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Garageband slow on Mac Pro

GoKyu

GoKyu

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 15, 2007
1,169
24
New Orleans
Hey all, as the title says, I'm having a LOT of lag with Garageband on my new Mac Pro (8 core, 6gb RAM.) This is what's happening:

Incredible lag time - as in, I go up to open a pull down menu and it takes 5 or more seconds to open. I typically get a beachball whenever I reach for the menu or most any of the options in the program as well.

On the stats end, the system is 98% idle, 4.5 gigs of RAM still available (so nothing's paging out to disk), ALL of my other apps are fully responsive, it's only Garageband that's acting this way.

If this is Garageband's normal behavior, I'd hate to see it running on an iMac with only 1 or 2 gigs of RAM.

I do have Ableton Live 6 (Lite), which runs at full speed, but Garageband seems a lot easier to start out on...

Has anyone else experienced this kind of problem before?

Thanks for any replies,

-Bryan
 
Not at all normal. On my Powerbook G4 GB runs fine for normal functions like you mention and only goes slow when doing more intensive things (like opening up Magic Garageband). Overall, GB is more sluggish than Logic, but nothing like what you describe. My new MP hasn't arrived but I would assume it will be super-slick.

I would suggest you start going through the normal debugging. Maybe there is a corrupt preference file playing up?
 
I would, but for one thing I'm a brand new Mac user, so I don't know all the cool debugging tricks yet, and 2nd (and more importantly) this is a brand new machine, straight from the factory, so other than having installed some of my own software, the pre-installed stuff is pristine.

Any other ideas?

-Bryan
 
Quick update: I called Applecare to see what could be done about this, and they had me reinstall Garageband from the original DVD. It didn't work, but I did notice a few things:

1. On the original install DVD, you can't select the checkbox for Garageband directly (it, and one or two other items are grayed out.) The only way to select it is to select "all iLife apps", then uncheck the ones you don't want.

Is this the way it is on other people's DVDs as well?

2. When I loaded up the reinstalled Garageband, I noticed at that first opening screen that it DOES run fast (i.e. just like all my other apps) - It still runs fast when I get to the first window of Magic Garageband as well.

It slows way down once I go to audition the instruments in magic mode, and when I actually go create a new project...which is, of course, where I would be most of the time.

I have more RAM coming in today sometime - I wonder if the slowdown is due to me currently having unmatched pairs in the system. I have 2x2 (4 gigs) in riser A, and Apple's 1x2 (2 gigs) in riser B. After today, I'll have 2x2 in both A and B, and probably add the extra 2 gigs back in on riser A as well...

Any comments would be appreciated!

Thanks,

-Bryan
 
Hello mate, it definitely should NOT run slow on your beautiful system. I can only think of one thing here at the moment, are you running your AUDIO files that you're using from a CD by any chance? Because that will be super slow. Check to see if the storage your audio samples are on is ok, and not going bust.

A long shot, but it might just be the cause..
 
I have the EXACT same problem... I have a 2006 4-core Mac Pro with 3GB of RAM. In Activity Monitor it doesn't look like GarageBand is doing anything however if I am listening to music I notice that my normal music starts skipping.

It takes forever for menus to drop down or for anything I click to take effect. If I click out of GarageBand (and say, into Finder), everything is normal. Reinstalled, no effect. Killed the prefs, no effect.
 
Well I was about to come in and just update this thread, hopefully this will help you too, Scaife...

Turns out that my speaker system (Bose Companion 5) is conflicting with Garageband 4.1.1. I read on the Apple forums (discussion.apple.com, and look for the Garageband forum) that GB 4.0 works fine with the Bose speakers, but my computer shipped with GB 4.1.1 by default, so there's no way for me to downgrade. I hope Apple fixes this soon...

They also mentioned that iSight cameras can do the same thing (in case you don't have Bose speakers)

Hope this helps anyone who's having the same trouble I did!

-Bryan
 
GoKyu said:
Well I was about to come in and just update this thread, hopefully this will help you too, Scaife...

Turns out that my speaker system (Bose Companion 5) is conflicting with Garageband 4.1.1. I read on the Apple forums (discussion.apple.com, and look for the Garageband forum) that GB 4.0 works fine with the Bose speakers, but my computer shipped with GB 4.1.1 by default, so there's no way for me to downgrade. I hope Apple fixes this soon...

They also mentioned that iSight cameras can do the same thing (in case you don't have Bose speakers)

Hope this helps anyone who's having the same trouble I did!

-Bryan
Click to expand...

Well, fancy that....

I have exactly the same problem on my brand new super-spiffy 8-core MacPro with 6 gigs RAM, running GB 4.1.1. And as it turns out, I also have the Bose Companion 5 speaker system. So many thanks to the previous poster for clearing that up for me -- I thought I was going mad! But that explains why it's slower than molasses on my MacPro and runs like a charm on my 2.33GHz MacBook Pro with 3 gigs RAM. Anybody have idea if/when Apple will fix this?
 
cms: Well I don't use Garageband that often (yet, anyway), so I keep the Bose plugged in whenever I'm not using GB, and I plug my headphones into my Toneport so I can hear my guitar. The only problem will be with my keyboard, cos I think I need the speakers to hear those.

Yeah, I do hope Apple fixes this really soon though...

-Bryan
 
I don't have the Bose speakers but I do have an iSight... Unplugged it and it works fine now... wish I didn't have to unplug it but I guess I can deal with it.

Thanks for the help!
 
scaife said:
I don't have the Bose speakers but I do have an iSight... Unplugged it and it works fine now... wish I didn't have to unplug it but I guess I can deal with it.

Thanks for the help!
Click to expand...

Whoa... worked for me too. Unplugged iSight.. all good. Mac Rumors' members come through again, in the clutch.
 
This issue is now fixed with the latest update to GarageBand. Just downloaded the update (4.1.2), fired up GarageBand and it is lightning fast. Works like it should at last.... :D
 
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