why is this happening???

[icesac26]

I recently reformatted my HD on my eMac 1.25 because of some other stuff, but this problem is back, and almost seem like w/ a vengence. Now this was not the reason I reformated, I attributed it to how low my HD space was, but it is running really slow even with one program open. Now when I got this it didn't run this bad, and I have not really added most of the programs back on. B4 I had about 5 Gigs of space left, now I have 23 gigs left. still at 256 RAM. Please do not tell me to buy more ram. I only say this because I know it and plan to do so in a couple months (just can't afford it right now-bills and all). Please give me some advice.

Thanks in advance,

Donny

 

[Mpulsive81]

I recently reformatted my HD on my eMac 1.25 because of some other stuff, but this problem is back, and almost seem like w/ a vengence. Now this was not the reason I reformated, I attributed it to how low my HD space was, but it is running really slow even with one program open. Now when I got this it didn't run this bad, and I have not really added most of the programs back on. B4 I had about 5 Gigs of space left, now I have 23 gigs left. still at 256 RAM. Please do not tell me to buy more ram. I only say this because I know it and plan to do so in a couple months (just can't afford it right now-bills and all). Please give me some advice.

Thanks in advance,

Donny

I know you don't wanna hear about the RAM but 256 is pushing it a bit, especially if you have integrated graphics. If you're insistant that it may be the hdd, a couple of troubleshooting questions I would ask up front are 1) what is the speed of the hdd? 2) have you tried another hdd? 3) do you have any programs running in the background that would affect the performance? have you checked the hdd for defects itself? Hopefully those questions may lead you to the answer of whether or not is the hdd giving you problems or if it's going to be a memory issue.

 

[WildCowboy]

It's the advice you don't want to hear...your RAM is definitely what's holding you back. 256 MB isn't nearly enough to run OS X well. Minimum 512 MB, but 1 GB is better.

 

[Mpulsive81]

Also, when you say you're reformatting, are you doing a fresh install of OSX or are you reverting back to a previous backup? That may be an important aspect as well.

 

[brianus]

Are you running Panther or Tiger? I seem to recall Apple bumping the base RAM on their offerings to 512MB shortly after Tiger came out; there must have been a reason for that. If you recently upgraded from your eMac model's native Panther, maybe that has made the RAM more of an issue.