Momentary Freezes in 10.4.3

[Mhaddy]

Is it normal for a new 2.0DC PowerMac running 10.4.3 that was just awoken from sleep / 10-15 mins of inactivity to momentarily freeze or "think" (spinning umbrella icon) when accessing the HDD? For example, I don't turn my Mac off at night, I just let it go to sleep, and in the morning I awaken it to listen to iTunes before I head to work. If after awakening the Mac, I double-click a song on iTunes (already open), it'll take a few seconds (and I'll see that spinning umbrella icon) before it starts to play. Sometimes I'll run into this after leaving my PC for ~15 mins (not enough time for it to go to sleep, but enough time for the monitors to turn off). Now this issue is most apparent in iTunes, but happens sometimes while just accessing a file / folder in Finder.

My iTunes library is ~20GB and is stored on a 160GB Seagate HDD in the "B" slot. My system has 1.5GB of RAM and I've set my HDDs to never sleep (before I thought this was the problem). Anyhow, it isn't a huge issue, just a minor inconvenience (I'm rather impatient ), but I don't think a system of my specs should have these issues. Just wondering if this is normal or not, or if there is something I can do to optimize the performance.

 

[grapes911]

Have you tried repairing permissions?

 

[Soulstorm]

Double post. Delete it please!

 

[Soulstorm]

Is it normal for a new 2.0DC PowerMac running 10.4.3 that was just awoken from sleep / 10-15 mins of inactivity to momentarily freeze or "think" (spinning umbrella icon) when accessing the HDD? For example, I don't turn my Mac off at night, I just let it go to sleep, and in the morning I awaken it to listen to iTunes before I head to work. If after awakening the Mac, I double-click a song on iTunes (already open), it'll take a few seconds (and I'll see that spinning umbrella icon) before it starts to play. Sometimes I'll run into this after leaving my PC for ~15 mins (not enough time for it to go to sleep, but enough time for the monitors to turn off). Now this issue is most apparent in iTunes, but happens sometimes while just accessing a file / folder in Finder.

My iTunes library is ~20GB and is stored on a 160GB Seagate HDD in the "B" slot. My system has 1.5GB of RAM and I've set my HDDs to never sleep (before I thought this was the problem). Anyhow, it isn't a huge issue, just a minor inconvenience (I'm rather impatient ), but I don't think a system of my specs should have these issues. Just wondering if this is normal or not, or if there is something I can do to optimize the performance.

Actually, yes, it's absolutely normal. That freeze you encounter during awakening from sleep has nothing to do with your system specs. It has to do with power management. Your computer when it sleeps is not off, but it is not on either. It spins down almost completely your HDD and tunes down the processor so that when in sleep, only the most basic functions are on.

While awakening, the computer must spin up your HDD again, and the processor must wake up also. That happens when your computer freezes. That happens to me also, in my G5 and my iMac G4, so it's absolutely normal.

ALSO: Do NOT confuse the "Put the Hard Drive To sleep when possible" with the sleep function. This first one means that even when you are working with your Mac, the hard disk goes to sleep when it is not used (when you are typing for example and are not saving your file, or when you do something that required only the RAM and not the HDD), EVEN IF THE COMPUTER IS NOT ASLEEP. The sleep option on the contrary, will spin down every part of your machine, even your HDD, no matter what option you have set.

 

[Mhaddy]

Wow, thanks for the detailed response, Soulstorm, that clears up a lot of things. Cheers!