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Powerbook being sloooow. Please Help

G

gdl96

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 28, 2004
26
0
new jersey
Okay, this problem just started happening today. Here's what I'm running: 1.5ghz G4 15"PB, OS10.3.9, and I've recently installed the latest security update, QT7, and Adium 0.8, if that's relevent in any way.

Today while I was doing the normal surf/chat thing, with the usual applications open, the computer slowed down and froze for a few minutes, so I restarted. However, it would boot up (it just stayed on the grey apple screen with the little gear thing under it). I eventually got it to boot by using Command+Option+P+R after I turned the computer on, but it would run reaaaaallly slow, so after a few times doing this, I called Apple. After 45 minutes, and running some tests from the Software Install and Restore disc, we got nowhere. And then my cell phone dropped the call. :mad:

So I figured I didn't feel like being on hold for another twenty minutes, so I didn't call back. Right now, my computer is only somewhat usable because I'm only running Finder and Safari. If I start running more applications, it only get's worse, and usually ends up freezing up again.

If anybody has any advice, I'd really appreciate it.
 
Well - I have to admit to being a newbie at macs, but I thought I'd at least try and help you out here!!

Download a copy of OnyX ; This allows you to run all the maintenance scripts built into OSX and it also allows you to clean out some of the old files that might be lingering around your hard drive. I had the same problem, and I have to say it freshened my system right up. Do it every month or so (I do mine twice weekly however) and you're set.

Give it a try and let us know how you get on?
 
might also be a buggy installation of the OS. Maybe you could do a clean install of 10.3?
You could also probably use some more RAM.
Do use onyX, but be careful... you don't want to accidentally screw it up even worse.
If you have an apple store near you, you could head over there, too.
 
This is a free app. Mac Sweeper
It takes time to run, sometimes hours.
All I can think is that your prebindings wern't properly updated when you restarted.
Try it.
Check your memory and drive space. Damage to ither (or disk spanning) will slow a computer down.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions.

After leaving my PB off for the night, it is better, but still being very slow at times. When I'm playing a song on itunes, it will start to stutter and stop playing for a few moments. Applications like Photoshop are almost unusable, and I can only manage to do the normal web surfing/chatting/email routine, but with some occassional slowdowns.

I don't know if I was specific enough before, but all these problems are very sudden. Everything was acting fine until yesterday.

As for your suggestions. I downloaded Onyx and Mac Sweeper, but I'm not sure what processes I should be running. I tried some clean up with Onyx, but it didn't help, even after a restart. I tried to update prebindings with Mac Sweeper, but that just crashed the program (it would just stay at 0%). So maybe it has something to do with that?
 
Exactly the thing that happened to me Sunday night...I say BACK UP DATA NOW. My hard drive is toast now...got slower and slower and now won't boot except off the Panther CD; HD makes a gravelly grinding dead kinda sound...
 
I still have all my RAM, and Activity Moniter shows nothing hoggin my CPU.

If it is my hard drive, would I have to get it replaced, or would a clean install fix things? Also, while I was on tech support the other, I ran some tests and they said the hard drive was fine.
 
gdl96 said:
…
After leaving my PB off for the night, it is better, but still being very slow at times.
Click to expand...
Perhaps heat causing memory, logic board, processor, or hd to fail.

When I'm playing a song on itunes, it will start to stutter and stop playing for a few moments. Applications like Photoshop are almost unusable, and I can only manage to do the normal web surfing/chatting/email routine, but with some occassional slowdowns.
Click to expand...
Perhaps there is some sort of conflict that we are missing here. Are you useing LimeWire or some sort of other P2P network program. Check your start items (Sys Prefs-->Accounts-->Startup items). I

I don't know if I was specific enough before, but all these problems are very sudden. Everything was acting fine until yesterday.
Click to expand...
Looks more like some sort of major system failure. Do you have AppleCare?

As for your suggestions. I downloaded Onyx and Mac Sweeper, but I'm not sure what processes I should be running. I tried some clean up with Onyx, but it didn't help, even after a restart. I tried to update prebindings with Mac Sweeper, but that just crashed the program (it would just stay at 0%). So maybe it has something to do with that?
Click to expand...
Yea, you might need some industrial help here. Norton or DiskWarrior kind of help. Some application instillations update all of the prebindings. If that is interrupted, it can cause problems. I don't know if QT7 updated on upload, or on the startup after the reboot. If worse comes to worse and you don't have AppleCare, warranty, or some sort of high-level disrepair you might have to reinstall your OS.

Back your stuff up, start burning now!

Good luck!
 
Do you think a nice clean install of Tiger will solve all this? I wasn't going to get it until after finals were over in two weeks, but the situation isn't getting any better, so I'm ordering it now.
 
a clean intsall is unlikely to help if it installs at all, it does sound like a hard drive problem..... in diskutility what is your drives S.M.A.R.T. status?

i had my harddrive go and it was showing similar issues....


whats up with all the failing powerbook drives by the way?
 
SMART status is "verified"

I booted into the OS (10.3) install CD today to run disk utility and did a "repair disk" but it didn't seem to help.
 
gdl96 said:
Okay, this problem just started happening today. Here's what I'm running: 1.5ghz G4 15"PB, OS10.3.9, and I've recently installed the latest security update, QT7, and Adium 0.8, if that's relevent in any way.

Today while I was doing the normal surf/chat thing, with the usual applications open, the computer slowed down and froze for a few minutes, so I restarted. However, it would boot up (it just stayed on the grey apple screen with the little gear thing under it). I eventually got it to boot by using Command+Option+P+R after I turned the computer on, but it would run reaaaaallly slow, so after a few times doing this, I called Apple. After 45 minutes, and running some tests from the Software Install and Restore disc, we got nowhere. And then my cell phone dropped the call. :mad:

So I figured I didn't feel like being on hold for another twenty minutes, so I didn't call back. Right now, my computer is only somewhat usable because I'm only running Finder and Safari. If I start running more applications, it only get's worse, and usually ends up freezing up again.

If anybody has any advice, I'd really appreciate it.
Click to expand...

I have the same machine as you and I actually am experiencing the same thing. My computer slows down quite a bit and i get a good amount of lag when openeing programs. Yesterday i tried opening iTunes and teh machine completly froze, i had to restart after 5 minutes of the program being unresponsive. This all just started yesterday (5/6), but i don't seem to be getting any lag on programs today. Mabey it was just that one time.
 
JzzTrump22 said:
I have the same machine as you and I actually am experiencing the same thing. My computer slows down quite a bit and i get a good amount of lag when openeing programs. Yesterday i tried opening iTunes and teh machine completly froze, i had to restart after 5 minutes of the program being unresponsive. This all just started yesterday (5/6), but i don't seem to be getting any lag on programs today. Mabey it was just that one time.
Click to expand...


Mine Just started doing this a few days ago, but got bad last night, didn't put any thought to it until it took forever to reboot... :(
 
The exact same thing just happened yesterday (6/9), while surfing in Safari, everything just slowed down real slooooow. Up to that point everything was perfect. I'm backing up the entire HD about 27GB!! (it's taken 17 hours and still going, normally it takes about 1.5).

Is this a sign of a dying HD? Do hard drives die slowly?

Powerbook Ti 667
 
Get this app

gdl96 said:
SMART status is "verified"

I booted into the OS (10.3) install CD today to run disk utility and did a "repair disk" but it didn't seem to help.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't trust the inbuilt SMART status in disk utility. When the HD chucked a spastic and went belly up on my new G5 about a month ago, Disk Utility only reported a SMART error once and then the status went back to verified.

I downloaded SMARTReporter. It showed me for sure the drive was failing ever time it was launched.

I don't trust disk utility any more so I have the SMARTReporter program automatically probing my hard drives ever 300 mins just to be sure.


aussie_geek
 
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