System running extremely slow

[MarkW19]

I'm hoping someone can help me.

I've got a 1.8ghz G5, with 1.5GB RAM, running OS 10.4.9. I don't do much on my Mac - email, MSN, iTunes, occassionally Photoshop. The following happens even when hardly anything is running:-

For the last couple of months, the OS has been running extremely slowly. It takes ages for a lot of things to happen, and there's a lot of hard drive activity/noise, just continously, for no apparently reason.

For instance, when switching users in fast user switching, it takes a long time to change over (with a lot of hard drive noise). Also when opening an application, often Safari, it takes a long time for the browser window to come up, often meaning I have to force quit and start again.

The same thing is also happening on my other 2 user accounts, so it's not just mine.

I've tried repairing permissions, but it doesn't seem to have improved anything. I also have 9GB spare on my main HD.

Can anyone help me get my computer back to the responsive, smooth, quick system it used to be?!

Please help.

Mark

 

[mad jew]

What third party apps are you running? If you open Activity Monitor, are there any standout processes using up a lot of your resources, or marked red to show they're hanging? Have you tried verifying your hard drive with Disk Utility, and if necessary repairing it? Do you have any peripherals plugged in?

 

[MarkW19]

What third party apps are you running? If you open Activity Monitor, are there any standout processes using up a lot of your resources, or marked red to show they're hanging? Have you tried verifying your hard drive with Disk Utility, and if necessary repairing it? Do you have any peripherals plugged in?

Thanks for the reply. I'm hardly running any third party apps, certainly no more than I have been doing over the past 6 months (when everything was OK).

Activity Monitor is open now, and showing the top process as only using 8% of the CPU (safari or MSN Messenger). Nothing is red. I'll keep an eye on this and look at it if/when I get the harddrive activity/slowness problem again, and see what's actually happening. Also, Memory: Wired: 190mb, Active: 880mb, Inactive: 433mb, Free: 34mb, VM Size: 16gb. Does all this look ok?

Just verified/repaired the hard drive now, will see how it goes.

Only peripheral I have plugged in is a Canon printer (which is always turned off unless in use!).

Thanks,

Mark

 

[Father Jack]

sorry disregard .... I'm talking crap ... again !!

FJ

 

[mad jew]

When you made that last post, was the system acting slow? Also, did the disk verify say that everything passed, or did it need repairing?