My dad was telling me one day that the mini PPC was running slow. He told me to find the disk so he could start over again and reinstall. So I did and I backed up almost everything (I forgot quicken stuff oops) and reinstalled it. After that it ran great like new which was not unexpected. The computer is only a year old. It has the 1.42 Ghz and 512 mb ram. Now when I used it which that started to decline because I got my macbook for school I noticed that it did run slower then when we first got it or after the reinstall. Now what could have happened. He kept saying it might be a virus, but I told him that this was a mac and that was almost impossible. The only thing I could think of is that there was alot of stuff in documents but not that much maybe 10 gigs of stuff and some programs like Microsoft office, Tiger Woods 05, Google Earth, Quicken, and some other stuff. It had the lastest updates installed. I still can't think of what could of been making the computer run slower that it was able to be noticed.
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Virus No I am not kidding!
- Thread starter shujin
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OK, it isn't a virus.
Over time, any computer will slow down, noticeably or not, as the disk becomes more fragmented, as more applications are loaded at boot and login time, as the drive fills up and so virtual memory swaps take longer, etc. Reinstalling the OS effectively resets the clock to zero.
On a system with minimal RAM, this is more noticeable sooner, both because swapping occurs more frequently and because those boot and login apps/applets/services eat into available memory. As you fill up the disk, swapping also becomes more tedious.
So...
When you reinstall, open up Applications->Utilities->Activity Monitor and see what's running and what the default CPU and RAM usage tends to be.
Do that again when it seems slow. I'll bet that both more things are running (Office, for example, starts some stuff up that you might not realize) and that you're swapping more often.
Over time, any computer will slow down, noticeably or not, as the disk becomes more fragmented, as more applications are loaded at boot and login time, as the drive fills up and so virtual memory swaps take longer, etc. Reinstalling the OS effectively resets the clock to zero.
On a system with minimal RAM, this is more noticeable sooner, both because swapping occurs more frequently and because those boot and login apps/applets/services eat into available memory. As you fill up the disk, swapping also becomes more tedious.
So...
When you reinstall, open up Applications->Utilities->Activity Monitor and see what's running and what the default CPU and RAM usage tends to be.
Do that again when it seems slow. I'll bet that both more things are running (Office, for example, starts some stuff up that you might not realize) and that you're swapping more often.
Now Mac OS X does defrag files that are 20MB? 25MB or larger.
You can purchase a defragmenting program if you want to defrag files less than 20MB. But I feel that isn't necessary.
Now what I would have done is downloaded and ran Onyx. Onyx will fix your machine great. Be sure to repair permissions and all that.
Now for the virus thing, the only only only kinds of viruses macs get are Java viruses, but those don't have sevre impacts on the system. Also, by the way, the first Mac OS X virus, well... let's just say, it was a complete and total dud. It didn't work, it failed, the programmer programmed it wrong. Its very very very difficult to make a virus for Mac OS X, bc there are tons of changes in the system always. Not major, but enough to make it hard to pin-point viruses. So let your dad know that Viruses are basically non-exsistant on macs, and that Java viruses can't do any sort of sevre damage.
Hope that helps you out.
EDIT: Having the latest updates will help you to stop slowdowns and that.
That's the first thing PC users jump to is a virus. Also spyware, Macs are built strong, so they don't/won't have viruses or spyware.
Besides with the mac community someone would report a virus to Apple and apple would throw out a security fix to protect you from it.
You can purchase a defragmenting program if you want to defrag files less than 20MB. But I feel that isn't necessary.
Now what I would have done is downloaded and ran Onyx. Onyx will fix your machine great. Be sure to repair permissions and all that.
Now for the virus thing, the only only only kinds of viruses macs get are Java viruses, but those don't have sevre impacts on the system. Also, by the way, the first Mac OS X virus, well... let's just say, it was a complete and total dud. It didn't work, it failed, the programmer programmed it wrong. Its very very very difficult to make a virus for Mac OS X, bc there are tons of changes in the system always. Not major, but enough to make it hard to pin-point viruses. So let your dad know that Viruses are basically non-exsistant on macs, and that Java viruses can't do any sort of sevre damage.
Hope that helps you out.
EDIT: Having the latest updates will help you to stop slowdowns and that.
Electro Funk said:
That's the first thing PC users jump to is a virus. Also spyware, Macs are built strong, so they don't/won't have viruses or spyware.
Besides with the mac community someone would report a virus to Apple and apple would throw out a security fix to protect you from it.
Mac OS X is the strong one in the virus resisting area. The Macs are just built pretty and speedy. I know that's what you meant though.slooksterPSV said:
Daniel.
i always found that it was in the java cache file that made my ibook slow down and that fixed up most of my problems, if that didnt i did an archive and install and it all worked
I knew that it couldn't be a virus. I think my dad is just working on his dell at work all day and thinks that the mini has the same problems his dell does. Thanks, I downloaded onyx on my computer and I will dothe same to his. I just have to mess with it first to see what it does.
Items on your desktop will cause a lot of slowdowns. Every icon on your desktop is like a Window, if you make 200 new finder windows, your computer will slow down, same ideal works with icons on your desktop. 200 icons on your desktop is like 200 finder windows. So make a folder and move all your stuff into it.
Check what's opening at login. It's in your accounts preferences under Login items (or a synonym..)