Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Bobdude161

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 12, 2006
1,215
1
N'Albany, Indiana
I made a similar post a few weeks ago but no one replied to my question. So I'm trying again.

I just woke my Mac up after a 4 hour nap while it was running a screensaver and as soon as the screen came on it was acting like it was gonna crash on me. Everything was EXTREMELY slow and would hardly respond. I waited and waited for activity monitor to come up and saw that the two Lexmark drivers I have installed were hogging every ounce of processing speed. One was running at 40% and the other was at 30%. This always happens if I don't delete these process right after I startup. They exponentially start to take up more CPU.

So! My question once again is, is there a way to completely restrict these processes from coming up at startup? I don't need the processes to print. They are used to watch if one of the printer's buttons are being used, which I don't. Please help me. Lexmark is giving me hell!
 

cait-sith

macrumors regular
Apr 6, 2004
248
1
canada
You'll have to go into Terminal and edit the file /etc/hostconfig -- this contains a list of programs started at boot. Find the offending program and change it from -YES- to -NO-.

The actual startup script is in either /System/Library/StartupItems or /Library/StartupItems. If you can find the name of the offending program in that directroy, and open up the script in that directory of the same name (e.g., open the text file /Library/StartupItems/StupidPrinter/StupidPrinter), you can find the name of the config variable used in /etc/hostconfig.

Reference:

http://developer.apple.com/document.../additionalfeatures/chapter_10_section_4.html
 

Bobdude161

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 12, 2006
1,215
1
N'Albany, Indiana
cait-sith said:
You'll have to go into Terminal and edit the file /etc/hostconfig -- this contains a list of programs started at boot. Find the offending program and change it from -YES- to -NO-.

The actual startup script is in either /System/Library/StartupItems or /Library/StartupItems. If you can find the name of the offending program in that directroy, and open up the script in that directory of the same name (e.g., open the text file /Library/StartupItems/StupidPrinter/StupidPrinter), you can find the name of the config variable used in /etc/hostconfig.

Reference:

http://developer.apple.com/document.../additionalfeatures/chapter_10_section_4.html

It sounded like it could work but none of the drivers were listed. :( The cookie is still availible!
 

OutThere

macrumors 603
Dec 19, 2002
5,730
3
NYC
Have you checked the Lexmark website to see if there are update drivers that aren't messed up?
 

cait-sith

macrumors regular
Apr 6, 2004
248
1
canada
What is the name of the process? Is it a kernel driver or an actual program?

If it's a process, do this (as super user):

find / -name "name of the process" -print

That will show you the path to the process.

Then try this:

chmod a-x /path/to/that/file

That will keep the system from executing the file.
 

Bobdude161

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 12, 2006
1,215
1
N'Albany, Indiana
You sir have won:

THE COOKIE OF CHAMPIONS!!!!!

attachment.php


Congrats!!!

Thanks cait-sith!!!
 

Attachments

  • woot.jpg
    woot.jpg
    32.3 KB · Views: 119
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.