Slow Degradation

hledgardhledgard
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
I have a PB G4, 1.5 GHz, 1.25 GB ram.



Over time, it seems to be going slower and slower. The same happened to my previous iBook. The spinning circle appears too often.



Is this because apps are becoming more complex? Are there likely to be hidden apps that have been inadvertently downloaded? Is the Internet slower or more complex? Is it a disk problem? Should I re-install OS X? A clean install?



Thanks !

Dr. L

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 3
    s.metcalfs.metcalf Posts: 972member
    Tell us what apps you are running and we can respond. The spinning circle suggests deep system-related activity like virtual memory activity. OS X doesn't tend to suffer the same crippling slow-downs as Windows though a regular (once a month or so) system clean does seem to help prevent degradation in performance. There are plenty of system maintenance utilities that help to keep your system lean and mean. Try a full system clean with "MainMenu" and see if that helps.



    http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/17111/mainmenu



    If anything you might get back a fair bit of space from accumulated cache files. There shouldn't be hidden apps but check Activity Monitor if you're worried. A disc problem wouldn't have symptoms like that. A full reinstall isn't necessary unless your system is really screwed (if your only symptoms are slow-downs then it isn't).



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hledgard View Post


    I have a PB G4, 1.5 GHz, 1.25 GB ram.



    Over time, it seems to be going slower and slower. The same happened to my previous iBook. The spinning circle appears too often.



    Is this because apps are becoming more complex? Are there likely to be hidden apps that have been inadvertently downloaded? Is the Internet slower or more complex? Is it a disk problem? Should I re-install OS X? A clean install?



    Thanks !

    Dr. L



  • Reply 2 of 3
    mlondonmlondon Posts: 26member
    How much free space do you have on your drive? OS X needs plenty of room for creating virtual memory files. If you drop below a certain amount, you will be swapping files constantly which will slow things down. I try to keep at least 20GB of free space on my boot drive.
  • Reply 3 of 3
    hledgardhledgard Posts: 265member
    33 GB free space. I just ran mainmenu and cleaned the caches. We will see.



    Thanks !
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