Trouble with older PowerBook G4

brclark82brclark82
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
I am having lots of trouble with my 4-5 year old PowerBook G4 running extremely slow. I did a complete restore to try to fix the issue and still no change. In the activity monitor, my CPU usage is constantly at 100% regardless of if I'm doing anything.



CPU usage:



% user- about 100%

% system- between 0-5%

% nice- 0%

% idle- 0%



System memory:



Free- ~190 MB

Wired- ~80 MB

Active- ~225 MB

Inactive- ~15 MB



VM size- 27.8 GB (this seems a little high, but maybe not)





I am running 10.5.6 with a G4 1.67 Ghz and 512MB Ram.



Any help would be appreciated.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    kareliakarelia Posts: 525member
    If you're already in Activity Monitor, switch the pull-down near the top to "All Processes", and click the "CPU %" column header to sort by CPU usage, and see what process is dominating your machine.
  • Reply 2 of 7
    brclark82brclark82 Posts: 182member
    Ok, thanks that actually helped me find it. It's Safari almost 95% CPU usage. And after I restarted it, it seems that it only happens when there is a flash based application on the webpage. Is the G4 really not powerful enough to handle flash? I could easily add more RAM but it seems that it's more of a proc issue.
  • Reply 3 of 7
    brclark82brclark82 Posts: 182member
    Well, I guess Safari is using over 200MB of memory while its open so that takes my available memory below 20MB, so maybe I would benefit from a ram upgrade but everything runs fine as long as there is no flash based apps on the page so it may be a waste of money. What do you guys think, should i try a ram upgrade or not?
  • Reply 4 of 7
    brclark82brclark82 Posts: 182member
    Actually if I quit safari and reopen it, it's only using 30MB ram. When I go to a page with flash it jumps to over 200MB and then stays there regardless if i go to a different webpage until i quit and reopen. Is there something I can do to fix this or is it just something i have to deal with using an older computer.



    Also, I did go to adobe's website and made sure i have the most up to date flash player so that's not the issue.
  • Reply 5 of 7
    timmmytimmmy Posts: 69member
    Unfortunately, this is typical behavior for the Flash plugin in Safari.

    Even viewing a webpage with a Flash advert can send the CPU to 100%



    Adobe Flash on the Mac simply sucks!



    Try ClickToFlash

    It will let you decide what Flash elements to load on a given page.
  • Reply 6 of 7
    brclark82brclark82 Posts: 182member
    Thanks for the info. I just checked on my C2D with 2GB MB Pro and even though I don't notice a slowdown, when looking in activity monitor the cpu usage spikes as well as memory usage. That kinda sucks
  • Reply 7 of 7
    kingofsomewherehotkingofsomewherehot Posts: 4,180member
    RAM will help... (I've a 1.5 G4 PBook with 1.5 GB ram)... but ClickToFlash is even better ... I've even got it running on my C2D iMac now.
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