Mac newbie having problems, please help.

[Lyn2012]

Hi
A few months ago I needed a laptop and purchased a Macbook to run both XP and OSX. Having enjoyed using OSX i then decided to migrate from my trusty C2D home built PC to an iMac and that's when I started having problems. I now have a 1 year old 24" white iMac running Leopard which I bought secondhand - BTW the Macbook runs Tiger. My problems so far are:

• While on the internet the mouse often needs severals clicks before it responds. The mouse also often seems to get stuck when selecting things and I have trouble deselecting. - is this usual with a mighty mouse?
• There is a noticeable lag before the pages load which doesn't happen on the PC running Firefox (I am using Safari on the Mac). Again is this normal or is there a problem.
• Yesterday I tried to copy an audio CD - copied many times before using Nero on PC - simple just select "Copy CD". I have been unable to find a way of doing this on the Mac and I know there must be one - after all Macs are easier aren't they? Surely I don't have to import the tracks and then create a new CD? Although I have tried this. I have tried using Toast 8, iTunes and Disk Utility but have so far been unable to copy the CD.
• I then tried to connect my Canon MP600 and ancient HP 970CXI, both of which worked with the MacBook only to find that they don't with the iMac.

These are just the problems I have encountered so far but they are making me wonder if I am doing the right thing by abandoning my PC, or is the answer as simple as scrapping Leopard and reinstalling Tiger? I would appreciate your comments on these issues to help me make up my mind what to do next. Sorry about the long post.

 

[mkrishnan]

Switching OS'es can have its ups and downs. None of them does things completely the same as any other, and there will almost always be at least one thing that was much, much easier on the OS you didn't like.

Now, though...

While on the internet the mouse often needs severals clicks before it responds. The mouse also often seems to get stuck when selecting things and I have trouble deselecting. - is this usual with a mighty mouse?

This doesn't sound normal... I think there is a tension spring adjustment inside the MM like in the previous Apple mouse (it's a little two-position slider switch under the plate where the battery goes). Try that. Otherwise, it's possible it's either damaged or really gunked up.

There is a noticeable lag before the pages load which doesn't happen on the PC running Firefox (I am using Safari on the Mac). Again is this normal or is there a problem.

I guess my first question would be, is it different from what you experience in OS X on your Macbook? Safari and FF are fast in different ways, and preferences vary widely between the two -- there are tons of Mac users who swear by each. But if your iMac is behaving differently from your Macbook, then it's probably a sign of some kind of configuration or Leopard issue you could fix.

Yesterday I tried to copy an audio CD - copied many times before using Nero on PC - simple just select "Copy CD". I have been unable to find a way of doing this on the Mac and I know there must be one - after all Macs are easier aren't they? Surely I don't have to import the tracks and then create a new CD? Although I have tried this. I have tried using Toast 8, iTunes and Disk Utility but have so far been unable to copy the CD.

You can do this directly with Disk Utility or with Toast (I'm fairly sure). iTunes doesn't do it directly -- you can only rip and burn the rip. In Disk Utility, you have to image the disc and then burn the image (see here). I'm not personally very familiar with Toast, so I'll defer. I suspect there are also some very simple free apps that do just this one thing, if it's something that's really important to you (I can't think of having done it more than once in the past decade, so it's apparently not something I do a lot). See some of the options here.

I then tried to connect my Canon MP600 and ancient HP 970CXI, both of which worked with the MacBook only to find that they don't with the iMac.

Sorry, no clue here, because I am not that familiar with Leopard.

Good luck!

 

[Lyn2012]

Thanks for your reply.

I have managed to burn 1 CD (eventually after getting CD stuck in drive and having to shake iMac upside down while rebooting to remove it!) but with other CDs the read process stops as the drive just grinds to a halt with an eventual OS error message no 5. This only occurs with some CDs and they are ones I have copied on the PC with Nero many times before so I am at a loss as to know what to do. They are meditation CDs that I give out to people from time to time and I need to be able to copy them. If the Mac's copying process is so unreliable I shall have to stay with the PC and forget switching to Mac. Have you, or anyone else, got any suggestions?

 

[mkrishnan]

Suggestions?

Yeah... (1) If the solution to your problem involves holding a computer upside down and shaking it, you have not found the right solution to your problem

(2) it sounds like you may just have defective hardware. It's sad, when you get a new thing and it does not work, but it does happen. Be patient, grasshopper, and take it back to Apple.

Whether on Windows or OS X, though, if you've a situation like a meditation CD you burn periodically for people, it's much easier to just rip it into iTunes (... WinAmp, WMP, Songbird, whatever), keep a copy there, make it a playlist, and burn it from there. This is going to be much faster, and it's going to work just fine for this kind of app. Rip at a high bit rate if you're really concerned about the quality, or even rip Apple Lossless. But this saves you the hassle of going and getting the source disc, putting it in the Mac, burning a copy, etc, when you can just put in a blank disc, select the playlist, and burn it.

 

[clevin]

i think its more about the quality of DVD-roms, i.e. hardwares. my MB always has trouble reading some DVD disks. I don't think its a OSX issue

if you need to burn the same CD frequently, just copy it on your workable machine (seems a pc for you for now) into a *.iso, then keep several copies of *.iso on your windows/osx machines.

 

[eRondeau]

Sounds like one of those post-Katrina iMac's that were coming out of New Orleans real cheap.

Seriously though, how much RAM is in your iMac? You need more than 512MB to run Leopard. An extra gig is cheap and will make a world of difference. Also, how much room is left on your HD?

Did you use Apple's Migration Assistant to copy a bunch of stuff from your Macbook to your iMac? That might be a factor too.

 

[Lyn2012]

Thank you everyone for all your input. Re RAM, memory etc....

I currently have 1 gig of RAM but am considering upgrading to the maximum of 3 gig and the 250GB hard drive has over 220 free. I haven't transferred all my work over from the MB yet as I am still trying to get the iMac and MB to connect via a wired Speedtouch router.

 

[Lyn2012]

Regarding ripping meditation CDs ....

it would have to be the lossless option as they contain inaudible information that send you into a deep meditative state. Ripping to MP3s for example doesn't work - I have already tried.