Hi all! I have a question about my PowerBook G4 (1.67 GHz and 768 MB of RAM). I currently dual boot it between Leopard and Tiger, and I have found Tiger to be very usable, except in the web browser department (understandable). It works great otherwise. However, booting up Leopard slows everything down significantly. Worst thing is if I try to launch a browser, for example, Leopard Webkit or TFF, my computer will freeze for 5-10 minutes, and everything after becomes a pain (every click or scroll takes 5-10 minutes to respond). I don't see that behavior on any other computer I tried, not on any Intel Mac, not on my Dual 2.0 GHz G5, and not even on my 1.33 GHz iBook G3 (also with 768 MB of RAM). Sure, the iBook might feel slower overall, but the browsers work perfectly fine on it, maybe just a bit slower than the ancient white MacBook I have). I have tried reinstalling as well as doing a clean install, but I cannot for the life of me figure out why it is this slow, does anyone have any ideas? Thanks!
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1.67 GHz PB G4 super slow on Leopard
- Thread starter AnonMac50
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I've had lesser problems with Leopard - just poor performance - always resolved by a re-install. On one occasion I found that the install disk was the culprit - it was a "pre-slimmed" disk from the web, no longer use that one.
Are you using a retail install disk?
Are you using a retail install disk?
Thanks for the reply. I’m using a Leopard image that I got from ADC years ago. It works perfect (or as perfect as can be expected) on my other PPC and my one of my Intel iMacs (the only one I have that came with Tiger), so I don’t think it’s the installer that’s the issue. I’ve also tried burning the image on two different discs to the same result.
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I was going to, might purchase some RAM later. I’m also shocked. Other than my own G5 and iBook, I’ve also had it installed on an iMac G4 (800 MHz/768 MB) and an eMac G4 (1.25 GHz/512, or was it 1.0 GHz, not sure). Either way, they all ran much better than this.
[doublepost=1549209114][/doublepost]Come to think of it, Tiger seems slower here than it should too, definitely slower than on the previously mentioned iBook on Panther and Tiger.
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Yes, you're right - your RAM is enough to have Leopard running normally - I guess you've done PRAM resets etc?
Yup, the lot. I’m probably gonna try backing up my stuff and doing a clean install again in the coming weeks too. I tried using Target Disk Mode and booting my other computers from it (both Intel and even a TiBook 867. I didn’t use it much but they seem to be better? I’m kind of ruling the HDD at this point.
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Yeah, I’ll try to see if I can find one in the coming weeks and give it a shot.
I would take a guess and say the hard drive is failing. I have witnessed those 5 minute beachball delays on my 17” PBG4 (2GB of RAM). The system log started filling up with Disk I/O errors and within a few weeks it stopped completely. I then replaced the drive with an SSD and haven’t had a problem with it since.
How would I be able to test if the hard drive is failing? I’ll have to do more tests later, but if I recall correctly, I think my TiBook ran Leopard better than this one (using this computer’s hard drive using Target Disk Mode), but it may have been a placebo.
Check S.M.A.R.T statistics for bad sectors etc.
I remember a app compatible with ppc leopard. smartutility314-10.5.zip But there might be many others
Or just compile a tool for it and show that info in command line.
Disk Utility can report the drive’s SMART status, but I have only ever seen this report a failing drive on more recent (SATA) HDDs - maybe the status report had a higher tolerance to failure on the older hardware...
Like I mentioned, my system log (accessible via Console.app) was filling up with constant lines of “diskX I/O error” while I was trying to use the PowerBook, so take a look in there.
Diskwarrior 4 is always good to have on hand as it came on a PowerPC bootable CD. DiskWarrior can try to repair the volume and will be likely to encounter a fault if there is one. IIRC, DiskWarrior 4.2 could have been the last PowerPC/UB version.
As @Traace suggests, you could compile your own tools. I would recommend ‘smartmontools’ available from MacPorts or TigerBrew. But if the drive is really failing, this will take a very long time and will likely fail in the build process.
The best advice I could give is backup your data and stick a new drive in there!
Edit: ...Even if the fault lies elsewhere, you’ll have your data backed up and a spare drive to work with. It could also be an opportunity to upgrade the PowerBook with an SSD.
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The other day I accidentally booted leopard on a 450Mhz sawtooth with 128mb of ram installed. It took like 7 minutes to boot but it worked okay the few minutes I had it on and realized what I did lol.
I'd point to the HDD. They're all pretty old at this point, and anything under a 7200RPM is unacceptable for booting in my book. Start up from a FW drive or TDM another PPC mac with leopard and see how it runs. I usually get the same if not better performance on my leopard installed G4s.
I've also had way more failed HDDs still being reported as healthy by SMART. And I've also had drives run for years after SMART reported it as a bad drive. Bottom line, SMART while useful isn't very reliable IMO.
I'd point to the HDD. They're all pretty old at this point, and anything under a 7200RPM is unacceptable for booting in my book. Start up from a FW drive or TDM another PPC mac with leopard and see how it runs. I usually get the same if not better performance on my leopard installed G4s.
I've also had way more failed HDDs still being reported as healthy by SMART. And I've also had drives run for years after SMART reported it as a bad drive. Bottom line, SMART while useful isn't very reliable IMO.