New Macbook 2.4ghz... laggy?
I recently sold my 2nd generation Macbook (2ghz, 2gb ram, 100gb HD) and purchased a new one (2.4ghz, 2gb ram, 250gb hd). One of my reasons of selling it was that my work with Adobe products were increasing and its performance less than desirable, although it did run fine for normal tasks.
My new MB arrived today, and for the $2800NZ I spent on it, the least I can say is that I'm disappointed. On a brand new Leopard installation, with literally 0 applications installed, its performance is laggy, slow, and stuttery.
For example, it stutters on tasks like:
- Dragging a window
- Typing
- Hovering the dock
- Moving the cursor across text (using keyboard)
However, I have noticed that things like Expose and Spaces do perform like they're expected -- smoothly -- so it almost seems like there is a setting I haven't turned on or the NVidia graphics card only partly works for some applications, because I have no idea how to explain it.
FYI, here are the performance results from Xbench:
Results\t18.07\t
\tSystem Info\t\t
\t\tXbench Version\t\t1.3
\t\tSystem Version\t\t10.5.5 (9F2533)
\t\tPhysical RAM\t\t2048 MB
\t\tModel\t\tMacBook5,1
\t\tDrive Type\t\tFUJITSU MHZ2250BH FFS G1
\tCPU Test\t149.86\t
\t\tGCD Loop\t273.27\t14.40 Mops/sec
\t\tFloating Point Basic\t116.21\t2.76 Gflop/sec
\t\tvecLib FFT\t110.99\t3.66 Gflop/sec
\t\tFloating Point Library\t184.61\t32.15 Mops/sec
\tThread Test\t316.28\t
\t\tComputation\t447.57\t9.07 Mops/sec, 4 threads
\t\tLock Contention\t244.55\t10.52 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
\tMemory Test\t172.54\t
\t\tSystem\t189.16\t
\t\t\tAllocate\t222.10\t815.63 Kalloc/sec
\t\t\tFill\t163.48\t7948.99 MB/sec
\t\t\tCopy\t190.81\t3941.19 MB/sec
\t\tStream\t158.60\t
\t\t\tCopy\t152.99\t3159.85 MB/sec
\t\t\tScale\t147.84\t3054.29 MB/sec
\t\t\tAdd\t167.22\t3562.17 MB/sec
\t\t\tTriad\t168.38\t3602.00 MB/sec
\tQuartz Graphics Test\t19.03\t
\t\tLine\t25.05\t1.67 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
\t\tRectangle\t8.53\t2.55 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
\t\tCircle\t13.99\t1.14 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
\t\tBezier\t68.40\t1.73 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
\t\tText\t51.33\t3.21 Kchars/sec
\tOpenGL Graphics Test\t93.99\t
\t\tSpinning Squares\t93.99\t119.23 frames/sec
\tUser Interface Test\t3.46\t
\t\tElements\t3.46\t15.87 refresh/sec
\tDisk Test\t51.81\t
\t\tSequential\t73.44\t
\t\t\tUncached Write\t96.95\t59.53 MB/sec [4K blocks]
\t\t\tUncached Write\t93.09\t52.67 MB/sec [256K blocks]
\t\t\tUncached Read\t42.15\t12.34 MB/sec [4K blocks]
\t\t\tUncached Read\t103.24\t51.89 MB/sec [256K blocks]
\t\tRandom\t40.02\t
\t\t\tUncached Write\t15.25\t1.61 MB/sec [4K blocks]
\t\t\tUncached Write\t92.10\t29.49 MB/sec [256K blocks]
\t\t\tUncached Read\t67.78\t0.48 MB/sec [4K blocks]
\t\t\tUncached Read\t113.93\t21.14 MB/sec [256K blocks]
My new MB arrived today, and for the $2800NZ I spent on it, the least I can say is that I'm disappointed. On a brand new Leopard installation, with literally 0 applications installed, its performance is laggy, slow, and stuttery.
For example, it stutters on tasks like:
- Dragging a window
- Typing
- Hovering the dock
- Moving the cursor across text (using keyboard)
However, I have noticed that things like Expose and Spaces do perform like they're expected -- smoothly -- so it almost seems like there is a setting I haven't turned on or the NVidia graphics card only partly works for some applications, because I have no idea how to explain it.
FYI, here are the performance results from Xbench:
Results\t18.07\t
\tSystem Info\t\t
\t\tXbench Version\t\t1.3
\t\tSystem Version\t\t10.5.5 (9F2533)
\t\tPhysical RAM\t\t2048 MB
\t\tModel\t\tMacBook5,1
\t\tDrive Type\t\tFUJITSU MHZ2250BH FFS G1
\tCPU Test\t149.86\t
\t\tGCD Loop\t273.27\t14.40 Mops/sec
\t\tFloating Point Basic\t116.21\t2.76 Gflop/sec
\t\tvecLib FFT\t110.99\t3.66 Gflop/sec
\t\tFloating Point Library\t184.61\t32.15 Mops/sec
\tThread Test\t316.28\t
\t\tComputation\t447.57\t9.07 Mops/sec, 4 threads
\t\tLock Contention\t244.55\t10.52 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
\tMemory Test\t172.54\t
\t\tSystem\t189.16\t
\t\t\tAllocate\t222.10\t815.63 Kalloc/sec
\t\t\tFill\t163.48\t7948.99 MB/sec
\t\t\tCopy\t190.81\t3941.19 MB/sec
\t\tStream\t158.60\t
\t\t\tCopy\t152.99\t3159.85 MB/sec
\t\t\tScale\t147.84\t3054.29 MB/sec
\t\t\tAdd\t167.22\t3562.17 MB/sec
\t\t\tTriad\t168.38\t3602.00 MB/sec
\tQuartz Graphics Test\t19.03\t
\t\tLine\t25.05\t1.67 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
\t\tRectangle\t8.53\t2.55 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
\t\tCircle\t13.99\t1.14 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
\t\tBezier\t68.40\t1.73 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
\t\tText\t51.33\t3.21 Kchars/sec
\tOpenGL Graphics Test\t93.99\t
\t\tSpinning Squares\t93.99\t119.23 frames/sec
\tUser Interface Test\t3.46\t
\t\tElements\t3.46\t15.87 refresh/sec
\tDisk Test\t51.81\t
\t\tSequential\t73.44\t
\t\t\tUncached Write\t96.95\t59.53 MB/sec [4K blocks]
\t\t\tUncached Write\t93.09\t52.67 MB/sec [256K blocks]
\t\t\tUncached Read\t42.15\t12.34 MB/sec [4K blocks]
\t\t\tUncached Read\t103.24\t51.89 MB/sec [256K blocks]
\t\tRandom\t40.02\t
\t\t\tUncached Write\t15.25\t1.61 MB/sec [4K blocks]
\t\t\tUncached Write\t92.10\t29.49 MB/sec [256K blocks]
\t\t\tUncached Read\t67.78\t0.48 MB/sec [4K blocks]
\t\t\tUncached Read\t113.93\t21.14 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Comments
\tQuartz Graphics Test\t19.03\t
\t\tLine\t25.05\t1.67 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
\t\tRectangle\t8.53\t2.55 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
\t\tCircle\t13.99\t1.14 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
\t\tBezier\t68.40\t1.73 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
\t\tText\t51.33\t3.21 Kchars/sec
\tUser Interface Test\t3.46\t
\t\tElements\t3.46\t15.87 refresh/sec
These scores are way off. The first one (19.03) should be above 170, the second (3.46) should be about 270.
Firstly, try rebooting holding the shift key and run XBench there to see if there is any difference. If not, reboot again and run Disk Utility to repair permissions, check again. If there is still no change, you should do an archive install from your installation disc.
the archive & install should be ok, but I would do a backup of the important stuff & start completely over, or do a time machine & only load in the personal acct stuff like docs or pics, reload the software manually.