I apologize if this has been covered. Yesterday, I installed SL over Leopard. And, response time died. It takes forever to navigate in any browser or to open a file in Word. I am really new at this...Are there supposed to be 2 dashboardclient processes running (saw this in Activity monitor)?
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SL install slowed computer immediately
- Thread starter kem103
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It depends on how many Dashboard Widgets you have open. Each client process can handle several (six, I believe) Widgets. They should only be taking up CPU resources when Dashboard is open.
When you're in Activity Monitor, make sure you are looking at "All Processes". Then try and find which process is taking up CPU time (if that's the reason for the slowdown).
Slowdowns can also be caused by being low on physical RAM. Check the number/size of your pageouts. It's an indication of how often the system has to swap a page to/from hard disk (a high percentage of pageouts vs. pageins).
Could SL be still indexing the drive for Spotlight? (Click on Spotlight and it'll show any drives that are being indexed.)
When you're in Activity Monitor, make sure you are looking at "All Processes". Then try and find which process is taking up CPU time (if that's the reason for the slowdown).
Slowdowns can also be caused by being low on physical RAM. Check the number/size of your pageouts. It's an indication of how often the system has to swap a page to/from hard disk (a high percentage of pageouts vs. pageins).
Could SL be still indexing the drive for Spotlight? (Click on Spotlight and it'll show any drives that are being indexed.)
Personally I'm finding SL a pain in the butt, I never used to get Beachballs and little pauses when copying files, mouse click issues. I just can't face restoring to Leopard right now.
Lots of things can cause performance degradation, particularly after installing SL. For one, how long has it been since the installation? Some of the late night maintenance scripts your Mac runs might correct some of the problems. People have reported that performance improves a few days after the install.
You might try running "Disk Utility" in your Utilities folder and selecting the "Repair Permissions" command. It's an easy step and the beachballs that come from permission issues should disappear (or at least diminish). But to be honest, it could be a small percentage.
It also would be worth running the "Console" application in your Utilities folder. (Make sure "system.log" is selected in the lefthand pane.) You might not understand exactly what you're reading, but it might provide clues to underlying issues. For example, if you've got a specific problem, it's highly likely you'll see the same error message over and over. It might give you an idea of your next step, or post here and someone will have an idea.
mt
You might try running "Disk Utility" in your Utilities folder and selecting the "Repair Permissions" command. It's an easy step and the beachballs that come from permission issues should disappear (or at least diminish). But to be honest, it could be a small percentage.
It also would be worth running the "Console" application in your Utilities folder. (Make sure "system.log" is selected in the lefthand pane.) You might not understand exactly what you're reading, but it might provide clues to underlying issues. For example, if you've got a specific problem, it's highly likely you'll see the same error message over and over. It might give you an idea of your next step, or post here and someone will have an idea.
mt
Right after you install SL, and reboot, spotlight will be indexing. Until that is finished your machine might be a little sluggish. I have SL installed on a new model 13" MBP and a 3 year old 15" MBP. Both run very well with no problems.
Please post with full information on the computer, amount of RAM, HD with open space available etc., then someone may be able to help. Without that info it will be basically general help or guesswork.
Also, download Onyx (freeware, available on macupdate.com) and run the maintenance scripts and at least the erase font caches option in the cleaning pull down (requires a reboot). The later is not really required but it can't hurt and I have found it helps sort things out.
I too suspect you are running low on RAM, take a look in the Activity Monitor.
Wow. Thank you, all of you. Great responses. I am so impressed with the Mac community - they take of each other.
The imac is 6 months old and has a processor of 2.93 GHZ Intel Core 2 Duo, Memory of 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3.
In Activity Monitor "all processes", it shows:
- 7 processes running. Maximum CPU for any process is 4% and the total for all is about 7%.
- Free: 2.6 GB
- Wired: 682 MB
- Active: 714
- Inactive: 384
- Used 1.75 GB
- VM: 117 GB
- Page in: 179 MB
- Page outs: 0
- Swap: 0
I noticed that while waiting for the browser, Firefox 3.5.6 shows "stopped" in the lower left corner of the browser and the page load pauses longer before the page is displayed. I don't recall seeing that before SL was installed.
I clicked Spotlight and it did not show anything about indexing. But, hopefully that is done.
I will try the Disk Utility, "Repair Permissions" command and the "Console" app as well. I also have SL on a new macbook pro (12/30/09). I'm going to set up the macbook pro, imac and my p.c. together and, with a stopwatch LOL, I'm going to check FW and performances.
The imac is 6 months old and has a processor of 2.93 GHZ Intel Core 2 Duo, Memory of 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3.
In Activity Monitor "all processes", it shows:
- 7 processes running. Maximum CPU for any process is 4% and the total for all is about 7%.
- Free: 2.6 GB
- Wired: 682 MB
- Active: 714
- Inactive: 384
- Used 1.75 GB
- VM: 117 GB
- Page in: 179 MB
- Page outs: 0
- Swap: 0
I noticed that while waiting for the browser, Firefox 3.5.6 shows "stopped" in the lower left corner of the browser and the page load pauses longer before the page is displayed. I don't recall seeing that before SL was installed.
I clicked Spotlight and it did not show anything about indexing. But, hopefully that is done.
I will try the Disk Utility, "Repair Permissions" command and the "Console" app as well. I also have SL on a new macbook pro (12/30/09). I'm going to set up the macbook pro, imac and my p.c. together and, with a stopwatch LOL, I'm going to check FW and performances.
I did find a couple of things which may not be related...
- I have some dmg files. Wasn't sure what to do with them. Couldn't find instructions on Apple website tutorials so put them in a "dmg" folder on the desktop until I could find info on them. I am opening applications in Applications folder.
- One jpg on an external drive shows Zero Kb, Feb 1946 creation date and when I try to move to trash, it says that it in use by another application. Could this be tying up resources?
- I have some dmg files. Wasn't sure what to do with them. Couldn't find instructions on Apple website tutorials so put them in a "dmg" folder on the desktop until I could find info on them. I am opening applications in Applications folder.
- One jpg on an external drive shows Zero Kb, Feb 1946 creation date and when I try to move to trash, it says that it in use by another application. Could this be tying up resources?
I suggest you reboot your computer. After it restarts, trash that JPG image.
DMG files are disk image files. They are the most popular method of distributing OS X software. You double click on one and it mounts just like a drive in Finder.
I upgraded my wife's system on Sunday to SL. She runs FireFox v2 and has no issues with delay or lag. I upgraded to SL last week and run the latest FireFox, again with no issues. So I suspect that yes, the JPG maybe part of the issue and it is being used by FireFox. So let's start there and get rid of that offending file.
Take care,
DMG files are disk image files. They are the most popular method of distributing OS X software. You double click on one and it mounts just like a drive in Finder.
I upgraded my wife's system on Sunday to SL. She runs FireFox v2 and has no issues with delay or lag. I upgraded to SL last week and run the latest FireFox, again with no issues. So I suspect that yes, the JPG maybe part of the issue and it is being used by FireFox. So let's start there and get rid of that offending file.
Take care,
I'd like to thank you all for your help. My computer runs just fine now. The only issue is that Firefox 3.5.7 runs very slowly. I use Safari now for almost everything as it loads much quicker than FF on the imac (PC is just fine), even with add-ons turned off. I'll search the forum for resolution.
Firefox is probably to slowest browser on Mac OS X. You can't do anything about that.