10.3.9 running soooo slloow

[callan]

Hi

All of a sudden my eMac has started running soooo slow, takes what seems twice as long to start up, and just opening iPhoto with nothing else running results in the beach ball coming up!

Started last night after I was trying to burn about 4GB to a DVD in finder. Id put everything on the DVD image but not started to burn it yet. I then had to print something and everything started playing up, the printer jammed and after that I couldnt even start things printing (I think all this was more of a printer problem than with the eMac to be honest). Anyway, I had to restart the thing so I had to eject the DVD.

After a couple of restarts I could print. Even now though the speeds not improved and Im just wondering whether the data I transferred before to burning is being stored somewhere temporarily and slowing stuff down (a totally uneducated guess!). Even if it is, I still have about 15GB free on the disk.

When I get home I'll run the janitor stuff to see if it helps (dont know how to exactly but I'll do a search on here to find out). This is the first time in the 3 years Ive owned it that Ive had any problems, hope its not the start of things going wrong because of its age!

Any suggestions??

 

[DeSnousa]

Strange, it there an app in the background taking up processor power?

You said you did a couple of restarts did you mean the computer, if not try so.

Also burn that image to dvd and delete the image and see if that solves the problem.

 

[callan]

Strange, it there an app in the background taking up processor power?

You said you did a couple of restarts did you mean the computer, if not try so.

Also burn that image to dvd and delete the image and see if that solves the problem.

There isnt anything taking up processor power. Or at least theres nothing running other than there was before everything started running slow.

Yes, I restarted the computer.

When I said I added things to the image I mean the image that appears when a blank DVD is inserted. Since I had to eject the DVD that image isnt there anymore. Is it still hidden somewhere and taking up space? If I put a blank DVD back in will the DVD image appear with all the same stuff on it or will it be empty? I havent tried this cos I guessed it would be empty.

 

[iMeowbot]

There isnt anything taking up processor power. Or at least theres nothing running other than there was before everything started running slow.

Is that coming from just looking at the dock, or checking things out with Activity Monitor?

 

[callan]

Is that coming from just looking at the dock, or checking things out with Activity Monitor?

Just looking at the dock im afraid! I'll check Activity Monitor when I get home. I know there could be stuff running, I'll have to check, as far as I can gather though it all started going wrong after I'd compressed using DVD2One and started to copy it to the disk image. Thats pretty much the most processor intensive thing I do.

 

[IJ Reilly]

You don't say how you restarted the first time, but if it was a hard reboot, then you've probably done some damage. I'd try running fsck and repairing permissions. Better yet, install and run this.

 

[callan]

Getting better!

OK.

1) I checked in activity monitor and theres nothing eating up my processor, and the RAM is alright as well. Got something like 500 Mb free.

2) I ran applejack and its helped things out a little bit and things arnt as bad as they were. I still get te beachball a little though. I went to system preferences and clicked on accounts and I got nearly 30 seconds of beach ball!

Hardware test next I reckon!

This could be the perfect excuse to buy an iBook!

 

[DeSnousa]

Try repairing permissions in disc utility in the utility folder. Then restart just to make sure it takes effect.

 

[IJ Reilly]

AppleJack already repaired his permissions, assuming he ran all of the tests (autopilot). Better but not fixed has me wondering.

 

[callan]

Thanks for the help guys

I think running Applejack did the trick as everything seems to be a lot better now.

Hope it stays that way!