you in Photoshop. A SSD as boot drive will greatly increase the overall "speedyness" of your Mac (and some very specific apps), but won't make any difference at all while working with Photoshop.

In fact, 16GB of RAM and CS5 is just about everything you can do to speed Photoshop up.

Loa[/QUOTE]

Well yes, When ever I use plug in 5 suite and Topaz, I get this memory error but like you said, if the CS5 will solve this problem then it is only a matter of few days to wait and see!
I am sorry but what does SSD means? (sorry I hardly know anything technically in computer a specially in hardware). Suppose if I change my boot drive in to 1.5 TB would you reckon it will help? because my 1.5TB Seagate 7200 will arrive in next 5 days.... tell you the truth I don't even know how to transfer all data from one drive to the new one!! I guess you simply drag and drop in to new drive and then delete all from old one?? am I right?
I am attaching screen shots as requested herewith.
I thank you all for your valuable time and help.
Harry.
http://www.pphotographi.com

 

[Harry6]

Harry6 - first thing to speed things up is to sleep your MP instead of turning it off

Next - to save time dispense with "Clean my Mac" on a daily basis - doubt it does much.

Next - replace your 500 GB boot / app drive with a newer ssd - keep all your data on the 7200 rpm drives.

Recognize - as previously stated - that the MP advantage comes in expansion & customization. Speed can be significant in those few cases where the software take advantage of multiple cores.

Please go into Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor and show us what you pages in/out are showing. 16 GB is gobs of memory.

Sorry but what does MP means? "Main Power"? is it? if so did you mean not to switch of my computer every night? I usually switch off every night from from shut down menu.

Clean My Mac gives me approx. 400MB every time I clean it. in last 3 months I have regain approx. 500GB according to it shows me on screen.

Next - replace your 500 GB boot / app drive with a newer ssd - keep all your data on the 7200 rpm drives.

Okay, if I change the boot up drive to 1.5TB 7200rpm will it help? if so do I replace as I mentioned in my other reply? (after installing, drag all files in to new drive and delete from the old drive) is that correct way to do?

I have attached the screen shots in reply above by mistake, If that is what you meant!

Look forward to your kind suggestion.
Cheers.
http://www.pphotographi.com

 

[Hellhammer]

Sorry but what does MP means? "Main Power"? is it? if so did you mean not to switch of my computer every night? I usually switch off every night from from shut down menu.

Clean My Mac gives me approx. 400MB every time I clean it. in last 3 months I have regain approx. 500GB according to it shows me on screen.

Next - replace your 500 GB boot / app drive with a newer ssd - keep all your data on the 7200 rpm drives.

Okay, if I change the boot up drive to 1.5TB 7200rpm will it help? if so do I replace as I mentioned in my other reply? (after installing, drag all files in to new drive and delete from the old drive) is that correct way to do?

I have attached the screen shots in to my other reply, please have a look if that is what you meant!

Look forward to your kind suggestion.
Cheers.
http://www.pphotographi.com

MP = Mac Pro

Most people, including me, always sleep their Macs as that is A LOT faster. It doesn't harm it or anything.

Replacing it with bigger HD might help little bit due density but you should really think getting a 80GB SSD as boot&app disk, it'll make it FLY

 

[Harry6]

Apple Corps macrumors 65816

Apple Corps
macrumors 65816

At present my File vault is off, is that how it supposed to be? if I turn it on I am getting scary message (please see attachment) shall I carry on by clicking the top check box or just carry on with box ticked on? or simply leave file vault off? I am afraid of deleting something very important !

My fire wall is also off at present.

Many thanks for your help.
Harry.
http://www.pphotographi.com

 

[wandal]

I also use software call "Clean my Mac" every day to keep my Mac clean.

this could be an issue. Keep it aside a fortnight.