Pokey new Imac
Hi everyone,
I got a new imac about 2 weeks to replace my PC at work.
Can anyone shed some light on ways to tweak the speed of the new imac. While I have not timed it, it does run noticeably slower than my powerbook g4 or my g4/500 desktop at home. I can't help but feel somehting is wrong.
The only difference in system configuration, beside from the obvious 800 mhz processor is that I have the imac set to boot os9 during startup. Could this be the difference in general performance? All three machines of mine have 512meg of ram, so why is the imac the slowest of the three?
I read on another thread where setting the desktop theme to a solid color makes things a bit faster -and I have a solid desktop on my other two machines. So maybe this makes a difference?
Anyone have any suggestions/comments.
I got a new imac about 2 weeks to replace my PC at work.
Can anyone shed some light on ways to tweak the speed of the new imac. While I have not timed it, it does run noticeably slower than my powerbook g4 or my g4/500 desktop at home. I can't help but feel somehting is wrong.
The only difference in system configuration, beside from the obvious 800 mhz processor is that I have the imac set to boot os9 during startup. Could this be the difference in general performance? All three machines of mine have 512meg of ram, so why is the imac the slowest of the three?
I read on another thread where setting the desktop theme to a solid color makes things a bit faster -and I have a solid desktop on my other two machines. So maybe this makes a difference?
Anyone have any suggestions/comments.
Comments
Are you running OS X? Are you comparing OS X on the iMac to OS 9 on the other machines?
You might try some housekeeping. Boot OS 9 and rebuild the desktop. Go to Version tracker for OS X and get MacJanitor. It lets you invoke some OS X housekeeping scripts.
Someone else may suggest how to invoke the routine that does the prebinding in OS X. I think there is one in Version Tracker. I'm just wondering out loud whether the systems that ship with OS X preinstalled have been as optimized as systems that are upgraded in the field?
Is there something particular that is slow or just everything?
I can try not running it, but the 5250 terminal emulation program for our company's as400 needs this software and it is only for os9 at the moment.
What do you think I should do? I would like to avoid playing with the command line -that scares me since I have played with unix since college.
Nearly every operation is slower on my new imac, but I really notice it when more than one app is running, particularly Office.vx. If I launch virtual PC for X, I have to make sure everything else is off or it gets to be impossible.
<strong>I don't see much of an impact when classic is running on any of my machines. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>
A lot of times I do.
Thanks!
Processes: 39 total, 2 running, 37 sleeping... 114 threads 22:05:08
Load Avg: 0.65, 0.32, 0.31 CPU usage: 3.7% user, 7.3% sys, 89.0% idle
SharedLibs: num = 97, resident = 22.7M code, 1.54M data, 5.63M LinkEdit
MemRegions: num = 2053, resident = 49.9M + 5.17M private, 36.5M shared
PhysMem: 54.0M wired, 69.3M active, 189M inactive, 312M used, 328M free
VM: 1.01G + 45.4M 6162(0) pageins, 0(0) pageouts
PID COMMAND %CPU TIME #TH #PRTS #MREGS RPRVT RSHRD RSIZE VSIZE
512 top 7.3% 0:02.88 1 14 14 192K 320K 432K 1.37M
506 Terminal 2.7% 0:05.62 4 68 205 2.33M 6.98M 4.91M 67.9M
68 Window Man 0.9% 4:50:33 3 103 123 2.05M 14.7M 16.1M 41.3M
440 Internet E 0.0% 18:07.22 8 100 206 16.1M 16.9M 25.8M 91.7M
298 Dock 0.0% 15:51.16 3 97 101 2.23M 6.58M 4.66M 63.5M
0 kernel_tas 0.0% 10:52.05 25 0 - - - 37.4M 425M
299 SystemUISe 0.0% 0:30.00 3 131 127 1.60M 5.70M 3.24M 65.6M
290 slpd 0.0% 0:25.96 8 29 28 184K 468K 536K 4.99M
224 AppleFileS 0.0% 0:22.45 12 87 49 640K 880K 1.43M 8.75M
123 configd 0.0% 0:14.46 4 84 122 320K 1.21M 1.42M 3.48M
66 ATSServer 0.0% 0:11.53 1 32 75 492K 2.42M 1.75M 15.3M
265 httpd 0.0% 0:09.61 1 9 66 56K 1.21M 1008K 2.38M
70 update 0.0% 0:08.58 1 8 13 56K 288K 100K 1.25M
2 mach_init 0.0% 0:08.24 1 77 12 52K 312K 140K 1.27M
297 Finder 0.0% 0:07.51 2 75 132 16.8M 13.0M 25.2M 87.6M
top -u
Anyway, here is my Imac top-u report. I did immediately notice that the system is using more ram (probably due to os9) but it still shouldn't be slower than my powerbook or desktop g4. This new machine is beautiful and people really stop by my office to look at it, but it is embarrassing when it takes so long to pull up a spreadsheet, not to mentioning annoying... Thanks everyone for your help and I eagerly await your suggestions.
Processes: 43 total, 3 running, 40 sleeping... 125 threads 09:24:35
Processes: 43 total, 3 running, 40 sleeping... 125 threads 09:24:43
Processes: 43 total, 3 running, 40 sleeping... 125 threads 09:24:45
Load Avg: 0.29, 0.45, 0.51 CPU usage: 4.6% user, 7.3% sys, 88.1% idle
SharedLibs: num = 120, resident = 21.8M code, 1.55M data, 5.91M LinkEdit
MemRegions: num = 2589, resident = 37.9M + 3.96M private, 28.2M shared
PhysMem: 46.8M wired, 94.7M active, 93.8M inactive, 235M used, 277M free
VM: 2.65G + 52.9M 58388(0) pageins, 61798(0) pageouts
PID COMMAND %CPU TIME #TH #PRTS #MREGS RPRVT RSHRD RSIZE VSIZE
679 top 8.2% 0:01.45 1 14 14 200K 292K 440K 1.37M
304 TruBlueEnv 1.8% 27:28.83 18 191 251 8.13M 3.43M 9.78M 1.07G
72 Window Man 0.9% 90:56.22 3 146 242 2.68M 6.31M 8.04M 47.8M
673 Terminal 0.9% 0:01.89 4 68 127 1.84M 7.25M 4.45M+ 82.4M
301 Palm Deskt 0.0% 28:59.92 1 50 70 428K 4.25M 732K 72.0M
0 kernel_tas 0.0% 20:36.98 23 0 - - - 35.0M 513M
296 Dock 0.0% 11:23.42 3 119 138 3.02M 6.44M 4.02M 78.6M
303 Microsoft 0.0% 7:02.90 2 75 102 1.82M 9.51M 2.52M 80.6M
307 FaxJobMgr 0.0% 2:52.91 6 118 81 1.77M 4.98M 1.51M 63.9M
74 update 0.0% 1:05.17 1 8 13 12K 252K 28K 1.25M
288 slpd 0.0% 0:48.04 8 29 28 64K 384K 172K 4.99M
297 SystemUISe 0.0% 0:45.40 2 112 127 1.24M 5.73M 1.32M 79.1M
284 loginwindo 0.0% 0:38.50 7 150 155 2.32M 6.16M 3.09M 67.9M
219 ntpd 0.0% 0:31.07 1 9 15 48K 312K 116K 1.49M
[edit: you seem to have an awful lot of pageouts for 512 megs of RAM. I'm not sure what could be causing that. Anyone know?]
[ 03-12-2002: Message edited by: torifile ]</p>
That line tells you what has been moved from real RAM into swap space on your hard drive. The real RAM is MUCH, MUCH faster to access than your hard drive, so it's always the best bet. That's the reason OS X is so much better with more RAM. The more real ram it has, the less it has to swap out. For some reason, your computer is doing a lot more swapping than I've seen on my 2 OS X computers with less RAM. I may be wrong here, but that could be the problem. So see how slow it can be, launch a big program (like Illustrator or Word) and leave alone for a while. Continue using your computer. It will eventually be moved out of the ram into the swap space on your hard drive. Then switch to that program. It takes a pretty long time to load up. What does that tell us? Well, not a whole lot, but it at least explains some of the slowness.
I wish someone who knew more about this would come into this thread. starfleetX comes to mind. Maybe you could change the thread title to say something like "starfleetx, I need help!" and he'd come in. I dunno. We'll figure it out eventually.
"Master" of the Mac :cool:
<strong>Hey, This is master. I'm love computers. I study macs all the time. I know alot about them. If you have any questions please ask and I will try my best to answer them. Almost everything on the mac I know and how to fix; operating systems, hardware, some software, you name it.
"Master" of the Mac :cool: </strong><hr></blockquote>
yet you were completely useless for answering the question of topic
Torifile, could this excessive swap-out mean that my additional ram is somehow defective?
Have you tried taking out the extra ram? It may not be the problem, but it's worth a try. Try out the computer w/o the extra ram and see if that helps.
[ 03-13-2002: Message edited by: torifile ]</p>
I did find a strange bug in Office.v where it suddenly quits if I just type the letter "f" in the send to email address line when composing an email. -Though i doubt this has anything to do with the memory...
I'd also track CPU usage with the CPU monitor application in your utilities folder. Have it display a graph over time in the dock. Then, you can see if any application spikes the CPU for times now and then (like Office apps do on my iBook). This could cause your computer to quit being responsive for periods of time as an application hogs the CPU.
Do you typically have a CD in the iMac? I have seen where the computer is really dumb and spins up a CD just to "see" what is there randomly. This action slows down a computer as well. Culprits of needlessly spinning up the CD drive are the Finder and Netscape. Other culprits exist as well.