i-mac running slow?

[ajp]

My 2 month old i-mac seems to be running slower than when new. I get lots of spinning coloured wheels even when using entourage on it's own (I keep having to force quit with a (-50) error).

The console.log has literally hundreds of the following identical messages:

Nov 21 13:25:29 A-Parkers-Computer /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemUIServer.app/Contents/MacOS/SystemUIServer: kCGErrorIllegalArgument : CGSGetWindowGeometry: Invalid window

Is this normal or have I screwed something up?

Thanks, I'm way out of my depth here!

 

[shadowfax0]

What I would suggest is that you boot into single user mode (this is going to take you to a land of scary 2-bit colour and text, but stay with me) what you do you reboot the computer and hold down option-s I believe. I don't think that's the right key combo, so you can do it this way: Log out to the log in screen, select your user name by USING THE ARROW KEYS. Once it is highlighted hold down option and hit return, you should get two text input boxes. in the Username one, type ">console" without the "'s. Now login as the administrator (I know this may be a bit scary, but it's OK! ) It should say "Welcome to Darwin" and have an input line. Type (no typos!) "sudo shutdown now" without the "'s. You will have to type your password again when the dialog comes up. What should ahppen next is it should say something to the effect of "System shutdown NOW!" and let it do it's thing UNTIL NOTHING ELSE IS HAPPENING! When all you see is a place to type (i.e. no more text is coming up or anything like that) type in "fsck -y" without the "'s. Let it do it's thing, and if it says something was changed or whatever, repeat the process (not the whole process, jsut typing 'fsck -y') until it says "Macintosh HD seems to be OK" then type in "reboot" once again, without the "'s. If that seems complicated, jsut do a quick search here on the forums for "Single User Mode" and that should clear up everything. Good luck, and if you ahve any more question, just ask!!

 

[shadowfax0]

...also, perhaps before you go through all that, do you have the latest version of MS office? If you don't recall ever updating it, go to http://microsoft.com/mac/DOWNLOAD/OFFICEX/OfficeX_1012.asp
and install the update, this may help iron out some of the problems you're experiencing. Also, you amy want to epair the permissions of the disk. To do this (don't worry, it's all GUI from here ) jsut insert your OS X CD, restart and hold down C until it boots from the CD. It'll say "what language.." etc etc, jsut go to "File..." and open Disk Utility. From there select your drive and click down the row of tabs (I forget which one exactly) until you see one that has four buttons, two of which will say "Verify Permissions" and "Repair Permissions" hit 'Repair Permissions" let it finish and then do it agian, just to make sure you got everything. Then just quit, and reboot. I think this will be more effective than the whole fsck -y thing now that I think about your problem more. Hope it helps!

 

[ajp]

shadowfax0

Thanks very much for taking the trouble to run through all that. I rebooted with the cd and so far so good. The console now has no endless messages (they ran into the thousands before!). I do have the latest copy of Office and, again, no problems so far.

Thanks again for your help.