Is OS X just a slow OS?!

[mark88]

I've been using macs for a 4 years. Currently have CD 2ghz Macbook with 2GB memory, C2D 2.16ghz iMac with 2GB memory and a 12" PB G4.

My problem relates to both intel machines which I use most. Both running running Leopard. They're just slow. Safari and Mail in particular are forever hogging up my resources. After after a fresh boot Safari takes about 1-2 minutes to becomes 'responsive' after I open it. At times it will throw me the beach ball, then I go to quit it and it takes like 40 seconds to quit.

Surely I can't be alone with these issues? I have 2 pretty standard macs from recent revisions and I'm just not doing anything intensive or have lots of background applications. None in fact.

I'm forever hearing people say OS X is so nice and so much better than Windows but at this moment in time I have more issues with my macs than I ever did using windows in the years before. The number of times I have to hold the power button because my mac just won't get off the damm beach ball is getting ridiculous frankly. And this is after fresh install, repair persmissions etc etc.

Does Leopard need 4GB ram to run properly? What's the deal because I'm really getting disappointed with the mac experience recently.

 

[aaronw1986]

Something is not right there. Did you do an upgrade to leopard, or was it a fresh install? Have you tried repairing permissions?

 

[yetanotherdave]

There's something wrong there. My C2D macbook with 2gig ram is good and responsive.

how much free harddrive space do you have?
how many apps do you have open?
any background processes?
anything running like a long TM backup or spotlight indexing?

 

[TEG]

It sounds like your applications are having trouble accessing their own resources. If you repair permissions on the system (Application->Utilities->Disc Utility) that should correct most of these problems.

TEG

 

[Cooknn]

Does Leopard need 4GB ram to run properly? What's the deal because I'm really getting disappointed with the mac experience recently.

This just seems like an odd question from someone who's been running OS X since 2004. You should be the one answering this question, not asking it, IMHO. 4GB of RAM should be a no brainer if your box supports it. Other than that, it is what it is.

 

[RedTomato]

Something's wrong. It shouldn't be that slow.

I ran my macbook fine with 1GB of ram. It was a bit slow switching between apps, so I upgraded to 4GB. But it never hung for minutes at a time.

Is your HD full? Is your 2GB ram actually installed? (it should say 2gb in About This Mac) Did you buy cheap third party ram?

Have you run the Hardware Test? (boot from the install disk)

Are you running firefox with lots of tabs? Are you running lots of programs at the same time, and closing windows without actually closing the application?

Did you install any non-Apple programs that modify the look or the feel of the system or 'accelerate' it? (this is possibly the most likely issue)

 

[kuwisdelu]

Well I have a 2.16 GHz C2D MacBook with 2GB RAM and I'm having no issues whatsoever unless I'm running lots of programs plus virtual Windows in Fusion, and even then any lag goes away once everything's loaded into RAM.

I hardly ever had problems with Safari or Mail, and I have both open 24/7. So to me it sounds like either a hardware issue or a bad install, which can just happen sometimes. But before considering either of those things, maybe you're just missing something that's eating up a lot of your resources. Open Activity Monitor and see if there's anything using up lots of RAM or CPU or anything like that, and see where the process is coming from. Also, the next time something crashes or beachballs, check the Console for any error messages that might give you a clue to what happened. If that doesn't give you some kind of obvious solution, then--since you've already tried repairing permissions--it's a hardware problem or a just plain bad installation.

Try verifying the startup disk in Disk Utility and see if that comes up with any problems. That was the issue on my girlfriend's MacBook when she started having issues. One too many falls, and the startup disk was damaged. If that comes up with anything, use your install disk to repair it.

If that doesn't come up with anything, try Archiving&Installing again (or Erase&Install if you have a backup). I know that'll be a pain, but it might be that something got corrupted during installation.

Leopard flies on my 2.16 GHz C2D 2GB MacBook, so there's definitely something wrong. OS X itself isn't the problem, you have something else going on there.

 

[agentphish]

Leopard runs like a champ even on my PB G4 1.5ghz w/ 2gb ram. I was very surprised at how well it runs on that machine.

Definitely Verify/Repair Permissions.

May want to get something like Drive Genius as well to verify disk integrity and do a solid Defrag on the discs.

Additionally, as was mentioned before you may want to look into a clean install of Leopard, esp. if you did upgrade installations.

I just installed Leopard onto my PowerMac G5 (just hadn't bothered since October) last night and it flies. That machine is a single 1.8ghz w/ 1gb ram (soon to be 4gb)

 

[emptyCup]

ISurely I can't be alone with these issues?

Sadly, you may be. Have you checked to see if you have at least 10% of your HD space free? Check Preferences to see what is set to automatically run at Start-Up. Use Activity Monitor to see what is running at Startup. Verifying you HD with Disk Utility couldn't hurt either. Good Luck.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

and make sure your ram didn't somehow go bad