G4/OSX 10.2 ... Poky?
Hi all,
I recently bought a Powerbook G4/667/512. I really like this computer and am a Mac user from way back that decided to switch back to Mac after OS X was out for a while. After having used PCs and Unix for several years, I was eager to swich back.
Here's my problem: I find OS 10.2 on this machine to be not nearly as responsive as a PC for day-to-day "main workstation" use.
In fact, it's downright poky. As in, not put too fine a point on it, slower than a 450mhz P3 Dell laptop with win2k. I'm not talking about Benchmarks, but just day-to-day use, having three or four programs open, waiting for stuff to redraw, switch, save, open and close. General "snappiness" for lack of a better word.
I really want to fully commit to the Mac, but this is the 400-pound gorilla in the middle of the room. Have others' had similar experiences? Is there any way to speed this system or OS X up?
I recently bought a Powerbook G4/667/512. I really like this computer and am a Mac user from way back that decided to switch back to Mac after OS X was out for a while. After having used PCs and Unix for several years, I was eager to swich back.
Here's my problem: I find OS 10.2 on this machine to be not nearly as responsive as a PC for day-to-day "main workstation" use.
In fact, it's downright poky. As in, not put too fine a point on it, slower than a 450mhz P3 Dell laptop with win2k. I'm not talking about Benchmarks, but just day-to-day use, having three or four programs open, waiting for stuff to redraw, switch, save, open and close. General "snappiness" for lack of a better word.
I really want to fully commit to the Mac, but this is the 400-pound gorilla in the middle of the room. Have others' had similar experiences? Is there any way to speed this system or OS X up?
Comments
What applications are behaving slowly? All of them? The Finder, too?
You may be experiencing a slow redraw due to the limited RAM of the video card in the 'Book. OR not. I just upgraded a client's 700 MhZ iBook to 10.2 and noticed that 10.2 is very RAM sensitive- i.e. it seems to slow down with less than 640MB RAM. You might see if increasing the RAM would help. It might help the video redraw if the PB vid-system is agp-based.
No complaints here! I can work so much faster in X than 9.
In the terminal, type:
top
the last entry in the header is 'pageouts'. If that isn't close to 0, RAM is prolly your issue.
-Usable but when I run acquisition or furthurnet, slows down considerably
-QE doesn't work with this
733MHz QS G4 w/256MB RAM
-Snappy
-QE does work with this
Not sure what the problem is, perhaps a clean install with a freshly formatted HD, because it SHOULD be running fine
PhysMem: 71.8M wired, 365M active, 195M inactive, 632M used, 7.71M free
VM: 2.64G + 68.5M 13551(0) pageins, 18966(0) pageouts
what's the number in parenthesis mean after the pageins and pageouts? I just put in another 128 MB bringing my DP 500 to 680 MB RAM.
Thanks
-Ty
Try running disk utility and using "verify disk permissions" and then "repair disk permissions". I've found that to be helpful.
Are you using OS 10.2 or OS 10.2.1? Many people report the latter being much more responsive in the gui.
Are you using the latest ATi video drivers?
This is OS 10.2 installed from scratch and a reformatted hard drive, one partition, stock 30GB drive. It was upgraded to 10.2.1 via software update. All applicable updates have been applied. OS 9 is not installed. I do run AOL Instant messenger. (iChat does not seem to allow PC-using buddies to send files)
This is a dead-stock 667/512/30GB VGA (Not DVI) PB.
No haxies, no extras.
I have installed MySQL, but not the associated startup item. I run it from the terminal when I'm prototyping a project locally.
I don't think there's anything wrong with this machine, but I'm definitely open to something I've missed or have not thought of.
Can you upgrade the ATI Drivers?
Thanks
Taylor
You could try and trim down your system. ShadowKiller from Unsanity helped me out on my G3 450. I'd suggest more RAM but with 512MB you should be fine.
[ 10-31-2002: Message edited by: serrano ]</p>
Oh, the number in paranthesis is how many pageouts or ins that have happened in the last minute, I believe. Looking at that ration it would appear that more RAM would be in order, and would improve performance.
I have done a test with my ibook 500, 320meg RAM. Navigating in finder, open file, delete file, etc. was a little faster after deleted OS X.
Without OS X, I had about 20 000 files. With OS X, it was like 125 000 files on the disk. Deleting X make my ibook a little faster for disk task. It's not the fault of OS X, but more the fact of the huge amount of files to store in directory... but I could not advise people to trash OS X for this reason <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" /> it make just a little change
PhysMem: 53.6M wired, 254M active, 177M inactive, 485M used, 27.3M free
VM: 2.40G + 3.62M 23473(0) pageins, 24794(0) pageouts
I have a 700 mhz G4 iMac with 512 Mb, and this is after about 3 days of uptime with moderate use.
Thanks
<strong>While we're talking about pageouts, could someone tell me if my memory stats warrent an upgrade:
PhysMem: 53.6M wired, 254M active, 177M inactive, 485M used, 27.3M free
VM: 2.40G + 3.62M 23473(0) pageins, 24794(0) pageouts
I have a 700 mhz G4 iMac with 512 Mb, and this is after about 3 days of uptime with moderate use.
Thanks</strong><hr></blockquote>
That's depend. 1 pageout = 4K. So in your case mac OS X have put about 99MB in swap file, in about 3 day. that's not too big, especially if that could include a peek where you had 4 app in the same time.
If in average work you *alway* have pageout after like 4-5 hours, I recommend to upgrade your computer to 768MB or +. If this occure after 3-4 day, memory would help for sure, but it's not necessary.
look at my stat : (Dp 1ghz with 1.5GB) PhysMem: 124M wired, 372M active, 453M inactive, 949M used, 587M free
VM: 3.92G + 65.9M 27647(0) pageins, 18431(0) pageouts
I have pageout, but it's very negligable for now 5 day of use !
if you've done a clean install, it should be pretty damn fast.
if you're talking about web browsing, then i'd highly suggest downloading the latest build of Chimera, which can be found at <a href="http://www.mozilla.org"; target="_blank">www.mozilla.org</a>
that will make a world of difference in web browsing.
<strong>let me ask this. when you say it's a clean install, you mean a 10.2 clean install and not an archive and update with the system? that's the only thing i've ever seen that makes a system slower (archive and install that is).</strong><hr></blockquote>
Explain why that make the system slower ? Beacause archive and install do a CLEAN install of the system, but after moving your old prefs and all the stuff in your "user" folder to another folder. Right ?
All your old stuff cannot change anything in the new installation, exept if you move your prefs&docs back to original folder.
<strong>
Explain why that make the system slower ? Beacause archive and install do a CLEAN install of the system, but after moving your old prefs and all the stuff in your "user" folder to another folder. Right ?
All your old stuff cannot change anything in the new installation, exept if you move your prefs&docs back to original folder.</strong><hr></blockquote>
No one REALLY knows why, but the consensus opinion is that is makes a difference. I did the archive and install first and then tried the clean install and there was a marked improvement. There are 2 possibilities: a fragmented HD which cleaned up by a clean install or bad user preferences that get copied over into the users folder making the experience slower for that account.
Who knows what the reason is... The point is that the effect is noticeable. But even doing an archive/install, the machine was fast. I'm leaning towards troll for the originator of this thread.