OS X 10.4.7 running slow

saxtell

Registered
I've had my MacBook with 2.16Gh Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 2G of RAM for over a year. I've never had any OS or other problems with it. For the past two months, or so, it's been running very slow while running any application. I'll be working on the laptop and everything is going just fine and then, all of a sudden, the spinning pinwheel of death comes on and I have to wait 2-3 mins. before I can use the computer again. Once, the pinwheel never went away and I had to do a forced shutdown by holding the power button down.

After reading posts on your site about the same issue, I downloaded Onyx for OS X 10.4. I have run the cleaning and automation applications twice. Before doing that, I repaired the disk permissions by using the Disk Utility.app in the Utilities directory. I was hoping that cleaning out the cache and all of the other things that Onyx does would help solve the problem. But it still does the same thing.

One last note: sometimes while in Mozilla 3.0 the pinwheel appears while trying to scroll using the two-finger drag on the touchpad. Also, while writing this post I've had to stop and wait three or four times while the pinwheel spins. I think, though, that for the most part the pinwheel appears during any application whenever some information is input from the keyboard or touchpad.

Might this be a problem with a particular program?

Thanks for your help.

Shane
 
I had the same exact thing happen on an old Powerbook G4 with 10.4 running. It drove me up the wall.

The only solution that I know is to reinstall OS X. Believe me I tried everything you tried when I had the problem. I hope someone else will have a more immediate solution but reinstalling OS X will do the trick.
 
I've had my MacBook with 2.16Gh Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 2G of RAM for over a year. I've never had any OS or other problems with it. For the past two months, or so, it's been running very slow while running any application. I'll be working on the laptop and everything is going just fine and then, all of a sudden, the spinning pinwheel of death comes on and I have to wait 2-3 mins. before I can use the computer again. Once, the pinwheel never went away and I had to do a forced shutdown by holding the power button down.

After reading posts on your site about the same issue, I downloaded Onyx for OS X 10.4. I have run the cleaning and automation applications twice. Before doing that, I repaired the disk permissions by using the Disk Utility.app in the Utilities directory. I was hoping that cleaning out the cache and all of the other things that Onyx does would help solve the problem. But it still does the same thing.

One last note: sometimes while in Mozilla 3.0 the pinwheel appears while trying to scroll using the two-finger drag on the touchpad. Also, while writing this post I've had to stop and wait three or four times while the pinwheel spins. I think, though, that for the most part the pinwheel appears during any application whenever some information is input from the keyboard or touchpad.

Might this be a problem with a particular program?

Thanks for your help.

Shane

A small suggestion but try a new user account for a while to see if this sluggishness is system wide .... I'd also look in Activity Monitor to see what's going on in the background .... ( Applications ~> Utilities ~> Activity Monitor )
 
Maybe you should update to 10.4.11?

If you dont know how

Click the apple in the left corner

Click Software Update

Rest is self explanatory.
 
Maybe you should update to 10.4.11?

If you dont know how

Click the apple in the left corner

Click Software Update

Rest is self explanatory.

Or, download the 10.4.11 Combo Updater and install that way. The delta installation either through Software Update or downloaded manually has been known to cause a problem on rare occasions.

Make sure that you download the right one. There is an Intel one for the Intel Macs (your Macbook is one) and a PPC one for PowerPC Macs.
 
Sluggish or slow running is also one of the signs of "not enough free hard-disk space".
OS X needs plenty of free disk space to operate at optimum speed.

This is a quote from Apple...
"You should always have enough free hard disk space on the Mac OS X startup volume. The exact amount needed depends on how the computer is used. Free space is used for virtual memory, iDisk (if you use .Mac), system and Internet cache files, and other temporary files."

jb.
 
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