Mac Dual 2 GHz PPC G5 osx 10.5.8 Slow Spinning Ball

[TexasBear]

Yes, I know I am running an older Mac, but it should be faster? The Mac Dual Processor 2 GHz G5, wiht OSX 10.5.8 shows not to be out of processor power, disk IO, memory, or any other resource, but often I get the Spinning Beach Ball of Death. It is usually when I am in Safari, or Word. I usually have Safari, Work, Mail and possibly a few other applications open. The monitor shows no resources fully used, but the beach ball just spins and the Monitor shows some application is Not Responding. Usually if I shut down and start up again it will clear up for a while, but not long. Any suggestion will be appreciated. One suggestion I have had it to kill mac spindump.

 

[MisterKeeks]

I don't know exactly why it would be doing that. Could you post a screenshot of Activity Monitor and let us know how much RAM you have? You can take the screenshot using Grab (in the Applications/Utilities folder). To upload to Macrumors, open the image in Preview, hit File>Save As, and save it as a PNG file (portable network graphic). On Macrumors, when you are posting, hit manage attachments, and select the PNG file to upload.

I understand that you are using Safari. That is not recommended. The version for Leopard is now slow and outdated. For a browser, I would recommend Leopard Webkit, Aurorafox, Tenfourfox, or Camino. You can find processor optimized builds of Camino here. All of the other browsers I mentioned have optimized builds on their webpages. There are other browsers to look at as well, see the FAQ for PowerPC Macs at the top of this forum.

 

[666sheep]

Check system.log in Console. It could be dying HDD, especially if BBOD does appear when you're starting to run out of RAM.

 

[California]

Yes, I know I am running an older Mac, but it should be faster? The Mac Dual Processor 2 GHz G5, wiht OSX 10.5.8 shows not to be out of processor power, disk IO, memory, or any other resource, but often I get the Spinning Beach Ball of Death. It is usually when I am in Safari, or Word. I usually have Safari, Work, Mail and possibly a few other applications open. The monitor shows no resources fully used, but the beach ball just spins and the Monitor shows some application is Not Responding. Usually if I shut down and start up again it will clear up for a while, but not long. Any suggestion will be appreciated. One suggestion I have had it to kill mac spindump.

I agree with 666sheep, for some reason dying hard drives on G5 PM's are difficult to diagnose because their symptoms are so across the board.

I never run a Mac without getting a new hard drive. Hope you have back up.

 

[Intell]

I also agree with 666sheep. A sluggish once responsive system with no increase of usage or low system resources is often a sign of a failing hard drive.

 

[TexasBear]

Console - What to look for for dying Hard Disk

What do I look for in Console? Here are a few lines when all is well. There are a lot of lines with : Stray Process like below. Or do I need to look when I get the BBOD? Many Thanks PS. I am running a Time Machine Back Up. Would that do it?

2/3/13 4:22:54 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (org.postfix.master[53180]) Stray process with PGID equal to this dead job: PID 53181 PPID 1 pickup

2/3/13 4:27:21 PM Safari[34204] *** WebKit discarding exception: <NSImageCacheException> Can't cache image

2/3/13 4:29:54 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (org.postfix.master[53218]) Stray process with PGID equal to this dead job: PID 53220 PPID 1 qmgr

2/3/13 4:29:54 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (org.postfix.master[53218]) Stray process with PGID equal to this dead job: PID 53219 PPID 1 pickup

 

[Intell]

You'll see something produced by kernel. It'll say something like this: Error Disk I/O to disk /dev/disk0.