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efree58

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 19, 2006
11
0
Ok, I'm new to Mac's. I have the OS 10.4.5 installed on my 500mhz ibook with 384mb ram and 8mb ATI Rage graphics. It is really sluggish. Scrolling, and trying to click sux. Could someone tell me if I could turn off some features and pretties to make my ibook less sluggish. Would panther run alot better? Any help would be awesome.
 
Use only a minimal number of dashboard widgets.

You really need to boost your RAM to 640MB (max)...that will make a huge difference.
 
efree58 said:
Ok, I'm new to Mac's. I have the OS 10.4.5 installed on my 500mhz ibook with 384mb ram and 8mb ATI Rage graphics. It is really sluggish. Scrolling, and trying to click sux. Could someone tell me if I could turn off some features and pretties to make my ibook less sluggish. Would panther run alot better? Any help would be awesome.

If you want to turn off some "pretties", you can open System Preferences, go under Dock, turn off magnification; and minimize using Scale effect instead of genie effect. Also, you can turn bluetooth and airport off if your not using them. Finally, you can adjust settings in Energy Saver such as processor performance. BTW, all of these are accessed through System Preferences.

Also, make sure to delete any applications you wont use. There are probably other things I am forgetting, so you should try and search the forums. You'd be surprised at how much useful info you'll find... especially on the topic you need help with, many people ask things like that. Well, I did at least when I was new. :D
 
it's not going to be all that snappy. That ibook was made to run OS 9, and it did so quite well. I used to have a 600 mhz ibook, and it never ran OS X right. It was "usable" with 640 RAM, but 8 MB VRAM and a slow G3 processor are just not going to be snappy under OS X. Sorry. :(
 
wow, thanks for 4 replies in twenty minutes. I really don't want to put any kind of other hardware in here becasue it's kind of a transitional computer. I sold my Windows laptop and I am waiting for the intel ibook. I guess I could systematicly go through everything in the system preferances and turn off anything that my be using processor power. How would deleting applications help make it faster? Does Mac OS use processor power for applications that arn't even open?
 
efree58 said:
wow, thanks for 4 replies in twenty minutes. I really don't want to put any kind of other hardware in here becasue it's kind of a transitional computer. I sold my Windows laptop and I am waiting for the intel ibook. I guess I could systematicly go through everything in the system preferances and turn off anything that my be using processor power. How would deleting applications help make it faster? Does Mac OS use processor power for applications that arn't even open?

They say the minimum ram for Tiger is 512mb.

It wouldn't hurt to upgrade to a faster hard drive and max out the ram.

you can always part it out later at a profit.
 
California said:
They say the minimum ram for Tiger is 512mb.

It wouldn't hurt to upgrade to a faster hard drive and max out the ram.

you can always part it out later at a profit.
I concur on the RAM, installing a 512 Mb SODIMM is easy to do yourself and the RAM is not expensive.
I don't recommend you get into replacing the hard drive -- it is a long and fiddly job and likely not worth it for a temporary machine.
 
I was one of the people who bought the 500mhz G3 ibooks when they arrived. In fact, I also had 384MB of RAM in mine and came with Mac OS X 10.1. I sold it after two months. Why? I hated the mushy keyboard and Mac OS X 10.1 was dog slow on it.

If I was you, I would try the following:

1. Disable Spotlight, Cups, and mDNS (Bonjour) if you don't need them.
2. Disable Dashboard.
3. Set the wallpaper to a solid color.
4. Remove all icons from the desktop, include drive icons.
5. Turn off all power savings features, including any screensavers.
6. Make sure nothing is launching automatically, such as the iTunes helper.
 
i would suggest trying Panther with some more RAM. if that still feels too heavy any Classic OS would run well. 9.1 was a nice OS.
 
I'll first roll back to panther and see how that goes. I really don't want to go out and get hardware. How much would more ram cost? Do they use standard PC parts or do I have to get something funny because Apple thinks differant?
 
efree58 said:
I'll first roll back to panther and see how that goes. I really don't want to go out and get hardware. How much would more ram cost? Do they use standard PC parts or do I have to get something funny because Apple thinks differant?
I just picked up a 512 stick at Crucial for $100, just to give you an idea. You could probably get a better price off of eBay, but when it comes to memory I usually buy new.
 
Ok, just looked at prices of the 512 sticks for my ibook and I would be spending at least 100. I don't want to spend this much and I can't find a panther CD. I may just use my roomates spair laptop, I didn't want to but this is pretty slow.
 
efree58 said:
How would deleting applications help make it faster? Does Mac OS use processor power for applications that arn't even open?
It won't help unless you have little hard drive space left. (Less than 8GB).


You could try to install Linux on it if you feel adventurous. Linux is usually more snappy with less advanced GUI features installed by default.
 
I supose I could give Linux a try. Used the live ubuntu CD and seem alright. I have enought hard drive space, currenty using three external hard drives, kinda sux because this has only USB1.1.
 
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