OSX 10.3.6 makes starting up my PowerBook 10 times longer - anyone else?

[Lau]

Those of you that shut down your PowerBooks occasionally - have you noticed that it takes a long time to start up since you installed OSX 10.3.6?

Ok: technical stuff - it's a 1.33GHZ 12" PowerBook with 256MB RAM (getting an extra 512 soon). It's 3 months old (aaah).

I installed 10.3.5 a couple of weeks before i did 10.3.6, and all seemed fine. Then I installed 10.3.6 and since then, when I restarted, it took ages. The grey/blue screen bit is as fast as ever, but when it got to my desktop picture it beachballs for about 2 minutes before the toolbar appears and it loads normally. This is bearing in mind that the entire startup took about 20 seconds in total before.

All I had installed recently is iMsafe (free backup program) and a few fonts into Font Book. I have tried taking the iMsafe off and repairing permissions etc then restarting, but still the same. The Font Book is slow loading up, but it always is when there's a load of fonts on it.

So I have also tried the following (thanks to searching for the good advice of y'all):

Repairing permissions
fsck (all fine)
Zapping PRAM
Downloading and running MacJanitor
Updating prebindings

And it's still the same! Mad. At least I've learnt a load of housekeeping stuff from reading these forums.

Anyway, if anyone has any suggestions that would be great. It doesn't bother me hugely as I rarely restart, usually sleep. I'm more worried that something isn't running as it should. I feel oddly protective of this chunk of metal . Also, I wanted to show my PC-using dad the many benefits of the world of Mac at Christmas, and thought the fast startup would impress him. For some reason.

Anyone else had this problem?

 

[munkle]

I've noticed that my Powerbook takes a longer to start up as well. Solution: don't turn it off. I hardly ever shut down my PB and only restart when necessary, the instant on from sleep feature will impress your Dad a lot more!

 

[timnosenzo]

I don't know much about font management, but I know that many moons ago I loaded a bunch of font's on my PC and almost killed it. It was so slow that it was hardly useable. I don't know if Mac's are prone to the same thing, but it could be the problem. It really doesn't help that you have so little RAM in there, too.

 

[abhishekit]

Yah, I noticed it when I installed the recent airport update(I hadn't shut down since the 10.3.6 update). One of the things may be that earlier the progress bar only went half way, and it would get to desktop. But now it goes all the way so takes longer time.

 

[Yotabyte]

Get more ram.

 

[Lau]

Thanks guys. The fact that you're all finding it a bit slower reassures me a bit. Munkle, you're right, I do almost always sleep it. I was more concerned there was something wrong, but am more reassured now. And yes, the sleep function will hopefully impress him more! Heh heh.

I'm getting more RAM at Christmas, so that will sort that, and thanks Nosen, for the heads up on the fonts. It's such a mammoth job taking them all off, and working out which ones I want to keep, or put on a CD or whatever. Oooh, actually, could have a jpeg with them all on it so I knew which was which, and save all the occasional ones in a folder, then only put them in Font Book when I need them! Then they'd always be with me on my laptop, but wouldn't be slowing it down. Sounds like a holiday job though, cause would take ages.

Thanks guys!

 

[Veldek]

There's a known problem with the 10.3.6 update that slows down the startup. Look here: http://www.hardmac.com/niouzcontenu.php?date=2004-11-15#3212

 

[aricher]

RAM helps a ton - my PB 17" with 2 GB starts up almost twice as fast as my wife's PB 12" with 512 MB.

 

[ravenvii]

Yeah I noticed it slowed down the startup on my iBook too. But I didn't really care, I rarely ever shut down my computer.

 

[unispherephoto]

ive also had a super slow startup since 10.3.6....
usually i leave my TiBook on, but i noticed the slowdown after i had to restart after an installation.
its definitely like 4-5 times linger than before. makes me a little nervous..


TiBook 500/512 10.3.6

 

[moose]

Totally...

Guilty of schaudenfraude (sp?). At least I'm not the only one having this issue... I was planning on getting more memory, but I am still surprised/annoyed that the last update has had such a massive detrimental effect on the startup of my PB 1.5Ghz. I think it seriously takes a full 2-3 minutes to startup.

 

[Mechcozmo]

After an update it takes longer. More RAM will help too.

I shut my PowerBook down so infrequently, that this isn't a problem. It takes me <1 minute to restart normally though...
Techie stuff:
1.33Ghz G4 768MB RAM 12" Rev. C PowerBook

 

[munkle]

Oddly my PB seems to be back to normal start up times now after a couple of weeks of being noticeably slower.

 

[virividox]

Oddly my PB seems to be back to normal start up times now after a couple of weeks of being noticeably slower.

are you sure its not just you getting used to the slow down ? conditioning hehe

 

[bubbamac]

I read somewhere that poorly written fonts can slow down, or crash, your system.

You might try a font repair utility to see if one of the fonts you installed is the problem.

 

[Lau]

Sorted! Well, kinda....

Ok, so I backed up and took all the fonts I'd installed off, and it loads up (almost) as quick as before. Now I've just got to figure which one(s) are causing the problem and put the rest back on. Fun job.

Anyone else who's having this problem - might be worth a go.I can't remember for sure whether I'd restarted it or not between the installing the fonts and 10.3.6, but I think I did. So maybe the fonts were ok under 10.3.4 and 5, but not so happy under 10.3.6.