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Slow program loading times under OSX on my 1ghz powerbook

P

physicsnerd

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 25, 2003
80
0
West Lafayette, IN
I just switched from windows/Linux to Mac and I?m loving OSX. I bought a 15inch 1ghz, PowerBook with superdrive and 512mb. But I?m having one very big annoyance with OSX. If I haven?t used the computer for a while, 15+ minutes, it will take up to a minute to load any program. This also happens if I?ve been using only one or two programs for the same period of time. For instance with Safari it will take either 34 bounces or 2 bounces to load, there?s no in-between. My first thought was that the hard drive went to sleep and had to spin back up, so I went into Energy Saver and told the computer not to put the hard drive to sleep. No change. I?ve talk to 2 other mac owners who have the same problem (one has an ibook, the other a Powerbook).

I?ve been running top on a terminal window to see if something?s eating up resources but any time it?s happened I?ve had well over 200 megs of ram free, and the processor has always been below 40%. Does anyone know what is causing this, and if so what can I do to fix it? I?m running 10.2.4, and everything is updated to the latest versions.

Thanks,

Physicsnerd
 
Do the list of diagnostics first.

Run a Disk Permissions repair.
Run all nightly, weekly, monthly tasks. Use MacJanitor if necessary.
Start up in Single User mode and run FSCK -Y.

Have you or are you running any Symantec Norton/System Works program? Do you use an HP printer? If so are you using the latest drivers?

Once you have done all these let us know if you still have the problem. I know that most likely that none of these will affect your problem but once we have these details taken care of we know we have covered the basics and can move on to more in depth fixes.
 
didn't work

>Do the list of diagnostics first.
>Run a Disk Permissions repair.
Okay, i fixed all the disk permissions

>Run all nightly, weekly, monthly tasks. Use >MacJanitor if necessary.
Used MacJanitor (cool, program, thanks for pointing it out).

> Start up in Single User mode and run FSCK ->Y.
Ran FSCK -Y through Single user mode.

>Have you or are you running any Symantec >Norton/System Works program?
Nope, should i be?

>Do you use an HP printer? If so are you using >the latest drivers?
No, and apple tech support had me delete all of the HP printer drivers. I'm using a Epson Stylus Scan 2500 with CUPS 1.1. Does CUPS have any issues that may cause this?

>Once you have done all these let us know if >you still have the problem. I know that most >likely that none of these will affect your >problem but once we have these details taken >care of we know we have covered the basics >and can move on to more in depth fixes.

I did everything on the list, and it is still happening. Any ideas?

Thanks,

Physicsnerd
 
Are you running on battery or plugged into the wall?

Go to your energy saver settings (I think this is the right place) there should be a setting for speed stepping or cpu speed or something. Basically all PowerBook/iBooks made in at least the last 10 years have the ability to slow the cpu when not in heavy use to conserve power. This is especially so when running on battery power. I think there are settings for it in the control panes.

I'm guessing that this is the answer to your problem and you are most likely bumping heads with the speed stepping used on the CPU. There is a time lag between the time that you start a high load app and the time for the cpu to step back up to full duty cycle.
 
In System Preferences for Energy Saver, do you have "Put the hard disk to sleep whenever possible" selected? (Tik or check mark next to it.)

This sounds like what is happening to you. It will also affect battery drain if you change this setting for when the PowerBook is running on battery.

This is what your issue sounds like to me.
 
Originally posted by Bear
In System Preferences for Energy Saver, do you have "Put the hard disk to sleep whenever possible" selected? (Tik or check mark next to it.)

This sounds like what is happening to you. It will also affect battery drain if you change this setting for when the PowerBook is running on battery.
Click to expand...

I know you said you had disabled that feature, but I am unaware if you have to reboot for that to take affect, ooh, ALSO, make sure you did it on the configuration that you are currently using (power adapter setting or battery).. forgot about that
 
i have norton antivirus which i run every month or so...whats all this word on norton? is there a problem with it or what?
 
I had the same problem as you when I got
my 1GHz powerbook. My Lexmark utility
was running in the background and eating
up a steady 30-40% of my CPU.





-jeff
 
Re: Slow program loading times under OSX on my 1ghz powerbook

Originally posted by physicsnerd
I just switched from windows/Linux to Mac and I?m loving OSX. I bought a 15inch 1ghz, PowerBook with superdrive and 512mb. But I?m having one very big annoyance with OSX. If I haven?t used the computer for a while, 15+ minutes, it will take up to a minute to load any program. This also happens if I?ve been using only one or two programs for the same period of time. For instance with Safari it will take either 34 bounces or 2 bounces to load, there?s no in-between. My first thought was that the hard drive went to sleep and had to spin back up, so I went into Energy Saver and told the computer not to put the hard drive to sleep. No change. I?ve talk to 2 other mac owners who have the same problem (one has an ibook, the other a Powerbook).

I?ve been running top on a terminal window to see if something?s eating up resources but any time it?s happened I?ve had well over 200 megs of ram free, and the processor has always been below 40%. Does anyone know what is causing this, and if so what can I do to fix it? I?m running 10.2.4, and everything is updated to the latest versions.

Thanks,

Physicsnerd
Click to expand...

Not sure if you got this fixed yet but I've had and seen this problem and it usually is do to net info being turned on. To check this go to Applications>Utilities>Directory Access. Under the services tab make sure net info is unchecked. Hope this helps :)
 
MacBandit:
"Go to your energy saver settings (I think this is the right place) there should be a setting for speed stepping or cpu speed or something."

Yea, i have it set to highest performance for AC and it still happens.

Bear:
"In System Preferences for Energy Saver, do you have "Put the hard disk to sleep whenever possible" selected? (Tik or check mark next to it.)"

I unchecked that box already, and it still was happening. Out of curiousity does anyone know how long a powerbook hard drive takes to wake up when this setting is turned on?

timbloom:

I have rebooted and have the hard drive sleep option disabled for both AC and Bat right now.

monkeydo_jb:

Checked, but I''ve got an epson and nothing in the background is eating up much CPU or RAM when it happens.

Skip:
"Not sure if you got this fixed yet but I've had and seen this problem and it usually is do to net info being turned on. To check this go to Applications>Utilities>Directory Access. Under the services tab make sure net info is unchecked. Hope this helps"

I checked and net info was on, i shut it off and so far the problem has gone away. Also, i've noticed faster load times since i did this. Explorer loads in 2 bounces, and it was taking 3 or 4 before. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this fixed it. Why does net info bog down the system so much?

I would like to thank everyone who's helped me with this problem. So far i'm really glad that i've switched to apple, and the community support is awsome. Thanks guys! Is there anyway to support macrumors? This is a very helpful site.

Physicsnerd
 
Re: Re: Slow program loading times under OSX on my 1ghz powerbook

Originally posted by Skip
Applications>Utilities>Directory Access. Under the services tab make sure net info is unchecked. Hope this helps :)
Click to expand...

what is netinfo and why should it be turned off? does it have anything to do w/ the NetInfo Manager in the utilities folder?
 
Net Info

Originally posted by physicsnerd
MacBandit:


Skip:
"Not sure if you got this fixed yet but I've had and seen this problem and it usually is do to net info being turned on. To check this go to Applications>Utilities>Directory Access. Under the services tab make sure net info is unchecked. Hope this helps"

I checked and net info was on, i shut it off and so far the problem has gone away. Also, i've noticed faster load times since i did this. Explorer loads in 2 bounces, and it was taking 3 or 4 before. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this fixed it. Why does net info bog down the system so much?

I would like to thank everyone who's helped me with this problem. So far i'm really glad that i've switched to apple, and the community support is awsome. Thanks guys! Is there anyway to support macrumors? This is a very helpful site.

Physicsnerd
Click to expand...

First off I'm glad I could help... I first noticed this when I did a clean install of Jaguar. For some reason Net Info got defaulted to on. Here is a description of Net info to help:

"NetInfo and LDAP are part of Open Directory, the built-in directory services that Mac OS X uses to store and retrieve information about your computer, its users, and the networks it's connected to.

Mac OS X and applications work with Open Directory behind the scenes. Unless you are setting up a network of servers and computers based on directory domains, you won't need to deal with NetInfo or LDAP directly.

If you do need help setting up directory services, open the Directory Access application and choose Directory Access Help from the Help menu."

Because certain applications are tied to net info when you try to launch them with net info on the system is looking for the net info configuration but because most of us would not use this or have it set up the system just hangs. It really makes you think that either your mac is really sick or that it just sucks... I wish there was better help for this because someone without much patience or knowledge might think that their mac does just suck :(
 
Re: Re: Re: Slow program loading times under OSX on my 1ghz powerbook

Originally posted by zimv20
what is netinfo and why should it be turned off? does it have anything to do w/ the NetInfo Manager in the utilities folder?
Click to expand...

I didn't think the NetInfo Manager has much too do with the Net Info in Directory Access but they might be tied together somewhat... I actually thought that the configuration part of net info was done from the Directory Access app. What I would really like to know is how the Net Info is getting turned on because it seems to do so automagically for the times I have seen it...
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Slow program loading times under OSX on my 1ghz powerbook

Originally posted by zimv20
awesome. that's one of my favorite consulting words.
Click to expand...

One of my favorite terms is FM. Like when someone asks how a certain processor works or something else that only the original designer truly knows you tell them it works on FM.

FM=***** Magic.
 
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