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My powerbook is getting a little slow

Solafaa

Solafaa

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 15, 2004
667
0
Daddy said not to talk to strangers
This is a new laptop maybe 5 months old at the most and it seems to be working a bit slower then when i first got it.

Specs:
17" PB
2 GB DDR SDRAM
1.5 GHz PowerMac G4

Some info:
I do lots of downloading on it (20-40GB a week) then delete
I use 4-8 hours a day or i leave it on for that time sometimes more
Used space is about 23GB out of 74GB, it incresses to about 50GB then i delete movies/files i have downloaded.

I have no idea what it could be but its not that much slower but it is noticble.

Thanks in advance
 
Among other things, it sounds like your daily, weekly, and monthly routine "clean-up" tasks (scheduled by default to run in the wee hours of the morning) aren't running - and that might be one cause. I'm at work, on a PC, and unable to recall just exactly what you need to do to run them (I was up with a sick kid last night and so am rather dim today), but I'm sure someone will post shortly with the simple steps to run those scripts. Essentially, you open up Terminal, type 1-3 commands, and wait for a bit.
 
Found it:

Open Terminal. Type in:

sudo periodic daily
sudo periodic weekly
sudo periodic monthly
sudo diskutil repairPermissions /

You can actually combine the first three into:

sudo periodic daily weekly monthly

The first time you type the 'sudo' command, it'll ask you for your password. That's good for five minutes - so, every time you type 'sudo' and it's been more than five minutes after you last entered your password, you'll need to enter it again ('sudo' = "super-user do" and requires an admin password to run). Some of the commands might take a while to run, esp. if they've never run before, so don't be surprised if you need to wait.

Edit: as edesignuk wrote above... **sigh**... need to improve typing speed.
 
Solafaa said:
Thanks for the reply but i dont understand what i should do after i type the code, is there no programe like cleanup is to windows and disfragment (spelling)?
Click to expand...
All you do is open the Terminal.app (Applications > Utilities), enter the command I said above, hit enter, put in your password and wait until it is back to a prompt where you can type (this means the commands have finished running). Repairing permissions is explained in the therad I linked to in my first post.
 
Solafaa said:
Thanks for the reply but i dont understand what i should do after i type the code, is there no programe like cleanup is to windows and disfragment (spelling)?
Click to expand...

Just type the commands - there will be no response. Elegant in its simplicity...

Edit: Damn it - why do I bother? Next time I'll just wait for edesignuk to jump in first.
 
If you dont want to go the Terminal route and want to stick with a GUI I would recommend getting Macjanitor. It is a freeware app that you could find through version tracker. It basically just forces the computer to run the maintenance tasks just like doing the terminal commands. Also, it gives feedback and tells you when it is done. The feedback is just a big log file with lots of technical and cool sounding words. It makes me feel like I accomplished something when I use this app.

Also, to add a little about these maintenance tasks, these are tasks designed to run in the middle of the night when your computer is not being used. If you close the lid on your Powerbook or ibook at night, then your computer will never run these tasks and eventually get bogged down. I look at it as sort of like changing the oil in a car. Run the tasks every once in a while just to keep thing running smoothly.
 
I second that recommendation to download MacJanitor instead - it's a neat little program and it's free.
 
Capt Underpants said:
I've never known to do this in my 6 months owning a PB. How often would you recommend running these maintenance tasks?
Click to expand...

Generally, the beauty is that you don't need to know to do it - the system does it for you while you're sleeping comfortably.

If you don't leave your PB on overnight, I don't know that there is a predefined time, but the system is scheduled to do it on a regular basis, so running the daily cleanup when you start up in the morning might not be a bad idea in theory. In practice, you probably could do it once a month or so.

I hadn't done it for some time (several months), until this thread reminded me, and I didn't notice any major improvement.
 
emw said:
If you don't leave your PB on overnight, I don't know that there is a predefined time, but the system is scheduled to do it on a regular basis, so running the daily cleanup when you start up in the morning might not be a bad idea in theory. In practice, you probably could do it once a month or so..
Click to expand...

Yes, I do leave my PB on overnight, but it is sleeping. I assume that it will run these tasks when it's sleeping, right? If not, then I need to do these things...
 
Cronjob is scheduled for some time in the wee hours - I think it's 5am.

I changed the time when I first got the Powerbook to 3pm or something; sometime when the Powerbook is usually on, at home, while I'm at school.

andy.
 
Capt Underpants said:
Yes, I do leave my PB on overnight, but it is sleeping. I assume that it will run these tasks when it's sleeping, right? If not, then I need to do these things...
Click to expand...
I could be wrong, but I don't think it'll wake up to run the tasks.
 
jsw said:
I could be wrong, but I don't think it'll wake up to run the tasks.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I doubt it will wake itself up to do the tasks. I was just wondering if it did 'em while it was asleep (maybe a dumb question...). I guess i'll go to the terminal and type that stuff in.

edit: i did it, but when i try and close the window, it says"closing this window will terminate the following" sh, sh, sh, cat, sh,"etc. Are these the maintenance processes? Holy crap, my fans are on... really loud, too...
 
Capt Underpants said:
Yeah, I doubt it will wake itself up to do the tasks. I was just wondering if it did 'em while it was asleep (maybe a dumb question...). I guess i'll go to the terminal and type that stuff in.

edit: i did it, but when i try and close the window, it says"closing this window will terminate the following" sh, sh, sh, cat, sh,"etc. Are these the maintenance processes? Holy crap, my fans are on... really loud, too...
Click to expand...

Way back when, I had problems with my powerbook running slow and the Apple Tech that I was friends with told me about these tasks. Your computer will NOT wake up to do them. And even if it did I would think that with the lid closes on a power or ibook it wouldnt wake up. My advice to avoid messing with the terminal and closing the window too early is to go with macjanitor. Remember to have patience though, cause like some of the other people have said here, it can take a few minutes for the tasks to be completed. As for how often, I usually do all three tasks about once a week, seems to keep everything going ok.
 
My tasks run every week, but I'd still recommend shutting down and restarting your 'puter every 70 days or so. It's about that time that my wee Powerbook 12in starts to slow just a lil tad. A reboot makes a noticable improvement in running speed.

andy.
 
_pb_boi said:
Cronjob is scheduled for some time in the wee hours - I think it's 5am.

I changed the time when I first got the Powerbook to 3pm or something; sometime when the Powerbook is usually on, at home, while I'm at school.

andy.
Click to expand...

It is 3AM. You cannot change it. Same time the Newton did its housekeeping work, BTW. I one time ran the command "top" all night, and woke up at 2:50 just so I could see if it really did run. :eek: And I can personally attest, it did run. I can't say about a Newton, that is only via websites and such.
 
Mechcozmo said:
It is 3AM. You cannot change it. Same time the Newton did its housekeeping work, BTW. I one time ran the command "top" all night, and woke up at 2:50 just so I could see if it really did run. :eek: And I can personally attest, it did run. I can't say about a Newton, that is only via websites and such.
Click to expand...
If i recall correctly, there is a program that changes your cron jobs. Not sure what it is, i could search but someone can (and will) answer it before i complete my search...
 
Sorry, see below. It wouldn't let me edit yesterday for some reason, so all the info is in post below :)

andy.
 
It is 3AM. You cannot change it. Same time the Newton did its housekeeping work, BTW. I one time ran the command "top" all night, and woke up at 2:50 just so I could see if it really did run. And I can personally attest, it did run. I can't say about a Newton, that is only via websites and such.
Click to expand...

Not quite!

You can change it, and save for the fact I'm being picked up to go to the gym in 5 minutes, I'd find the website I used that told me how.

It involves using Sudo, and the site gives a handy step-by-step account of how to achieve the change using the Terminal. Changing it is something the Apple tech at the Soho store recommended I do, since my Powerbook might not be on at that time. As it is, it usually is on, but I changed it anyway.

Edit:

This tutorial series tells you how to edit the times. It's somewhere in part 1, part 2, or part 3. I don't have the time to check.

Anyway, the end result:

Now that you have the regular maintenance cron jobs running at more reasonable times and emailing you their reports, you would probably like to know what those jobs do, and what the reports tell you.
Click to expand...

So it can be done :-D

andy.
 
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