New Powerbook memory problems!

iMan

iMan

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Hi all,

I've had problems with my new powerbook and ram. It all started when I installed Panther. There's been a lot of post about this in the apple discussion forum. I bought Centon ram from compusa.
Anyone els had any problems with this? And another thing is that it takes a while for my computer to start up, you hear the start up sound but then it sits there for a little while until the screen starts up. It's been like this all along and feels like it can't find the system folder or something. I'm now running os 10.3 but this happened under os 10.2 as well. My lombard starts up faster then my new powerbook.

Viktor
 
The slower start-up, I think, is because of your increased RAM. The more RAM to count, the slower the start-up.
 
But 512mb ain't that much, huh? Or is this before you added your ram?
voice is right. the more ram, the longer the startup. I wish I had a switch for my ram. For booting use 256mb and when it's up, let me switch back to 768mb. ;)
 
well, it's as slow now with only 256mb in it, since my other stick is not working, and that's less then my lombard but it still takes a long time sometimes. It feels like there's something wrong with my hard drive. And panther being slower then jaguar is kind of disappointing since I heard that panther is supposed to be faster

Viktor
 
now that I have Panther, it doesn't take long for my TiBook 500 to start up. It did take a long time under 10.2, though. I have 768 MB of RAM. I bought my extra RAM from memorytogo.com, though.

JARinteractive
 
iMan, I'm confused (not unusual)
You state last, that you already had the problem before upgrading to Panther; yet, in your first post, you stated that the problems started when you upgraded to Panther. Bad Ram shouldn't result in a long boot (have you timed it, so there's something to compare?) An additional 10-15 seconds wouldn't be bad, 5-10 minutes is something to ponder :)
Have you:
Tried testing your system with your hardware test CD?
Repaired permissions with disk utility?
tried deleting cache files (does wonders for many OS X installations)

Just for a demo, I removed most of my RAM, booted with 256 MB, then booted with reinstalled RAM for 1 GB, my power-up (when video turned on) was only 2 seconds longer with 1 GB, compared to 256 MB. However, the total boot to the Finder was about 5 seconds less with 1 GB...
 
DeltaMac, the problem with slow start up was there before 10.3 but all the kernel panics freezes and so on started after installing panther. I've read that there's alot of people with ram problems with alubooks and panther.
My powerbook G3 boots faster as far as from the sound till the screen lights up. That in my opinion is kind of wired since this alubook should be faster.

Viktor
 
Here's the times
AluBook 23.5 sec from button pressed till screen lights up and 31.7 sec to the 'log in' screen
PowerBook G3 10.4 sec from button pressed till screen lights up and 54.4 sec to the 'log' in screen

So you see, my old powerbook is faster to the point when the screen comes on then my brand new AluBook

That shouldn't be in my opinion, seems like there's something wrong with the hard drive, what do you guys think?

Viktor
 
23.5 secs?? Uffff, that is a long time.
Are you using 2x256mb Ram now or 1x512mb? If first, I would take out one to check if that has any influence on those 23.5 secs...
And is it possible for you to borrow some other ram?
 
iMan
How did you install Panther? Archive & Install, just an Upgrade or wipe the drive and install.

I had similiar problems when I just used the Upgrade to Panther on my PB. I didn't spend too much time messing with it, I wiped the drive and installed Panther from scratch on the clean drive and it runs great now.
 
IMHO, the times shown by iMan are NOT way out of normal, plus the result (to the login screen) is still faster from this faster system. A clean install on both systems is really the only way to compare the systems, a least with the small difference thats reported.
 
Both system are clean installs, not upgrades, reformatted hard drives then a clean install of 10.3

DeltaMac, don't you find it strange that my new powerbook takes more then twice the time to get to the point where the screen comes on?
It might be helpful if other people timed their startup times from press start button - screen on - log in screen. If anyone with an AluBook 1ghz could do that, it would be very helpful.

Zammy-Sam, now I'm using one 256mb stick, before 2x256mb.. the times were made with 256mb.

Thanks
Viktor
 
iMan said:
Both system are clean installs, not upgrades, reformatted hard drives then a clean install of 10.3

DeltaMac, don't you find it strange that my new powerbook takes more then twice the time to get to the point where the screen comes on?
It might be helpful if other people timed their startup times from press start button - screen on - log in screen. If anyone with an AluBook 1ghz could do that, it would be very helpful.

Zammy-Sam, now I'm using one 256mb stick, before 2x256mb.. the times were made with 256mb.

Thanks
Viktor
Click to expand...
iMan - I don't have the same system exactly, but you might be interested anyway...

On a 1GHz 17" PB with 1GB RAM it took :

20/21 seconds for the screen to come on

49 seconds to get to log in screen

You're way faster than me, and not so much RAM!

Never mind - I never shut down anyway - just sleeeeeep...
 
Just a thought - you mentioned getting kernel panics and crashes and such - you do realize that when the system isn't shut down cleanly a disk check is performed at next boot? If your system crashes it will definitely take longer to boot the next time while the disk is checked for consistency. (I believe this is done when you first see the spinning wheel righty after you turn the machine on.) Also try enabling disk journaling if you haven't already if you've switched back to Panther, I'm pretty sure this will also reduce the need for and/or time it takes to perform a consistency check at boot.

The difference in RAM really shouldn't add more than a couple seconds and should be negligable...

One other major factor in boot time is if there is a network connection available. It seems to wait a long time checking for available network connections when there aren't any available. If you're running panther and get an error message saying your system clock is set to a time in the past, then you know the network wasn't available at boot and the time synch service couldn't get through, so there is a dead giveaway that part of your delay was caused by that.

Good luck!
 
appleworm, thanks that was helpful, I wonder why my old powerbooks video starts up so much faster.

DeltaMac, it didn't find anything wrong

Viktor
 
iMan said:
appleworm, thanks that was helpful, I wonder why my old powerbooks video starts up so much faster.

DeltaMac, it didn't find anything wrong

Viktor
Click to expand...

Maybe your old PowerBook video starts up faster (less vid Ram, lower performance requirements from the hardware, and initializes faster) Your new system boots and loads faster, according to your own timing. Different hardware with a somewhat different bootup process, the only valid comparison for bootup is identical systems (same RAM, same software installed, not easy to get 2 systems truly identical except with some form of ghost drive image freshly installed, even then still 2 separate systems, one cooler than the other, condition of hard drive, etc, etc)

seems like the crashing that you might have, has nothing to do with how fast the video turns on, being specific to your hardware

My vote - crappy RAM
 
PowerBook Al 1.25Ghz 512MB

Time: 15s from sound to screen, 48s from sound to login

It looks slow to me, but I'm used to my PowerMac Dual... it is not too bad
 
DeltaMac, yes I know that I had a bad ram chip that's been pulled, now I'm running with the 256mb that came with my compute, so now the AluBook is running fine in that respect. I've seen a lot of problems with ram and Panther (apple support discussions), seems like panther is really picky about the ram.

Iscaro, your AluBook boots faster then mine but you also have 250mhz more and I would guess a diffrent hard drive.

Thanks guys,
Viktor
 
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