PowerBook G4 running really, really slowly

[wdp]

Okay, basically, I've had my PowerBook for a little over 2 years. Over the last few months, it's been incredibly slow. For example, I can only load one or two tabs at a time in Safari before the 'rainbow spinning wheel of death' appears, and takes a couple of minutes to leave, and load the page. This type of thing happens across the board, on pretty much all applications.

I have more that 7GB left in my HD, and if it was a PC, I'd think viruses were the problem.. but it's not. Not knowing anything about computers (comparatively speaking), here're my stats from System Profiler:

Machine Model: PowerBook G4 12"
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (1.1)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 1 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 768 MB
Bus Speed: 133 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.7.5f1

System Version: Mac OS X 10.3.9 (7W98)
Kernel Version: Darwin 7.9.0
Boot Volume: Macintosh HD

So - help?? The situation even occurs right after I've started the computer, and hardly anything's loaded.

 

[mad jew]

Have you got any sort of hacks installed?

Open up Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder, ensure it's set to see All Processes (not just the default My Processes) and see if there's anything using up a lot of resources or hanging (it'll be red).

Maybe try running fsck too.

 

[wdp]

Using the Activity Moniter, when Safari does its spinny wheel thing (which to be honest is my main problem - it's bloody annoying), it goes red - 'hung'. And stays that way for minutes.

 

[mad jew]

If Safari is closed, do you have any problems?

 

[discoforce]

So - help?? The situation even occurs right after I've started the computer, and hardly anything's loaded.

Have you checked to see if you have lost 1/2 your ram? This happened to me when my lower ram slot gave out, and unfortunately it's not uncommon in powerbooks.

 

[wdp]

To a lesser extent, yes, it is still slow when Safari's shut.

How do I tell if I've lost half my RAM? All the stats I know how to find are in the first post..

 

[AlBDamned]

Go into the Apple menu, top left and the first option down is "About This Mac".

Check how much RAM it says you've got versus how much you should have. If it's not right, press "more info" and it'll take you to the system profiler. Go to Memory. If it says your lower slot is empty, and in reality it's got a stick in there, prepare to be pissed off....

 

[mad jew]

I thought the first post was copied from System Profiler already. It states there's 768MB of RAM.

Have you run fsck? When Safari is closed, is there another app that hangs or uses a lot of RAM or CPU cycles? If you create a new account, do the problems carry over?

 

[elisha cuthbert]

This happened with my old ibook and all i did was an archive & install ove tiger (or panther) and all worked fine after that but also if you want you can clear out a folder which keeps some viruses in it and the path to the folder is as follows: "your user account"/library/caches/java applets/cache/javapi/v1.0/jar. and then if you clean out that flder it may also help.
Hope it all works out for you

 

[discoforce]

I thought the first post was copied from System Profiler already. It states there's 768MB of RAM.

Yup, that's where you go look for it, and I wasn't sure if the 'book was supposed to have 1.5GHz. But it sounds like 768MB is what you were expecting?

 

[yippy]

If the archive and install doesn't speed things up I would be worried about the disk. My moms work computer and my powerbook both did this and then the hard drive died about a month later. So check the S.M.A.R.T. status in disk utility.

 

[discoforce]

If the archive and install doesn't speed things up I would be worried about the disk. My moms work computer and my powerbook both did this and then the hard drive died about a month later. So check the S.M.A.R.T. status in disk utility.

To add to yippy's point: Smartreporter is a great little utility for checking the SMART status, and it can even warn you by email if the hard drive is going.

 

[AlBDamned]

I thought the first post was copied from System Profiler already. It states there's 768MB of RAM.

Have you run fsck? When Safari is closed, is there another app that hangs or uses a lot of RAM or CPU cycles? If you create a new account, do the problems carry over?

Ah yes - so it does. Glad it wasn't a fried slot.

Edit: discoforce> SMART reporter looks like a very handy app.

 

[wdp]

Thanks for the help.

As has been said, I have as much RAM as I'm meant to. Say I wanted to get more, how difficult/expensive is the process likely to be? Just take it to the shop and leave it for a couple of hours?

Whatever is running at the time, if it takes any effort at all from the mac, it beach balls and 'hangs' - for ages. It isn't a Safari-specific problem, I just mentioned it because it was/is what pissed me off the most.

I haven't run fsck, coz I went to the link and got scared by the difficult instructions. I have no idea how to use terminal. Or anything hard.

Elisha, I cleared out that folder, but I'm not sure it helped. Oh well. And the archive/reinstall thing sounds scary, but would it help if I got 10.4? I can get it cheap from uni.

The SMARTreporter thing (incidentally, I have no idea what it does) is green and hasn't reported any problems.

Thanks again for the help... but in summary, it's still slow. Any more ideas?

 

[discoforce]

Thanks for the help.

As has been said, I have as much RAM as I'm meant to. Say I wanted to get more, how difficult/expensive is the process likely to be? Just take it to the shop and leave it for a couple of hours?

Whatever is running at the time, if it takes any effort at all from the mac, it beach balls and 'hangs' - for ages. It isn't a Safari-specific problem, I just mentioned it because it was/is what pissed me off the most.

I haven't run fsck, coz I went to the link and got scared by the difficult instructions. I have no idea how to use terminal. Or anything hard.

Elisha, I cleared out that folder, but I'm not sure it helped. Oh well. And the archive/reinstall thing sounds scary, but would it help if I got 10.4? I can get it cheap from uni.

The SMARTreporter thing (incidentally, I have no idea what it does) is green and hasn't reported any problems.

Thanks again for the help... but in summary, it's still slow. Any more ideas?

Green on the SMARTreporter is good If it's not green that could indicate hard drive failure.

If you're considering upgrading to 10.4, I would save all your files and do a clean install. You could skip all the other scary steps that way

 

[Iyan]

Okay, basically, I've had my PowerBook for a little over 2 years. Over the last few months, it's been incredibly slow. For example, I can only load one or two tabs at a time in Safari before the 'rainbow spinning wheel of death' appears, and takes a couple of minutes to leave, and load the page. This type of thing happens across the board, on pretty much all applications.

I have more that 7GB left in my HD, and if it was a PC, I'd think viruses were the problem.. but it's not. Not knowing anything about computers (comparatively speaking), here're my stats from System Profiler:

Machine Model: PowerBook G4 12"
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (1.1)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 1 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 768 MB
Bus Speed: 133 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.7.5f1

System Version: Mac OS X 10.3.9 (7W98)
Kernel Version: Darwin 7.9.0
Boot Volume: Macintosh HD

So - help?? The situation even occurs right after I've started the computer, and hardly anything's loaded.

Try to download OnyX and run this program. You may need to clean cache, run maintenance script.

 

[mad jew]

I haven't run fsck, coz I went to the link and got scared by the difficult instructions. I have no idea how to use terminal. Or anything hard.

It's really not as difficult as that article implies.

Start up holding COMMAND-S.
Type the following and press RETURN:

/sbin/fsck -fy

If it says it made a change, then type it again.
Once no changes have been made, type the following and press RETURN:

reboot

That's it.

 

[wdp]

Done fsck. Says something along the lines of "Macintosh HD appears to be ok." Sigh.

Another example of the hard life I lead: when I shut down the computer, the cursor beach balls for a while before shutting each and every application.

I'm beginning to think my machine's just going a little senile.

 

[Chundles]

Well, this sounds very familiar only more drawn out than my experience. Basically, once my iBook had stopped even booting into OS X I was able to get it to boot from the disc once, and only once to the point where I could run Disc Utility properly. SMART status was verfied. The HDD was totally farked.


My Troubles
Get it looked at now.

 

[mad jew]

Okay, that's a good thing.

Maybe run the Hardware Test CD that came with the machine to see if it picks anything up. At the moment I think it could be one of a few things.

• A corrupt OS install. Reinstalling the OS will obviously fix this.
• A corrupt application. Removing the offending app should bring things back to normal. FWIW, I really doubt this is the problem though, considering it happens from start up and you don't run any hacks.
• Bad RAM. Removing the offending chip will immediately solve the problem. This is actually quite common, despite it having not been a problem before. RAM chips can often go bad, particularly after system upgrades. The 10.4.2 update was notorious for this.
• A peripheral such as a printer, Bluetooth phone or whatever. Something that would be working with the system soon after start up.
• A messed up logic board. Let's not talk about this too much. It's expensive and painful.
• A combination of the above. Not likely, but possible all the same.

I'd start with the Hardware Test CD and then move on to checking the RAM (systematically remove chips).

Chundles might be right, it may be a bad hard drive. However, I would have thought fsck would have had something to say about it. Nevertheless, no matter what it it, keep everything backed up.

 

[worriedmac]

This has happened a few times with me. Everytime I thought it was the HD on its last legs but it turns out my disc image needed repair after installing an update. Booting of the mac osx disc I repaired and rebooted, all fixed.