Excruciatingly slow iBook G4?

[flashlite]

Alright, so I have this iBook G4 I assembled myself. It has a 40 gig hard drive @ 4200 rpm (maybe that's the problem?), 512 sorry megs of ram and a 1.33 GHz G4.

This thing, well, it's so slow I can't find any fitting words for it. Seriously. It's running 10.4.11 (I used 10.5.8 previously but it was EVEN slower, ouch) and I am freaking out. I take this one to school because it was only 70 € and it slows down to a grinding halt when I need it most. I can't bring my expensive MBP to school and my iMac G3 is too bulky. (Who carries a desktop to school, seriously?)

Any tips? This is making me MAD.

~flashlite

Edit: DAMN, I THOUGHT I WAS STARTING A NEW THREAD... epic fail

 

[skateny]

Alright, so I have this iBook G4 I assembled myself. It has a 40 gig hard drive @ 4200 rpm (maybe that's the problem?), 512 sorry megs of ram and a 1.33 GHz G4.

This thing, well, it's so slow I can't find any fitting words for it. Seriously. It's running 10.4.11 (I used 10.5.8 previously but it was EVEN slower, ouch) and I am freaking out. I take this one to school because it was only 70 € and it slows down to a grinding halt when I need it most. I can't bring my expensive MBP to school and my iMac G3 is too bulky. (Who carries a desktop to school, seriously?)

Not sure what "assembled myself" and "it's so slow" means.

Is it slow on all tasks or just some? There are browsers (e.g., TenFourFox, Camino) and other apps that are optimized for PowerPC though few are currently supported.

Depending on how much you're willing or able to spend, you can throw in a faster HDD and max out the RAM. Also a good idea to strip Intel code.

 

[Wildy]

I'm fairly certain that stripping Intel code doesn't do anything for performance. I'd be interested to see a quantitative test using lipo and time to remove Intel code and measure the difference. Logically though, you will save a few MB space for each binary and that's about it. AFAIK only the PPC codesection is loaded into RAM.

 

[MisterKeeks]

I'm fairly certain that stripping Intel code doesn't do anything for performance. I'd be interested to see a quantitative test using lipo and time to remove Intel code and measure the difference. Logically though, you will save a few MB space for each binary and that's about it. AFAIK only the PPC codesection is loaded into RAM.

It probably frees up disk space, so maybe there is a microscopic performance gain.

 

[MacinDan]

If it's excruciatingly slow, two possible answers are your hard drive is too full and it doesn't have enough free space to create a swap file, or you don't have enough physical RAM. Before you go out and buy RAM, though, look at your System Monitor and see how low on RAM you really are, and also check for runaway cpu processes.

 

[tom vilsack]

"I assembled myself" meaning?

I have owned 10+ ibooks and powerbooks and find these tips best.

-a clean install of osx always really helps
-you want at least 1 gig ram
-i find with enough ram leopard is the way to go (have run geekbench scores on same machines with tiger and leopard,and leopard will get slightly higher mark)
-*** most important*** replace the slow older 4200rpm apple harddrives...i have replaces with samsung 160 gig 5400 drives and makes a world of difference!

here are some osx tweaks i also do after a clean install

-in dock use scale effects and no mag or animate...also turn wallpaper off and use colored
-turn off dashboard and turn off spotlight,if has bluetooth turn that also off

To turn Dashboard off: use terminal
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES

You have to restart the Dock after making either change for it to take effect:
killall Dock

To turn Spotlight off: use terminal

cd /etc
sudo nano hostconfig
SPOTLIGHT=-NO-
ctrl-x
y
enter

Then to get rid of the existing index, run these two commands
sudo mdutil -i off /
sudo mdutil -E /

reboot computer

remove spotlight icon

1. As an administrator, navigate to /System/Library/CoreServices, and delete Search.bundle. If you think might want to re-enable it later, just move it somewhere else or rename it.
2. Open up the Activity Monitor and force quit SystemUIServer. When it reopens, your menu bar will be Spotlight free.

 

[seveej]

The thing, well, it's so slow I can't find any fitting words for it.

I'm sorry, but if you want any real help, you'll have to try to find those words.

Otherwise, we'll just be able to give those off-the-shelf answers (HDD, ram, clean install).

RGDS,

 

[Wildy]

It probably frees up disk space, so maybe there is a microscopic performance gain.

The risk of messing up important applications is not really worth freeing up a couple of hundred MB. If you're that low on space, you have other problems.

 

[California]

"I assembled myself" meaning?

I have owned 10+ ibooks and powerbooks and find these tips best.

-a clean install of osx always really helps
-you want at least 1 gig ram
-i find with enough ram leopard is the way to go (have run geekbench scores on same machines with tiger and leopard,and leopard will get slightly higher mark)
-*** most important*** replace the slow older 4200rpm apple harddrives...i have replaces with samsung 160 gig 5400 drives and makes a world of difference!

here are some osx tweaks i also do after a clean install

-in dock use scale effects and no mag or animate...also turn wallpaper off and use colored
-turn off dashboard and turn off spotlight,if has bluetooth turn that also off

To turn Dashboard off: use terminal
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES

You have to restart the Dock after making either change for it to take effect:
killall Dock

To turn Spotlight off: use terminal

cd /etc
sudo nano hostconfig
SPOTLIGHT=-NO-
ctrl-x
y
enter

Then to get rid of the existing index, run these two commands
sudo mdutil -i off /
sudo mdutil -E /

reboot computer

remove spotlight icon

1. As an administrator, navigate to /System/Library/CoreServices, and delete Search.bundle. If you think might want to re-enable it later, just move it somewhere else or rename it.
2. Open up the Activity Monitor and force quit SystemUIServer. When it reopens, your menu bar will be Spotlight free.

Hard drive bump to 320gb or 250gb
Ram bump from built in 512mb to 1.5gb
Might as well add a Superdrive or a PATA to SATA optibay drive
Leopard will run fine and fast with these specs.

You have the last and fastest iBook next to its big sister, the 14" 1.42ghz.

Your hard drive sounds like its failing. It's eight years old, at least. Replace it.

 

[philz4life]

It's the hard drive for sure. Go on eBay and you should be able to get a newer faster drive for less than $50. That's still a lot of money, but it will really speed up your iBook. If you can afford it, max out the RAM as well.