Pokey new Imac

jobagangles · March 11, 2002 1:24AM

Hi everyone,

I got a new imac about 2 weeks to replace my PC at work.

Can anyone shed some light on ways to tweak the speed of the new imac. While I have not timed it, it does run noticeably slower than my powerbook g4 or my g4/500 desktop at home. I can't help but feel somehting is wrong.

The only difference in system configuration, beside from the obvious 800 mhz processor is that I have the imac set to boot os9 during startup. Could this be the difference in general performance? All three machines of mine have 512meg of ram, so why is the imac the slowest of the three?

I read on another thread where setting the desktop theme to a solid color makes things a bit faster -and I have a solid desktop on my other two machines. So maybe this makes a difference?

Anyone have any suggestions/comments.

neutrino23 · March 11, 2002 5:25AM

More details?

Are you running OS X? Are you comparing OS X on the iMac to OS 9 on the other machines?

You might try some housekeeping. Boot OS 9 and rebuild the desktop. Go to Version tracker for OS X and get MacJanitor. It lets you invoke some OS X housekeeping scripts.

Someone else may suggest how to invoke the routine that does the prebinding in OS X. I think there is one in Version Tracker. I'm just wondering out loud whether the systems that ship with OS X preinstalled have been as optimized as systems that are upgraded in the field?

Is there something particular that is slow or just everything?

jobagangles · March 11, 2002 8:06PM

Thanks for the reply. I have 10.1.3 running on all three machines. The only difference is that I run 0s9 in the background on my new imac.

I can try not running it, but the 5250 terminal emulation program for our company's as400 needs this software and it is only for os9 at the moment.

What do you think I should do? I would like to avoid playing with the command line -that scares me since I have played with unix since college.

Nearly every operation is slower on my new imac, but I really notice it when more than one app is running, particularly Office.vx. If I launch virtual PC for X, I have to make sure everything else is off or it gets to be impossible.

eman · March 11, 2002 8:28PM

Since you're running Classic that could be why it's running slower.

torifile · March 11, 2002 8:30PM

The extra RAM could be the problem. It may be bad. Try taking it out and seeing if it's better. An 800mhz G4 should still be plenty fast w/ 256megs in OS X. It probably should be faster than your 500. Give it a try.

applenut · March 11, 2002 8:32PM

I don't see much of an impact when classic is running on any of my machines. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />

eman · March 11, 2002 9:01PM

[quote]Originally posted by applenut:

I don't see much of an impact when classic is running on any of my machines. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" /> <hr></blockquote>

A lot of times I do.

torifile · March 11, 2002 11:44PM

Another thing to see what's eating up your CPU cycles is 'top -u' in the terminal. Just launch the terminal and type that command (without the quotes) and just watch it for a while. Maybe there's something running that you don't know about. A thing that IMMEDIATELY comes to mind is find by content indexing in sherlock. The default is (or used to be, I haven't checked in a while) to index the HD each time you open it up. Even after you quit, the indexing goes on. See if you see that in the terminal. I have a hunch that's what it is.

jobagangles · March 12, 2002 2:07AM

My imac is at work, I am at home right now on my g4. Forgot that I had more memory on this machine... anyway I will post my imac top -u in the morning (Hawaii time)

Thanks!

Processes: 39 total, 2 running, 37 sleeping... 114 threads 22:05:08

Load Avg: 0.65, 0.32, 0.31 CPU usage: 3.7% user, 7.3% sys, 89.0% idle

SharedLibs: num = 97, resident = 22.7M code, 1.54M data, 5.63M LinkEdit

MemRegions: num = 2053, resident = 49.9M + 5.17M private, 36.5M shared

PhysMem: 54.0M wired, 69.3M active, 189M inactive, 312M used, 328M free

VM: 1.01G + 45.4M 6162(0) pageins, 0(0) pageouts

PID COMMAND %CPU TIME #TH #PRTS #MREGS RPRVT RSHRD RSIZE VSIZE

512 top 7.3% 0:02.88 1 14 14 192K 320K 432K 1.37M

506 Terminal 2.7% 0:05.62 4 68 205 2.33M 6.98M 4.91M 67.9M

68 Window Man 0.9% 4:50:33 3 103 123 2.05M 14.7M 16.1M 41.3M

440 Internet E 0.0% 18:07.22 8 100 206 16.1M 16.9M 25.8M 91.7M

298 Dock 0.0% 15:51.16 3 97 101 2.23M 6.58M 4.66M 63.5M

0 kernel_tas 0.0% 10:52.05 25 0 - - - 37.4M 425M

299 SystemUISe 0.0% 0:30.00 3 131 127 1.60M 5.70M 3.24M 65.6M

290 slpd 0.0% 0:25.96 8 29 28 184K 468K 536K 4.99M

224 AppleFileS 0.0% 0:22.45 12 87 49 640K 880K 1.43M 8.75M

123 configd 0.0% 0:14.46 4 84 122 320K 1.21M 1.42M 3.48M

66 ATSServer 0.0% 0:11.53 1 32 75 492K 2.42M 1.75M 15.3M

265 httpd 0.0% 0:09.61 1 9 66 56K 1.21M 1008K 2.38M

70 update 0.0% 0:08.58 1 8 13 56K 288K 100K 1.25M

2 mach_init 0.0% 0:08.24 1 77 12 52K 312K 140K 1.27M

297 Finder 0.0% 0:07.51 2 75 132 16.8M 13.0M 25.2M 87.6M

top -u

codewarrior · March 12, 2002 11:12AM

What 5250 emulator are you using? If it is MacRumba or Celview, Celview V3 for OS X has been released. They have a $79 upgrade from previous versions. They also have a 30 day demo.

jobagangles · March 12, 2002 1:30PM

I just downloaded the celview, maybe I will switch to that. I have been using interaxcess which is only is os9. Are you aware of any 5250 emu app for the mac that works the way client access does for the pc? -One that I can view my print que through an operations navigator. I would love to just drag my print file (prior to printing) directly to my mac. This way I can bring them direct into excel or another app.

Anyway, here is my Imac top-u report. I did immediately notice that the system is using more ram (probably due to os9) but it still shouldn't be slower than my powerbook or desktop g4. This new machine is beautiful and people really stop by my office to look at it, but it is embarrassing when it takes so long to pull up a spreadsheet, not to mentioning annoying... Thanks everyone for your help and I eagerly await your suggestions.

Processes: 43 total, 3 running, 40 sleeping... 125 threads 09:24:35

Processes: 43 total, 3 running, 40 sleeping... 125 threads 09:24:43

Processes: 43 total, 3 running, 40 sleeping... 125 threads 09:24:45

Load Avg: 0.29, 0.45, 0.51 CPU usage: 4.6% user, 7.3% sys, 88.1% idle

SharedLibs: num = 120, resident = 21.8M code, 1.55M data, 5.91M LinkEdit

MemRegions: num = 2589, resident = 37.9M + 3.96M private, 28.2M shared

PhysMem: 46.8M wired, 94.7M active, 93.8M inactive, 235M used, 277M free

VM: 2.65G + 52.9M 58388(0) pageins, 61798(0) pageouts

PID COMMAND %CPU TIME #TH #PRTS #MREGS RPRVT RSHRD RSIZE VSIZE

679 top 8.2% 0:01.45 1 14 14 200K 292K 440K 1.37M

304 TruBlueEnv 1.8% 27:28.83 18 191 251 8.13M 3.43M 9.78M 1.07G

72 Window Man 0.9% 90:56.22 3 146 242 2.68M 6.31M 8.04M 47.8M

673 Terminal 0.9% 0:01.89 4 68 127 1.84M 7.25M 4.45M+ 82.4M

301 Palm Deskt 0.0% 28:59.92 1 50 70 428K 4.25M 732K 72.0M

0 kernel_tas 0.0% 20:36.98 23 0 - - - 35.0M 513M

296 Dock 0.0% 11:23.42 3 119 138 3.02M 6.44M 4.02M 78.6M

303 Microsoft 0.0% 7:02.90 2 75 102 1.82M 9.51M 2.52M 80.6M

307 FaxJobMgr 0.0% 2:52.91 6 118 81 1.77M 4.98M 1.51M 63.9M

74 update 0.0% 1:05.17 1 8 13 12K 252K 28K 1.25M

288 slpd 0.0% 0:48.04 8 29 28 64K 384K 172K 4.99M

297 SystemUISe 0.0% 0:45.40 2 112 127 1.24M 5.73M 1.32M 79.1M

284 loginwindo 0.0% 0:38.50 7 150 155 2.32M 6.16M 3.09M 67.9M

219 ntpd 0.0% 0:31.07 1 9 15 48K 312K 116K 1.49M

torifile · March 12, 2002 8:15PM

After looking at the top -u, I have no idea what the problem is. You have plenty of resources available and there is nothing that's taking up too much CPU. Hmm. I'm still thinking...

[edit: you seem to have an awful lot of pageouts for 512 megs of RAM. I'm not sure what could be causing that. Anyone know?]

[ 03-12-2002: Message edited by: torifile ]

jobagangles · March 13, 2002 1:40AM

What is a pageout?

torifile · March 13, 2002 11:12AM

VM: 2.65G + 52.9M 58388(0) pageins, 61798(0) pageouts

That line tells you what has been moved from real RAM into swap space on your hard drive. The real RAM is MUCH, MUCH faster to access than your hard drive, so it's always the best bet. That's the reason OS X is so much better with more RAM. The more real ram it has, the less it has to swap out. For some reason, your computer is doing a lot more swapping than I've seen on my 2 OS X computers with less RAM. I may be wrong here, but that could be the problem. So see how slow it can be, launch a big program (like Illustrator or Word) and leave alone for a while. Continue using your computer. It will eventually be moved out of the ram into the swap space on your hard drive. Then switch to that program. It takes a pretty long time to load up. What does that tell us? Well, not a whole lot, but it at least explains some of the slowness.

I wish someone who knew more about this would come into this thread. starfleetX comes to mind. Maybe you could change the thread title to say something like "starfleetx, I need help!" and he'd come in. I dunno. We'll figure it out eventually.

altivec_2.0 · March 13, 2002 5:34PM

Hey, This is master. I'm love computers. I study macs all the time. I know alot about them. If you have any questions please ask and I will try my best to answer them. Almost everything on the mac I know and how to fix; operating systems, hardware, some software, you name it.

"Master" of the Mac :cool:

applenut · March 13, 2002 6:32PM

[quote]Originally posted by Master:

Hey, This is master. I'm love computers. I study macs all the time. I know alot about them. If you have any questions please ask and I will try my best to answer them. Almost everything on the mac I know and how to fix; operating systems, hardware, some software, you name it.

"Master" of the Mac :cool: <hr></blockquote>

yet you were completely useless for answering the question of topic

jobagangles · March 13, 2002 6:44PM

Thank you, Master, for the detailed and helpful response.

Torifile, could this excessive swap-out mean that my additional ram is somehow defective?

torifile · March 13, 2002 7:22PM

I don't know if it means the RAM is defective. I've only heard of defective ram causing instability. Still thinking...

Have you tried taking out the extra ram? It may not be the problem, but it's worth a try. Try out the computer w/o the extra ram and see if that helps.

[ 03-13-2002: Message edited by: torifile ]

jobagangles · March 13, 2002 8:00PM

Yeah, I figured you would suggest that. I will try it this weekend when i have more time to kill. I did elminate os9 from the background since I don't use the 5250 emu. much at the moment and there will be an osx version soon. Things seem to be a bit quicker.

I did find a strange bug in Office.v where it suddenly quits if I just type the letter "f" in the send to email address line when composing an email. -Though i doubt this has anything to do with the memory...

serrano · March 16, 2002 11:49AM

you're paging out like my g3 450 256 ... i'd check that ram out.

rrabu · March 16, 2002 12:37PM

To track down what is causing you to page-out to VM so much, I'd try running some memory monitoring software (search for "MemoryMonitor" at versiontracker; it's what I run at home). This will display a graph with your memory usage in the dock (much like CPU monitor does). By keeping an eye on this graph you can see if all of a sudden, your RAM usage spikes, then you've found the culprit.

I'd also track CPU usage with the CPU monitor application in your utilities folder. Have it display a graph over time in the dock. Then, you can see if any application spikes the CPU for times now and then (like Office apps do on my iBook). This could cause your computer to quit being responsive for periods of time as an application hogs the CPU.

Do you typically have a CD in the iMac? I have seen where the computer is really dumb and spins up a CD just to "see" what is there randomly. This action slows down a computer as well. Culprits of needlessly spinning up the CD drive are the Finder and Netscape. Other culprits exist as well.

Pokey new Imac

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