Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

my computer is sloooooooooooow !

B

bluebird3

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 29, 2013
233
0
I have a power Mac g4 mdd. OS x 10.5.8. And getting impossible to work on anything.

Just tonight I was Web browsing with safari 5.0.6, with any other application open, the cursor started to do the rainbow spin thing on me..... Then about ten min. later, a pop up window, "your Mac OS X start up disk has no more space available for application memory"

I didn't have this issue last night when my mail and safari was running, sometime photo shop runs at the same time.... Now i can't even Web browse? :(

How do I solve the problem ? So i can run it smooth and fast again...
 
bluebird3 said:
I have a power Mac g4 mdd. OS x 10.5.8. And getting impossible to work on anything.

Just tonight I was Web browsing with safari 5.0.6, with any other application open, the cursor started to do the rainbow spin thing on me..... Then about ten min. later, a pop up window, "your Mac OS X start up disk has no more space available for application memory"

I didn't have this issue last night when my mail and safari was running, sometime photo shop runs at the same time.... Now i can't even Web browse? :(

How do I solve the problem ? So i can run it smooth and fast again...
Click to expand...

You need to move some user files off your drive, to make space for your system and application temporary files, page files, etc. It's always a good idea to leave at least 10% of your drive free. More is better.

If you're having performance issues, this may help:
 
So external drive? Flash memory card?
I can move all my photo files to flash usb stick? Or some kind of external hard drive.

I don't know who to move music files tho... I'm afraid to remove "original" data from my main computer and then when flash memory card or the external hard drive is attached to my computer, it may give me an error message like "original data/file can't be found there for can't open the file/document/can't play the music, etc...
 
bluebird3 said:
So external drive? Flash memory card?
I can move all my photo files to flash usb stick? Or some kind of external hard drive.
Click to expand...
Yes, any of those will work.
bluebird3 said:
I don't know who to move music files tho... I'm afraid to remove "original" data from my main computer and then when flash memory card or the external hard drive is attached to my computer, it may give me an error message like "original data/file can't be found there for can't open the file/document/can't play the music, etc...
Click to expand...
It won't be a problem. You can have one iTunes library, with your favorite music/movies stored on your internal drive, with the remainder stored on an external drive. If you launch iTunes without the external drive attached, you will get "!" icons next to the songs it can't locate, but the next time you launch iTunes with the drive attached, it will find them all. I do this my library, because it won't all fit on my internal drive.
 
What's onyx ? :(

Can anyone recommend me a good external drive/usb memory stick,etc for this purpose that's not too expensive?
 
bluebird3 said:
What's onyx ? :(

Can anyone recommend me a good external drive/usb memory stick,etc for this purpose that's not too expensive?
Click to expand...

You can get a WD My Passport external drive pretty cheap at Amazon or any electronics store.

Onyx is a utility used to change Mac system settings and it can delete cache files. But Onyx is not really going to help you. It can delete cache files to free up some space, but the cache files will come back when you restart or relaunch the apps anyway and you will be right back where you were.
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Weaselboy said:
You can get a WD My Passport external drive pretty cheap at Amazon or any electronics store.

Onyx is a utility used to change Mac system settings and it can delete cache files. But Onyx is not really going to help you. It can delete cache files to free up some space, but the cache files will come back when you restart or relaunch the apps anyway and you will be right back where you were.
Click to expand...

Ok thank you. Will go to Amazon and look. :)
Just noticed those uses usb 3.0..... my computer uses usb2.0. I guess it will be ok still.
Ooo i think I'm gonna get me 1tb which is amA LOT but it could become useful in the future when I purchase my next computer.

When buying MacBook with say SSD base model, I guess this external HD drive become handy ? Like even when installing a software ?
 
Last edited:
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
You can put another hard drive inside that computer (ATA/IDE) slaved off of the main hard drive. There's an ATA connector on the main HD ribbon and an extra power supply plug. The drive mounts on top of the main drive.

It may be more cost effective (per GB) to get a compatible SATA PCI card and a SATA drive. They're cheaper and more available than the old ATA drives. I don't know of a specific SATA PCI card that would work, though.
 
dan1eln1el5en said:
try onyx to clean out some caches and temporary files
Click to expand...
In addition to the fact already stated, that deleted cache files will be rebuilt, so any drive space savings will be temporary, deleting some caches can hurt performance, rather than help it, since more system resources are used and performance suffers while each cache is being rebuilt. Caches exist to improve perfomance, so deleting them en masse is not a good idea. OS X manages itself quite well, with no need for 3rd party maintenance apps.
 
GGJstudios said:
In addition to the fact already stated, that deleted cache files will be rebuilt, so any drive space savings will be temporary, deleting some caches can hurt performance, rather than help it, since more system resources are used and performance suffers while each cache is being rebuilt. Caches exist to improve perfomance, so deleting them en masse is not a good idea. OS X manages itself quite well, with no need for 3rd party maintenance apps.
Click to expand...

True...
But I've found that when you worked a long time on a system, where you might install/uninstall apps, or files or whatever Onyx can go in and rebuild/reset your caches and after the normal cleaning procedures don't catch all things, some times it's nice to have a little "spring-cleaning" even though it's November ;)
 
dan1eln1el5en said:
True...
But I've found that when you worked a long time on a system, where you might install/uninstall apps, or files or whatever Onyx can go in and rebuild/reset your caches and after the normal cleaning procedures don't catch all things, some times it's nice to have a little "spring-cleaning" even though it's November ;)
Click to expand...
Again, you don't need to rebuild caches, unless you have a specific problem with a specific cache. There are no routine "cleaning" procedures that require 3rd party apps. You don't need "cleaner" or "maintenance" apps to keep your Mac running well, and some of these apps can do more harm than good. Most only remove files/folders or unused languages or architectures, which does nothing more than free up some drive space, with the risk of deleting something important in the process.
​
These apps will not make your Mac run faster or more efficiently, since having stuff stored on a drive does not impact performance, unless you're running out of drive space. In fact, deleting some caches can hurt performance, rather than help it, since more system resources are used and performance suffers while each cache is being rebuilt.
​
Many of these tasks should only be done selectively to troubleshoot specific problems, not en masse as routine maintenance. OS X does a good job of taking care of itself, without the need for 3rd party software. Among other things, it has its own maintenance scripts that run silently in the background on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, without user intervention. As far as uninstalling apps, app removal software doesn't do a thorough job of finding and removing files/folders related to deleted apps. For more information, read this and this. If you just want to delete the app, drag the .app file to the trash. No other software needed. If you want to completely remove all associated files/folders, no removal apps will do the job.
​
The most effective method for complete app removal is manual deletion:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back