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1.33GHz iBook unbearably slow-may have to use a ThoughtlessPad full time

iMpathetic

iMpathetic

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Oct 7, 2007
2,547
4
IMBY
Hi everyone. My main lappy is a last revision 1.33GHz 12" iBook G4 with GB of RAM. In the past month or so, it has gotten slower and slower. Everything lags, and today when I entered an address into Camino, it took it a full 90 seconds to realize I had pressed enter, and get rid of the drop-down autocomplete.

I recently upgraded to Leopard. I thought this would help, but apparently not. Sadly. I just purchased a T41 ThoughtlessPad because i needed a FUNCTIONAL laptop.

Please, please, PLEASE offer any suggestions you can, this was my first Mac and I can't stand not using it anymore!

Thanks so much in advance, and happy holidays!
 
How much space is available on your iBook's HD?

Did you perform a clean install of Leopard or an upgrade? There are many things that could lead to slow performance. We can almost certainly have you backup to full speed in little time.
 
I second that, you should backup your iBook's hard drive and do a complete erase and install of OS X. Why did you buy a Thinkpad instead of a Macbook?
 
I'm not made of money. Ha ha. My budget was $450, I know lots of people with them, and I need to brush up on my windoze skills.

I don't have ANYTHING to back up to, save for a 2GB flash drive.
 
iMpathetic said:
I'm not made of money. Ha ha. My budget was $450, I know lots of people with them, and I need to brush up on my windoze skills.

I don't have ANYTHING to back up to, save for a 2GB flash drive.
Click to expand...

Wow, $450? Is it any good? That's pretty cheap? Well, not sure why you need to brush up on Windows however the Macbook would give you the extra added feature of being able to run both OS's natively however it's all about money it's understandable.

Yeah, just fully erase and install OS X on your iBook and things should be much snappier. It most likely needs a house cleaning, I generally erase, reformat and install every 6 months.
 
I currently writing this post on a 1.33GHz iBook G4 12" with 1.5GB of RAM. Leopard runs very well on the machine, even better than when I had Tiger on it. I think you should format your iBook and install Leopard.

If you don't have anything to backup to, then buy an external hard drive. It'll also serve you well with Time Machine. They're petty cheap now, you can get a 500GB drive for around $120 from Amazon.
 
HLdan said:
Wow, $450? Is it any good? That's pretty cheap? Well, not sure why you need to brush up on Windows however the Macbook would give you the extra added feature of being able to run both OS's natively however it's all about money it's understandable.

Yeah, just fully erase and install OS X on your iBook and things should be much snappier. It most likely needs a house cleaning, I generally erase, reformat and install every 6 months.
Click to expand...

Yeah! Not to preach the devil here, but it's a 1.6GHz Pentium M with 1GB RAM, a 5400RPM 60GB HD, and a 14 inch 1400x1050 LCD. And 3 years old. but it's almost new.

I sure WISH I could get a MacBook, but on $5, a week, it's impossible.

I have this nagging suspicion that there's something wrong with the hard drive. I don't know what, but it may be corruption, or something like that.

One thing I've noticed is that apps launch roughly normally, but when browsing the interwebs, the suckiness multiplies.



Voidness said:
I currently writing this post on a 1.33GHz iBook G4 12" with 1.5GB of RAM. Leopard runs very well on the machine, even better than when I had Tiger on it. I think you should format your iBook and install Leopard.

If you don't have anything to backup to, then buy an external hard drive. It'll also serve you well with Time Machine. They're petty cheap now, you can get a 500GB drive for around $120 from Amazon.
Click to expand...

Interesting. Well, I literally have $17 to my name, I'm not kidding. I can't even use Target Disk mode or anything to clone the hard drive to back up my data, because *gasp* I sold my PowerMac for the ThinkPad!

Any thoughts guys? Thanks so much for your quick (and thoughtful) replies!
 
iMpathetic said:
I have this nagging suspicion that there's something wrong with the hard drive. I don't know what, but it may be corruption, or something like that.
Click to expand...
If you think that there's something physically wrong with the iBook's hard drive, then try running Disk Utility and check the S.M.A.R.T status of the hard drive. If it says "Verified", then the drive is fine.
 
If you enable Windows file sharing in the Sharing section of System Preferences, and then plug your iBook into your PC via an ethernet cable you should be able to copy all of the files over to your PC while you perform a clean install of OS X. This will the be most painless way to solve your issues as long as there isn't any sort of hardware failure.
 
AAANNNNDDDD... results are in. It says SMART status is verified, but I clicked Repair just to be safe. It went about 20% of the way through, and then stopped. It says 30 seconds remaining, but it just stops. No progress at all, after 5 minites, besides the initial 20%.

Fleetwood Mac said:
If you enable Windows file sharing in the Sharing section of System Preferences, and then plug your iBook into your PC via an ethernet cable you should be able to copy all of the files over to your PC while you perform a clean install of OS X. This will the be most painless way to solve your issues as long as there isn't any sort of hardware failure.
Click to expand...

Wow, thanks! I suppose I'll back up to my ThinkPad, and do that just to be safe.

BTW guys, it showed the flashing ? mark for a second or two, which it has never EVER done before.
 
Fleetwood Mac said:
...you should be able to copy all of the files over to your PC while you perform a clean install of OS X.
Click to expand...
I just wanted to make something clear: You should backup files to your PC before starting the install, not during. That would result in lost files and much emotional anguish, I'm sure. :D
 
I wanted to point out one last thing: After finishing from a clean install for Leopard and going through the registration process, leave the iBook on for an hour or so. Because right after it finishes installing, Spotlight will start indexing the hard drive, and it really slows things down for a while. When it's done, it'll be fine. :)
 
OK, thanks everyone. I will do a clean install on Boxing Day and see how things go.

kthnxbai
 
iMpathetic said:
Interesting. Well, I literally have $17 to my name, I'm not kidding. I can't even use Target Disk mode or anything to clone the hard drive to back up my data, because *gasp* I sold my PowerMac for the ThinkPad!

Any thoughts guys? Thanks so much for your quick (and thoughtful) replies!
Click to expand...

You can boot up using your Leopard disk, click a few screens in and go to disk utility. Use Disk Utility to make a disk image of your iBook internal disk onto an external drive.
 
Could it also be that Leopard isnt completely optimized yet, especially for PowerPC Macs? The upcoming update for Leopard may help.
 
Thanks for the advice everyone. How exactly do I make an image of my iBook's hard drice?
 
Yea I know about SuperDuper. Unfortunately the backups do not work under Leopard, they are no longer bootable. :(
 
Over time you can find the computer grinds to a halt, this is because the free space is too fragmented for the VM to get a single bit of Hard Drive which makes the computer suddenly very slow.

The only solutions are to use disk defrag software (or ideally) an erase and install of the OS. You'll need to backup your data first, but you should be doing that anyway. An external drive is far cheaper than your new Thinkpad ;).

Though a ThinkPad is a good PC to have.

Personally when I do erase and installs I don't use backup software but just backup my Home Directory and my Applications directory to an external which gets all my useful files.
 
Well, OK, I lied. I technically bought the Thoughtlesspad for Dad's house usage, but I brought it over cuz the iBook is almost unusable. Fortunately, i was able to sync my iTunes over to my Xmas gift, iPod touch before it became excruciating this morning.

To be honest, even when the iBook is in a good mood, I still use my T41alot more, cuz of the friggin' keyboard. The Book's is so MUSHY! </rant>

but anyway, are there any free defrag utilities y'all know of? I thought the OS was supposed to do it itself!
 
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