Powerbook 1.67Ghz becoming sluggish after 1 month????

[Laplace]

Heres my specs:
1.67Ghz CPU
128MB VRAM
1.5Gig RAM (works)
All updated software via Software update
Tiger OS

My Powerbook has completely just become sluggish, slow to respond to various activities, even just switching between windows. Two things that REALLY bother me is video playback is absolutely horrible. Even when watching vidcasts via iTunes, my PB just bogs down completely. When watching movies in VLC or Quicktime i have the same, extremely sluggish and slow to respond to everything.

I have 1.5G Ram with a 1.67Ghz processor, this cannot be correct. I have like 40GB free on my harddrive, not running an excessive amount of applications, actually just mail and safari mostly. I have run macjanitor for maintenance stuff and that doesn't help at all.

I'm at a loss, I dont have an Apple store nearby to take it to a MacGenius, so I'm turning to you guys for help.

Thanks in advance,
Laplace

 

[cheekyspanky]

I'm experiencing a similar thing with my Mac mini - lower specs than your PB, but I get the same bogging down sometimes when trying to watch video, and recently Safari has been crashing on me 5x or more a day.

Whatever people suggest for you I'm going to try as well!

 

[munkle]

Installed any third party apps recently?

Also look at your Activity Monitor, what kind of figures are you getting for your page ins/outs (under System Memory)?

I think playing video through iTunes is kinda slow anyway but you shouldn't be experiencing all the other problems you have been reporting.

And instead of MacJanitor, give Onyx a go.

 

[iEdd]

Uh oh... Looks like you have that new os x spyware...jks
Onto your slowing down:

I think that's what updating prebinding could work for. I found out how to do that in terminal with panther, but not tiger...
Try downloading Cocktail which does a few things. Then you might want to clear caches in firefox and safari. Next, restart and you should be good

 

[crazzyeddie]

Sounds like you have a runaway processor or memory leak... The suggestion for using Process Viewer is a good one... see what is using all your CPU / Real RAM.

 

[Laplace]

I have looked at the Activity Monitor, but nothing is sucking it.....the RAM always has like atleast 700-800 MB free, and the CPU is moderate, nothing abnormal, it just runs like crap

BTW, I have the Highest performance setting set, and no I haven't installed any 3rd party apps recently. It's starting to really get to me.

 

[cheekyspanky]

I ran all the cron job things via Cocktail and my Mac mini seems a bit better now, a lot less beachball moments!

The other issue I have had is the dock crashing, and taking exposé and dashboard with it. If I go into activity monitor and force quit the dock app it comes back fine, but then will crash again a little while later and this time the dock app doesn't show up in the activity monitor.

Any ideas why that would happen?

*Think this is my 500th post!*

 

[IJ Reilly]

Try installing and running AppleJack.

It does more than Cocktail. It verifies preferences, repairs permissions, rotates logs, etc.

 

[jadekitty24]

you posted "1.5Gig RAM (works)"

Was the RAM original or is it third party? Could it be bad RAM?

 

[Laplace]

How do you know if you have bad ram? I mean under the Apple info, it tells me that it recognizes the 1.5Gig, but is there any other way to tell if it works properly?


Thanks,
Laplace

BTW Im a recent switcher, so maybe I just dont know all the Mac ways to do these little diagnostics yet, forgive me

 

[osprey76]

Try installing and running AppleJack.

It does more than Cocktail. It verifies preferences, repairs permissions, rotates logs, etc.

Thanks for the tip on this one.

Your crashes sounds like they might be due to corrupt preferences files. This happens at times with MacOS, but not too often. Try AppleJack and see if that's it. Or, just delete the preferences file in question. They can by found at:

~/Library/Preferences/

~/ is your home folder.

 

[Aliquis]

do you have a version of Virex installed? It had some problems awhile back.

 

[AP_piano295]

sounds like a spyware clog up got them all the time on pc's but this is a mac and they really dont get spyware U suggest that you back all your important stuff up and reformat the hard drive but im new to macs might be a non pc way to fix it.