Startup is being ridiculously slow

[loudguitars]

Hi guys, I was hoping someone here might have a clue on how to deal with this without disabling my antivirus software...

I'm running 10.3.5 and my computer runs deathly slow at startup. It takes about five minutes before it even gets to the blue screen, then about 10-15 more once everything's loaded before it actually starts running as it should.

Normally I only restart it once a week but I've had to restart a bunch of times in the last few days and this is really beginning to irritate me. I've got a couple of suspects:

- My antivirus software. I'm running Norton 2003, and I've got it set to LiveUpdate once a day. When I restart, it runs LiveUpdate even if it's run earlier that day, and it runs at the speed of molasses when it does. I can't figure out how to turn it off.

- SETI@home. I had this screensaver for a while until I suspected it as the cause of the problem, so I tried uninstalling it. When the uninstaller gave me an error, I manually deleted all the files (yes, I know that was dumb), and I think I might have missed something.

- Palm Desktop background. I'm running a slightly old version of palm desktop to work with my creaky Clié, and the problem is particularly bad when I get a "Palm desktop background I/O error" message.

I've got a G4 1.25ghz powerbook here...i've got a similarly equipped eMac at work and it has nothing even remotely resembling this problem. It starts up in thirty seconds flat, and runs great immediately thereafter, and it's not running any of those three programs.

Any suggestions whatsoever on how to unf*ck this would be greatly appreciated, but those that don't involve doing an archive and install or disabling the antivirus software will be far more enthusiastically recieved.

 

[paxtonandrew]

How much space have you got left on your Hard Disc? Macs tend to run slow when the hard disc runs out of space, and this could be the source of the problem. Your eMac is saving all of the data acquired on it onto an external data source, i.e. a file server or an external hard disc, and there will be no worries of filling up the internal Hard Disc.

I have folding@home on all of my OsX equipped Macs, and there is no slow down, even on my B&W G3, which is running at a stately 350MHz.

Unfortunately a software reinstall may be the best option of fixing your computer, as much as you dislike to hear it.


Hope this helps.

 

[munkle]

I would do the usual repair permissions and then check what items you have opening up during start up (system preferences/accounts/startup items under your name).

As paxtonandrew said HD space could be a factor as well but my 1GHz 12" PB starts up quick and I've only got about 4gigs to spare at the moment. I think Norton could be the culprit, there seems to have been lots of bad reports regarding their software for the Mac. Try disabling and see if that helps - if so, I would strongly consider ditching it. Put up your firewalls and good 'ol common sense goes a long way, relax you're using a Mac after all!

 

[loudguitars]

Well, it's not the drive space, since I've got about 20 gigs free. The eMac at work actually has most of its data stored on its hard drive, so I was actually already pretty sure that wasn't it.

Here's what's in the startup list:
- HP director
- Palm Desktop Background
- something with a palm logo called Transport Monitor
- iCal alarm scheduler
- Weather Pop (checks weather like weatherbug).

As I said, even after the computer starts up, it runs atrociously slow. I may try disabling the virus software tonight when I get home, but I'd love to hear any more suggestions you fine folks have.

 

[cluthz]

Reinstall Panther (Clean install with archiving th users).
I think that will fix it.

 

[kettle]

Reinstall Panther (Clean install with archiving th users).
I think that will fix it.

The problem is we won't ever know what it fixed. I suppose someone will suggest buying a new Mac if the clean install doesn't work.


I'd start by removing stuff from the /Library/StartupItems/ directory at the root level of yor startup directory. From what you've said I'd look for something palm related in there.