iMac very slow, has corrupted fonts
Hi all,
I have an iMac that runs quite slowly after a few hours use, especially when using Photoshop and other Adobe software. What happens is, the processor gets completely swamped with "System" tasks (shown in Activity Monitor as red bars), the result being that "User" tasks are slow and the mouse jumps around the screen, rendering the computer almost useless. I've done a bunch of disk utilities including Leopard's onboard Disk Utility as well as OnyX, and although some errors were found, it was nothing serious. And after repairing, problems persisted.
Now, here's the thing. When I open Console, most of the errors are Adobe-related (mostly Photoshop and Dreamweaver). And I just ran a "Validate Fonts" check in Font Book, and found 15 fonts that have "serious errors, do not use".
So, I've often heard that Leopard, Adobe CS3, and corrupted fonts are a lethal combination. Not that I'm asking anyone to diagnose my problems from across the world, but does this sound like it could be the root of my problem? And if so, what's the proper process for removing the dangerous fonts so they can't ruin anything? Do I just delete them, or do corrupted fonts cause deeper problems which might necessitate reinstallation?
Thanks!
Nate
I have an iMac that runs quite slowly after a few hours use, especially when using Photoshop and other Adobe software. What happens is, the processor gets completely swamped with "System" tasks (shown in Activity Monitor as red bars), the result being that "User" tasks are slow and the mouse jumps around the screen, rendering the computer almost useless. I've done a bunch of disk utilities including Leopard's onboard Disk Utility as well as OnyX, and although some errors were found, it was nothing serious. And after repairing, problems persisted.
Now, here's the thing. When I open Console, most of the errors are Adobe-related (mostly Photoshop and Dreamweaver). And I just ran a "Validate Fonts" check in Font Book, and found 15 fonts that have "serious errors, do not use".
So, I've often heard that Leopard, Adobe CS3, and corrupted fonts are a lethal combination. Not that I'm asking anyone to diagnose my problems from across the world, but does this sound like it could be the root of my problem? And if so, what's the proper process for removing the dangerous fonts so they can't ruin anything? Do I just delete them, or do corrupted fonts cause deeper problems which might necessitate reinstallation?
Thanks!
Nate
Comments
Corrupt fonts are a major source of OS instability. The most likely cause of a corrupt font is user installation. This is to say fonts don't just go bad. If you have a corrupt font, then it was probably corrupt when you installed it. You should remove your bad fonts. You a silent on where your bad fonts are located. You should not touch fonts located in the System folder. Those belong to the OS. If they are tampered with, then really bad things will happen.
Sorry, should have said. All corrupt fonts were user-installed. No system fonts are bad. None of them were that important, so I removed them.
Also turns out that I have an old PowerPC program for an HP scanner that runs at startup. I noticed that it is consuming 40% of total CPU. Could well be a major source of the trouble.