My 12" iBook is slow.....

[Chef Medeski]

I have recently purchased a 12" iBook from CompUSA. However, moving from a 1.5 Ghz IBM, I don't think its just a perception.

I was wondring if its the 1.2 Ghz processor or just the standard 256 ram. I am new to Macs, so I don't know if their ram or processor intensive. My usualy run of the mill prgrams which are all used simultenausly are EarthDesk,Mail,Dashboard,Pages,Firefox,iChat,iTunes,iPhoto. Those are all opened and my cimputer still takes 2-3 sec. to open a window. Or a 7-8 sec. to zoom in on a PDF in preview. So, will going out and buying a 512 MB stick fix my problem? Or should I return it and get a Powerbook, since I got it from CompUSA?

 

[Capt Underpants]

It's the 256 MB RAM.

Honestly, the powerbooks aren't much more powerful than the iBooks. Returning an iBook for a PB at this point in time wouldn't be the greatest of ideas. I would stick a 512 MB stick in and see if your troubles go away. If not, return the RAM and the iBook.

 

[CanadaRAM]

all used simultenausly are EarthDesk,Mail,Dashboard,Pages,Firefox,iChat,iTunes,iPhoto. Those are all opened and my cimputer still takes 2-3 sec. to open a window. Or a 7-8 sec. to zoom in on a PDF in preview. So, will going out and buying a 512 MB stick fix my problem? Or should I return it and get a Powerbook, since I got it from CompUSA?

You have about 1 Gb of programs opened in 256 Mb of RAM... it's a small miracle the machine is functional at all... Get thee to a RAM upgrade, posthaste. a 1 Gb module would not be amiss, either, as you only have one socket to work with in the iBook.

 

[macmanmatty]

I agree, It's the ram you need at least 512 mb do do almost anything. Get more ram and your problems should be fixed.

 

[Chef Medeski]

Thanks for all the help. I didn't know that the programs were so RAM intensive. It takes so long to open the programs I just started to leave them open. I might go for that 1 gig. Again, Thanks for all that help.

 

[skywalkgr]

Add more ram to your ibook and you will be fine.

I bought a few days ago 1Gb ram from crucial for my ibook g4 12inch and it works sweeeeeet

PS : Dont forget that your ibook has only ONE slot for ram free.

 

[wdlove]

Thanks for all the help. I didn't know that the programs were so RAM intensive. It takes so long to open the programs I just started to leave them open. I might go for that 1 gig. Again, Thanks for all that help.

I think that you will be very happy with the addition of 1 GB RAM. Would also recommend the purchase of AppleCare.

 

[mrgreen4242]

Yup, add a gig of ram (1.25 total) and you won't notice any slowdowns at all. I have a mini which has a very architecture and with a gig of RAM in it, it feels about as fast as my last machine, a 1.8ghz G5 iMac.

 

[IJ Reilly]

You have about 1 Gb of programs opened in 256 Mb of RAM... it's a small miracle the machine is functional at all... Get thee to a RAM upgrade, posthaste. a 1 Gb module would not be amiss, either, as you only have one socket to work with in the iBook.

Well sure, more RAM is always good -- but OSX assigns RAM and system resources dynamically, so it should not be such a huge issue unless he's trying to do actual work in all of these applications simultaneously. We run a G4 iMac here with only 320 Mb without major slowdown issues and applications (including Classic) are rarely quit, they just accumulate in the Dock (it's my wife's Mac, and I can't get her to quit applications). I'll bet the questioner could get a lot more instant gratification out of repairing permissions and logging out (or restarting) to clean up the VM files. Always works for me.

 

[mrgreen4242]

Well, on my machines at least, the 'wired' portion of RAM (has stuff that cannot be paged out) is consistently around 80-100mb. So that means that with 256 you have about 150-170mbs of memory that you are swapping all those apps in and out of. Regardless of what you are actually doing with those programs, OS X is going to be a dog with 256mb RAM.

The 1.2ghz G4 is roughly equal to a 2ghz P4, so the CPU isn't holding him back. OS X is a memory hog, so the RAM is an issue for sure. Also, with the Quartz engine off loading alot of the GUI drawing work to the GPU, the 32mb VRAM may be an issue. AGP cards CAN use system memory if it is short on VRAM, so things like Dashboard and Expose may be bumping into that 256mb of system memory as well. (That last bit is just wild speculation).

Regardless, he will notice a HUGE improvement with more memory.