iMac G5 slow as....a very slow thing!

[asharin]

A couple of weeks ago I inherited an old single core G5 imac with 2.5gb ram and an iSight Camera.
It's running the last version of leopard. It gave me a nice insight into using OS X as I've been a Windows and Linux user until now. I was impressed enough that my main PC is now an intel Mac not an ubuntu PC (Kids have that now)
However I'd like to keep the G5 around as it's quite a nice system, except for one thing...it's slow as a very slow thing, it's almost not useable, web pages take forever and a day to render, using Aurorafox, tenfourkit, tenfourfox or even just safari and that's even plain old pages with no flash etc.
Opening apps takes longer than it should, I mean if this was how the G5's ran then I am not surprised they were replaced with intel chips!

Assuming it's not normal, what can I do to find out why it runs so badly?
Could it be the mismatched ram?
Just wondering because it obviously had 512mb in there as one of the ram chips is 2gb.
Typing this I realise I may have just diagnosed the problem myself and will try with just one of the ram chips in when I get home from work (where I am for the next couple of days :/ I work away from home)
So maybe that will be the issue, but if not, what else could be causing it?

 

[GoCubsGo]

You do know what this means, right? New iMac now!

 

[Intell]

The ram isn't mismatched. 512MB is built onto the board and the other 2GB is on a stick. G5's are rather fast when compared to Intell chips of the same vintage. But compared to modern ones, their slow. Open the Activity Monitor, change it to show all processes, and sort them by CPU usage. Then take a screenshot and post the Activity Monitor's window.

 

[Zotaccian]

Try fixing disk permissions by using Disk Utility and also check Smart -status, hard disk might be failing. Sometimes motherboard problems cause slow downs until the machine becomes non-functional.

It is true that G5 is not fast chip, but it should be able to handle basic tasks.

 

[Michael Anthony]

What's the CPU speed?
What graphics card?
What's the hard drive, and how full is it?
You can find out all that if you go to the Apple menu > About This Mac > More Info

My G5 has half the memory of yours, but it does have a $40 SSD inside it, and that really helps speed things up nicely. If I could afford it, I'd max out the RAM too. But I'm poor, so that's not happening right now.

 

[666sheep]

Try fixing disk permissions by using Disk Utility

Please, do not spread BS. You need to fix permissions only when you have problem with them. Other than that it's placebo and you're only wasting your time and hope. You can easily check if you have file permissions problem by looking at logs.

Right tip should sound: Verify/Repair your disk, not permissions. Rest of your answer is right. OP's HDD may be dying or (as Michael Anthony said) it's almost out of space.

 

[rjcalifornia]

A couple of weeks ago I inherited an old single core G5 imac with 2.5gb ram and an iSight Camera.
It's running the last version of leopard. It gave me a nice insight into using OS X as I've been a Windows and Linux user until now. I was impressed enough that my main PC is now an intel Mac not an ubuntu PC (Kids have that now)
However I'd like to keep the G5 around as it's quite a nice system, except for one thing...it's slow as a very slow thing, it's almost not useable, web pages take forever and a day to render, using Aurorafox, tenfourkit, tenfourfox or even just safari and that's even plain old pages with no flash etc.
Opening apps takes longer than it should, I mean if this was how the G5's ran then I am not surprised they were replaced with intel chips!

Assuming it's not normal, what can I do to find out why it runs so badly?
Could it be the mismatched ram?
Just wondering because it obviously had 512mb in there as one of the ram chips is 2gb.
Typing this I realise I may have just diagnosed the problem myself and will try with just one of the ram chips in when I get home from work (where I am for the next couple of days :/ I work away from home)
So maybe that will be the issue, but if not, what else could be causing it?

1GB of RAM will make the difference, trust me.

It wouldn't hurt to check for disk failures...

 

[Hrududu]

I would get the hard drive checked out. Mac OS is almost too good at running even when a drive is on the way out. If the drive is good, then at least wipe it and reinstall the OS.