iMac very slow after a few hours' use, especially when using Photoshop
Hi all,
I have a fairly new iMac (mid-2008 20" model) with a 2.4ghz Intel processor. I am a web designer and use this machine every day for my work. Several months after installing Adobe Creative Suite 3, I noticed that Photoshop was causing the cursor to jump and/or become jerky, as if the video card or processor were not keeping up with what's going on. This tends to happen after the computer's been in use for several hours or days after a restart. I have been following this in Leopard's Activity Monitor, and I noticed that Photoshop (being memory- and processor- hungry) taxes the processor more heavily than many other programs, which I expected. The strange thing, though, is that over time the Activity Monitor shows the "System" as taking up more and more processor capacity. I.E. when I first start up, the system is using 0-20% of the processor, the rest being available for the user; but after awhile, the system is requiring 50-90% of processor capacity, the result being that as soon as I switch into Photoshop from another program, the system is immediately overtaxed and starts moving very slowly (especially the cursor, as I said).
Now, here's the really strange part. As I said, this began happening a few months after I first installed Adobe CS3. I re-installed the software at Adobe's recommendation, and it was fine for another few months, but it began happening a few days ago, which is exactly the same time I shared a jump drive with a friend's worm-infected Windows XP machine. I know Macs don't get Windows worms, but is it possible that this thing has lodged itself on my system somehow and is causing it to run generally more slowly?
I appreciate any help you can give,
Nathan
I have a fairly new iMac (mid-2008 20" model) with a 2.4ghz Intel processor. I am a web designer and use this machine every day for my work. Several months after installing Adobe Creative Suite 3, I noticed that Photoshop was causing the cursor to jump and/or become jerky, as if the video card or processor were not keeping up with what's going on. This tends to happen after the computer's been in use for several hours or days after a restart. I have been following this in Leopard's Activity Monitor, and I noticed that Photoshop (being memory- and processor- hungry) taxes the processor more heavily than many other programs, which I expected. The strange thing, though, is that over time the Activity Monitor shows the "System" as taking up more and more processor capacity. I.E. when I first start up, the system is using 0-20% of the processor, the rest being available for the user; but after awhile, the system is requiring 50-90% of processor capacity, the result being that as soon as I switch into Photoshop from another program, the system is immediately overtaxed and starts moving very slowly (especially the cursor, as I said).
Now, here's the really strange part. As I said, this began happening a few months after I first installed Adobe CS3. I re-installed the software at Adobe's recommendation, and it was fine for another few months, but it began happening a few days ago, which is exactly the same time I shared a jump drive with a friend's worm-infected Windows XP machine. I know Macs don't get Windows worms, but is it possible that this thing has lodged itself on my system somehow and is causing it to run generally more slowly?
I appreciate any help you can give,
Nathan
Comments
... but is it possible that this thing has lodged itself on my system somehow and is causing it to run generally more slowly?
...
Absolutely not. Windows malware is Windows malware. It cannot infect a Mac. It cannot affect a Mac. If you were to copy Windows malware to a Mac, the Mac would see it as data rather than executable code.
Absolutely not. Windows malware is Windows malware. It cannot infect a Mac. It cannot affect a Mac. If you were to copy Windows malware to a Mac, the Mac would see it as data rather than executable code.
Thanks! That's what I thought, but it just seemed a very weird coincidence that the two things happened at the same time.
Thanks! That's what I thought, but it just seemed a very weird coincidence that the two things happened at the same time.
How much RAM do you have installed?
Take a Grab.app screen capture of Monitor.app, post it here for us to see what's going on.
How much RAM do you have installed?
Take a Grab.app screen capture of Monitor.app, post it here for us to see what's going on.
What should I capture-- video of the cursor bouncing around?
I have 4GB of RAM.
Thanks!
To me, it sounds like it's a hard drive space issue. Photoshop can use vast amounts of hard drive space. I think if you want to use Photoshop, you should have at least 10GB free space for cache files.
No, it can't be a hard drive space issue. I have a 320GB hard drive and an external of the same size, neither of which are used more than 25-30%. Both are set as scratch disks (external first).
What should I capture-- video of the cursor bouncing around?
I have 4GB of RAM.
Thanks!
Launch Activity Monitor.app inside Application/Utilties/
Launch Console.app
Look for any errors in Console regarding Adobe, including user Preferences and errors.
Inside of AM.app you can sort by Memory useage and run Grab.app take screen captures of both or each and post them.
Is your external drive a firewire drive? USB? All scratch disks should be directly connected to the SATA or SCSI interface. External SATA is good too. Firewire 400 should not be considered and 800 is the minimum I would use. There is a lot of advice on the internet on what is the optimal setups. I would swap making your internal the primary scratch disk and the external the secondary.
I second his statement. Only use internally connected drives as scratch disks.