Mac: doing very little, but very slow.
I'm currently browsing Appleinsider on a single page and a few tabs in Safari, no other processes running (except terminal, for top, no Classic). My Mac's hard drive is grinding away and typed text takes about 2s to appear. My Mac is a Rev. A 12" PowerBook, 640MB RAM, 10.3.
Comments
top
That will tell you what is using the most processing power in your computer (activity monitor will give you the same info).
Activity monitor will also tell you the I/O of your HD, so you might want to check that out too.
Edit: One more thing, in Terminal, also type:
diskutil info disk0
And look at the line that says "SMART Status:"
If after that line it says anything but "verified" you're in trouble. Backup now and don't use your computer unless you have to until you get a new HD or take it to an Apple store.
There's a graphical wrapper for top called "BigTop", in Mac OS or the Developer Tools.
Originally posted by DMBand0026
...
One more thing, in Terminal, also type:
Code:
diskutil info disk0
And look at the line that says "SMART Status:"
If after that line it says anything but "verified" you're in trouble.
I was just curious about what would appear on my Terminal.
I typed as recommended and that is the result:
Uwe-Knotts-Computer:~ Boss$ diskutil info disk0
Device Node: /dev/disk0
Device Identifier: disk0
Mount Point:
Volume Name:
Partition Type: Apple_partition_scheme
Bootable: Not bootable
Media Type: Generic
Protocol: ATA
SMART Status: Verified
Total Size: 7.0 GB
Free Space: 0.0 B
Read Only: No
Ejectable: No
OS 9 Drivers: Yes
Low Level Format: Not Supported
SMART Status: Verified
What the heck does that mean?
you should have at least 700megs of free space at all times...
"Verified" means that your drive is fine (as far as SMART can tell).
My Mac's doing it again: I'm having flashback to typing on an LC II here. Safari is taking 80% CPU when I'm typing, and text takes a couple of seconds to appear.
Originally posted by Vox Barbara
[snip]
SMART Status: Verified
What the heck does that mean?
In short, it means that your drive isn't going to fail. The only reason you should ever worry about it is if it doesn't say "verified". SMART is a way of checking the physical state of your hard drive.
If you ever see something there that doesn't say "verified", immediately back up all your data and don't use the computer unless you absolutely need to until you've replaced the HD or taken it to an Apple Store.
Originally posted by Stoo
top reports that Safari is taking 60% CPU time, no other major processes. The cause of the grinding appears to be pageins/pageouts, which is disconcerting.
There's a graphical wrapper for top called "BigTop", in Mac OS or the Developer Tools.
Er, you could also just use Process Viewer in /Applications/Utilities... it's precisely that, a GUI wrapper over top. A little nicer to use, too.
What *is* your free space like on your disk? (And yes, Safari 1.2 has some *ahem* issues when typing text into a text field, the silly bugger.)
Originally posted by Paul
it means that you have to get a bigger hard drive....
you should have at least 700megs of free space at all times...
Yes paul, i will give my beloved little beast (imac g3) what it deserves - soon, promised
Clearing Safari's (application and browser) cache seems to have done the trick.