MacBook is slow!

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bmuijen

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Got my first mac a couple of days ago. A black MacBook. But i have to say, the performance is very disappointing. From the moment I putted the MacBook on I thought it was very slow. Programs take a long time to load. Sometimes it's so slow it takes dozens of seconds to just open a new safari window or something. Msn and office are slow and not to talk about for example iPhoto which takes ages. And when loaded for example switching to an other folder literally takes minutes.

Does anyone recognize these problems? Have other users the same problems or what can I do about it. I've 512 mb ram. Not that much but I think it should be enough to run a few programs easily. And the stats show enough memory is free...
 
Have you tried running Disk Utility while booted from the installation discs? Insert the disc, reboot, and hold down C right after the Mac startup chime in order to boot from the installation disc. Once at the welcome screen for the installation, head to File and launch Disk Utility. Then, run a Repair Disk on your hard drive. Once it finishes saying that the "volume is OK," quit from Disk Utility and then from the installation so that you can reboot from the hard drive. Once booted into the hard drive, launch Disk Utility from Applications-->Utilities and Repair Permissions on your hard drive. Reboot and try launching your apps.

Another program you might want to try is OnyX for system maintenance and optimization.

Also, make sure that you're using Universal Binaries of your applications if available and not the PowerPC version. If you're using PowerPC based apps, then they're running under Rosetta which is what allows PowerPC based applications to run on Intel Macs.
 
Is this your first Mac? Do you have a benchmark on what to expect? When I got the Intel based iMac, I thought my iBook 933mhz was snappier... However, when I bumped up the ram another gigabyte, it was like a new machine. 512MB will get you by, without alot of multitasking -- but another Gigabyte will make you very pleased.
 
Some apps, like Office, might be slow because they are not Intel-native. Long load times are to be expected from these apps. They'll also use a lot of RAM, so they might bog down native apps like Safari and iPhoto if you leave them loaded while you work. If you need to use a lot of PPC apps, 512MB might not be enough.
 
It kinda sounds like a Spotlight induced problem to me. Go to the Spotlight icon in System Preferences, go to the Security tab, and add your HD to the list. Log out, log in, and deselect your HD from the list. Spotlight should perform a new index creation, which takes from a couple minutes to a couple hours.
 
Qion said:
It kinda sounds like a Spotlight induced problem to me. Go to the Spotlight icon in System Preferences, go to the Security tab, and add your HD to the list. Log out, log in, and deselect your HD from the list. Spotlight should perform a new index creation, which takes from a couple minutes to a couple hours.
Click to expand...

It should index it? When deselecting it it doesn't do anything.
A spotlight problem should explain why iPhoto and Front Row are very slow...indeed it's just like he has to index everything...
What can I do when he does not index everything after the above mentioned steps?
 
As a Mac sales and service professional for nearly 10 years (and a MacBook Pro owner), I can confidently tell you that you 512 MB is enough RAM to run the operating system, but simply NOT enough to do much more.

All computer vendors (including Apple) avoid putting a lot of RAM in their computers because it keeps the pricing competitive. Consider upgrading to 1 GB if you're not running any high-end apps like Photoshop, video editing apps, Aperture/Lightroom, otherwise I'd save your pennies for 2 GB ASAP!

When you open programs that require more RAM than is currently "free", Mac OS X automatically takes a background process (application) out of RAM and caches it to the hard drive. Then when you need the cached process again, Mac OS X first shuffles something else off to RAM and brings the cached app back into RAM. This is roughly a 40 times slower process than if you had enough RAM to begin with.

Qion is right that at first, Spotlight will make the machine seem a little sluggish. However, if you didn't transfer any files from an old computer or plug in a massive external drive, Spotlight should not have had to do any indexing at all -- a default install of Tiger is already indexed right out of the box.
 
And one other thing ...

Have you installed all of the updates that Software Update has offered you? Have you installed any firmware updates? Note that the firmware updates offered in Software Update download into your utilities folder, but are not actually applied until the firmware update program has been run.
 
OF the 512 MB of RAM, about 64 MB will be used for graphics .... so you'll have about 450 MB RAM to use in reality. Which is not that much ...
 
I received the first white MacBook (a 1.87) in my part of NZ. It was a replacement for a 3yr old G4 14" iBook that had had its 4th Logicboard replacement. When they did this, they stuffed up the connector for the mic/speaker (easy to do) and so the mic didn't work. As this is vital for my work in Education, they replaced it with this MacBook. It is a dog!!! Give me back my G4. I thought it was because they shifted all my stuff across with Migration Assistant. However, my wife has just got a Black 2.0g MacBook this week and they did the same thing - no problems. I tested my MacBook alongside one of the last G4 Powerbooks and it took twice to 10 times as long for programmes to launch. I have also tested it alongside her new machine and her previoous 3 yr old 15" G4 Powerbook and it was always slowest opening a range of apps. A quick troll of the 'net shows a lot of people are also experiencing this problem. I also heard yesterday of a school nearby where teachers are also experiencing this frustration. We also have 2 of these MacBooks at a school I work at and they have no problems. In all cases, they only have 512megs RAM so I don't believe that is the sole answer. Adding more RAM is not an option in my case as it doesn't belong to me and there is no money in the kitty for the $450 needed. To Qion, sorry if I am thick but where is the Security tab in Spotlight Preferences? I only have Search Results and Privacy?
 
I've installed MacOs X from the cd again. That helped a lot. I can't compare it with others but the speed improved a lot. Try it. I would like to know if it worked...
 
redbeard45 said:
I received the first white MacBook (a 1.87) in my part of NZ. It was a replacement for a 3yr old G4 14" iBook that had had its 4th Logicboard replacement. When they did this, they stuffed up the connector for the mic/speaker (easy to do) and so the mic didn't work. As this is vital for my work in Education, they replaced it with this MacBook. It is a dog!!! Give me back my G4. I thought it was because they shifted all my stuff across with Migration Assistant. However, my wife has just got a Black 2.0g MacBook this week and they did the same thing - no problems. I tested my MacBook alongside one of the last G4 Powerbooks and it took twice to 10 times as long for programmes to launch. I have also tested it alongside her new machine and her previoous 3 yr old 15" G4 Powerbook and it was always slowest opening a range of apps. A quick troll of the 'net shows a lot of people are also experiencing this problem. I also heard yesterday of a school nearby where teachers are also experiencing this frustration. We also have 2 of these MacBooks at a school I work at and they have no problems. In all cases, they only have 512megs RAM so I don't believe that is the sole answer. Adding more RAM is not an option in my case as it doesn't belong to me and there is no money in the kitty for the $450 needed. To Qion, sorry if I am thick but where is the Security tab in Spotlight Preferences? I only have Search Results and Privacy?
Click to expand...


So I suppose Rosetta + MacBook = slow?
 
redbeard45 said:
To Qion, sorry if I am thick but where is the Security tab in Spotlight Preferences? I only have Search Results and Privacy?
Click to expand...

You're not thick.

Privacy is the tab you want. There should be a button that you click to add your hard drive to the list. After you do this, log out and log back in. Go back to the Privacy tab and remove your hard drive from the pane. Spotlight will create a new index.
 
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