Request for help/advice with slow iBook.

[sparkle_motion]

Hi, fellow mac users--

I know this has been covered before, but all the options I've read about have not seemed to work. I need some help/advice regarding my two-year-old iBook. Recently I've noticed that there's some serious lag time when opening applications (damn that infernal spinning wheel!). I'm running OS X v. 10.2.8, there's plenty of memory, I clean out caches, and I run macjanitor at least once a week. Still, the problem persists. What can I do--short of reformatting my hard drive--to fix this slow load time?

Thanks for your help!

 

[ChrisFromCanada]

What are the specs of your system and do you prebind your system?

 

[seamuskrat]

A few things:

Post specs. How much free space, total drive size, how much ram, processor type and speed.

You should never let your HFS+ drive become more than 90% full for best results. So, if you have a smaller drive and you are close to full, that has a lot to do with it.

RAM. More ram always helps. If you have an older book with 128 or 256 that may contribute.

Permissions. You should repair permissions with something like Cocktail. Xupport, etc. You seem up on cron scripts and such, so you may already do this.

Consider DiskWarrior and/or Drive10. I prefer DW as it will fix problems and I doubt its hardware, but Drive10 does rule out hardware issues very well. The directory rebuild may speed up file access and such.

So, to get you more specific instructions, we need more details. What app is slow, etc. How slow?

Hi, fellow mac users--

I know this has been covered before, but all the options I've read about have not seemed to work. I need some help/advice regarding my two-year-old iBook. Recently I've noticed that there's some serious lag time when opening applications (damn that infernal spinning wheel!). I'm running OS X v. 10.2.8, there's plenty of memory, I clean out caches, and I run macjanitor at least once a week. Still, the problem persists. What can I do--short of reformatting my hard drive--to fix this slow load time?

Thanks for your help!

 

[sparkle_motion]

Wow--I didn't expect such quick responses--thanks!

I've got a 12 in. G3 iBook--128/700mhz and 20 gig HD with 8 gigs currently free

Mainly my internet browsers--Safari, IE, Mozilla take a looong time to boot up and connect to pages. Eventually, they find their footing and everything works at a normal speed. I'm thinking I might just need to bite the bullet and up my RAM to 512. Anyone think it could be something more serious, though?

Which leads me to another issue...installing memory myself. Never done it, but read up on it and it doesn't sound too tough. I am just deluding myself?

Thanks!

 

[seamuskrat]

RAM is a good place to start. 128 is rather anemic for OS X.

Try that first and see where you are at. It will be worth it no matter what.

 

[Elan0204]

Yeah, 128 MB of RAM with OS X is probably your problem. Even 256MB isn't wonderful. Why Apple ever shipped OS X machines with 128MB is beyond me. Sure, it saves them money, but I bet a lot of people tested those machines in an Apple Store and said, "this is way too slow, I'm buying a Dell."