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Old G3 iBook needs speeding up

Ah, thanks Ediorian,
That makes sense. So that's the 'inbuilt Memory'?

Built in Memory: 64 MB
Virtual Memory: 65 MB used on OS9

And the Virtual Memory is from the hard-drive?
 
Oh no!

Hi There,
I've added the 254MB or extra memory but yesterday I got the old error message:

"There is not enough memory or disk space to update the display"

Crap. What can I do? I had to set the display to greyscale. This was exactly the problem that the RAM was supose to eliminate. Is the disk capacity too limited. I don't understand how the machine ever functioned before with MS Word '98.

john
 
hi, thanks for your time.
I recently upgraded the OS and cleared out a lot of applications from the hard disk. When I go into ‘about this computer’ it now says:

OS 9.2.2 Power PC enabler: OS 9.0.2
Built in Memory: 320 MB (was 64MB)
Virtual Memory: 321MB used on OS9 (was 65 MB)
Largest unused Block: 292.3MB (was 47.6 MB)
Mac OS: 34.7MB (was 20.3 MB)

In the Apple System profiler it also says things like:

Disk Cache: 8160K (was 2 MB)
Video Memory: 4 MB
Backside L2 cache: 512k
 
Ah sorry, yes it is 9.2.2 now. I was advised here to upgrade it.

Is this the remaining disk space?

"Largest unused Block: 292.3MB"
 
johnnyivan said:
Ah sorry, yes it is 9.2.2 now. I was advised here to upgrade it.

Is this the remaining disk space?

"Largest unused Block: 292.3MB"
Click to expand...

Remaining disk space is how much disk space is left on your hard drive. Not your memory. Select your main hard drive on your desktop and hit Command + I.
 
hi There,
I'm pleasantly surprised. There seem to be two partitions? One icon called 'os9' the other icon called 'work'.

os9:
-------
Capacity: 1.18 GB
Available: 313.2 MB
Used: 901 MB on disk.
Where: os9, (ATA Bus 2 Dev 0, v3.2.8)

'Work'
-------
Capacity: 2.79 GB
Available: 2.77 MB
Used: 25.1 MB on disk.
Where: os9, (ATA Bus 2 Dev 0, v3.2.8)

Funny, the 'where ' info is the same for both.
 
I've been reading up more in the 'help'. I see that the Virtual Memory, Disk Cache and RAM Disk are options for improving memory performance/usage. Unfortunately I'm a little confused about them.

I imagine that using more Virtual memory will help performance but reduce disk space: but I seem to have lots of space. I just allocated Vm on the 'work' partition instead of the OS9 one. I don't know how much to use though.

Disk cache? Not sure what to do with that. What the possible negative side-effects might be.

RAM disk. I really don't get this. They talk about files being copied onto it (what type?) and losing or not losing them when the mac is shut down.

-----

I'm wondering why I should even need Virtual Memory and the others to simply run MS Word when i just put in 254MB of RAM. Confused!
 
It sounds to me that there's barely any space on your hard drives left. For optimum performance, you need to have at least 10% spare. You need to clear out both partitions - especially 'work'. Delete as much junk as you can.
 
johnnyivan said:
I imagine that using more Virtual memory will help performance but reduce disk space: but I seem to have lots of space. I just allocated Vm on the 'work' partition instead of the OS9 one. I don't know how much to use though.
Click to expand...

False. Virtual Memory in the classic Mac OS is simply a way to run more programs. It both takes up hard drive space and reduces performance. If you have tons of memory (256mb or more in classic qualifies as tons) it is best to just turn Virtual Memory off.

johnnyivan said:
Disk cache? Not sure what to do with that. What the possible negative side-effects might be.
Click to expand...

Leave it set to automatic, and don't worry about it ever again.

johnnyivan said:
RAM disk. I really don't get this. They talk about files being copied onto it (what type?) and losing or not losing them when the mac is shut down.
Click to expand...

Just completely ignore this feature. It is not important and does not pertain to anything you want to do.

johnnyivan said:
I'm wondering why I should even need Virtual Memory and the others to simply run MS Word when i just put in 254MB of RAM. Confused!
Click to expand...

You don't. Turn it off.

In your situation, with such a teeny hard drive, it is pointless to have two partitions. Your case would be best to reformat them as one single partition.

hoop said:
It sounds to me that there's barely any space on your hard drives left. For optimum performance, you need to have at least 10% spare.
Click to expand...

Doesn't apply to OS 9.
 
hi Hoop and Dpalka.
just saw your messages thanks! Actually as it turns out, I did switch off VM and it's much better now. Straight away the largest remaining block was 250+MB. It's seems like the Mac is actualy using the RAM now.

The 'work' drive only has a few word docs on it - so it shoud have loads of space.

Re-partition into one drive? Sounds good. I hope there's an easy way to do that! I have the updates to OS 9.2.2. already installed. Does the original 0S9 disc have tools for re/un-partitioning?

thanks!
John
 
That's both 'drives' though isn't it? As opposed to both 'hard-drives'?

I'm hoping that if I copy Word and IE off then back on after the reinstall they'll work. I've no idea where the original installation disks have got to.
John
 
You really should think about just getting a new laptop. If you look hard, you could probably find someone selling a Core Duo Macbook for like 700 or so.
 
It took a few hours last night but I now have one partition with 5GB of free space. Yes, it's not high spec and it is an 8 year old laptop but it was free and I can use word on it. that's all i need at the moment.

Thanks very much for all the assistance everybody, I really do appreciate it very much.

PS: when upgrading to OS 9.1 - there was an error message about a wrong image format or something - installation cannot continue - i clicked 'skip' and ended up upgrading afterwards to 9.2.2. Last time I upgraded to 9.2.2 there was no prob at all. Anyway, despite this error, it seems to be working fine.
 
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