Resolved eMac very slow

[amagichnich]

Hello Community,

i hope you may have some helpful thoughts for me. My problem is this: I have three ppc Macs, 2 eMacs (1 and 1.25ghz) and 1 iBook G4 1.33ghz. The eMac 1.25 is the one im concerned about.
In everyday usage (itunes, safari, t4f, spotify, photoshop) the cpu shows always between 80 and 100% usage and the ui is extremely sluggish compared to the 1ghz and the iBook.

I already did a complete clean install of Tiger, upgraded the harddrive to a 7200rpm one. I didnt renew the thermal compound cause i dont want to worse things. but if you think that could help i'll do that as well.

I know with PPCs even the slightest mhz steps make a big difference (ibook 1.33 handles 6 safari tabs and spotify and stays silent) but then my 1ghz eMac should be slower. but in fact the 1.25 is only faster in playing videos but in every other concern the 1ghz one is faster and more relaxed.

Any thoughts about that are appreciated
Thanks a lot

amagichnich

 

[eyoungren]

the cpu shows always between 80 and 100% usage and the ui is extremely sluggish compared to the 1ghz and the iBook.

This would indicate to me that you have some process running that is hogging your CPU cycles.

Open Activity Monitor and find out which process (or app) is using the CPU the most. If it's a third party process or app then quit the process or app.

If it's an OS X process then you need to determine what's wrong so that can be fixed and the process can return to normal.

 

[DeltaMac]

How much RAM do you have in that 1.25 Ghz eMac?

I have one of those eMacs that I use daily for burning CDs/DVDs. I put a generic (much faster than original Apple) burner in a few years ago, and just recently moved to an SSD, which makes a very noticeable difference, even in that old eMac. I like using the eMac instead of something newer, because the tray loading drive seems more reliable (and faster) than slot-loading, compact burners

You may also want to watch your Activity Monitor, which may help you determine if some app is really giving you problems. I run Leopard on my eMac, and the spotlight database seems to go wonky now and then, slowing the whole system down noticeably. I delete the existing spotlight database, let it rebuild, and life returns to normal for that eMac.

 

[Eriamjh1138@DAN]

Spotlight indexing really dogs a machine after a fresh install. Are you sure it isn't just that?

Leave it on so it can finish and it should be much better.

 

[Dronecatcher]

What eyoungren said plus open the Console and look for any suspicious activity - ie some process that's constantly being logged.

 

[amagichnich]

The 1.25 has 1.5 gigs of RAM - that should be enough i think. Acitivity Monitor starts automatically after bootup and is always running in background taking up to 15% of cpu usage. Spotlight is indeed a problem because mds is often taking 50% without spotight being used actively. The emac runs a bit faster with spolight disabled but thats only a temporary fix for me - i just got used to spotlight too much to afford loosing it
but then again im wondering why the 1ghz doesn't have that problem with spotlight enabled.
I once used my linux notebooks ssd in the emac with leopard on it - that was pretty cool! i could run every program on the machine simultaneously and exposé went smooth as butter. but then i nedded the ssd again in the notebook so poor emac was left alone with a hdd...
o right now while i'm writing this spotlight just out of nowhere startet to scan my drive again (blinking dot in the symbol) with mds, mdimport and mdsync using together 100%...
[doublepost=1486144623][/doublepost]completely forgot to mention it but t4f is an absolute mess on the 1.25 one. Cant use it at all whereas the 1ghz has no problem. I already applied all tweaks from here https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/my-tenfourfox-about-config-tweaks-and-my-addons.1838393/ (btw thx a lot eyoungren - that saved my ibook from becoming a piece of nice to have art object! )

 

[Dronecatcher]

Maybe stating the obvious but in Energy Saver settings, it's not running on Reduced mode is it?

 

[amagichnich]

I'm sorry to disappoint you (and me) but there are no processor performance options available on the eMac... unless there are any secret options available via terminal. I think i've heard of a little program for the G4 PoerMacs where you could throttle the cpu to decrease the heat in dual G4s... but that would result in the opposite of what i want

 

[eyoungren]

It sounds like your Spotlight index file may be corrupt. That would cause spotlight to continuously index. mds, mdimport and mdsync are Spotlight processes.

Do a Google search for 'spotlight continuously indexing' to find some links to terminal commands that will help. Sorry, can't provide links at the moment.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Apart from disabling Spotlight, I'd reset PRAM too - it can sometimes flush out power management issues.

 

[amagichnich]

Thx to all of you!
Spotlight Indexing again ans again really was the problem. Despite loving the functionality of spotlight i now disabled it completely to prevent it from doing that.
Also i put a small extra Fan on top of the cpu heatsink so now it stays 'cool' even when using a lot of cpu intensive things (eg TFF).
As the backup battery was empty, a pram reset was done with every boot up - a new battery fixed that problem.

its now running better than the 1ghz emac but still ganz beat the ibook. But thats not really a problem as even now its power is sufficient for eclipse, spotify, mail ans webkit open simultaneously.

big thanks vor all the help guys!
[doublepost=1487696136][/doublepost]My newest aquisition is a 1.5 Mac Mini g4, upgraded with an ssd, that outperforms all three competitors easily

 

[128keaton]

Thx to all of you!
Spotlight Indexing again ans again really was the problem. Despite loving the functionality of spotlight i now disabled it completely to prevent it from doing that.
Also i put a small extra Fan on top of the cpu heatsink so now it stays 'cool' even when using a lot of cpu intensive things (eg TFF).
As the backup battery was empty, a pram reset was done with every boot up - a new battery fixed that problem.

its now running better than the 1ghz emac but still ganz beat the ibook. But thats not really a problem as even now its power is sufficient for eclipse, spotify, mail ans webkit open simultaneously.

big thanks vor all the help guys!
[doublepost=1487696136][/doublepost]My newest aquisition is a 1.5 Mac Mini g4, upgraded with an ssd, that outperforms all three competitors easily

I always forget that Eclipse works on PPC. Thanks for reminding me!

 

[eyoungren]

I always forget that Eclipse works on PPC. Thanks for reminding me!

What's Eclipse?

 

[amagichnich]

I always forget that Eclipse works on PPC. Thanks for reminding me!

Haha, you're welcome
I think Version 4.3 (Cocoa) ist the last you can use on 32bit PPC as 4.4 needs Java 1.6 (tried soylatte but i was a bit too stupid it seems...)

What's Eclipse?

It's an intuitive and good looking Java IDE that I prefer over Netbeans.
With some tricks you can even use OpenJDK 1.7 inside Eclipse. That allows me to use my (12 year old) iBook G4 as my University-Notebook and abandon my 2 year old Windows Notebook
You should definitely see the faces of my fellow IT students when they see that beauty