OSX - A Slow Death?

[evildan]

I have been running as OSX as my default OS for some time now. In fact, I dread going on an OS9 box becuase I get along so well with X.

My problem, isn't really one problem... it's a series of things.

But from what I can tell... OSX is dying a slow death on my machine.

Like any OS, it's probably the fastest right out of the box. My machine took a bit of tweaking, but the machine loved the OS.

And everything was happy.

A few months ago, I noticed a slight decrease in my speeds. I had to restart in OS9 a few times and rediscovered the speeds that I had just become used to not having in X. This change did not happen over night. X seems to slow down just a bit every week or so.

But everything was happy.

A few weeks ago, I notice a high increase in the number of times my Classic apps crash. It went from once a week to at least four or five times a day! The OS9 instinct kicked in and I started liminting the number of resouces I required from the OS. (I know OSX has protected memory, but I wanted to rule out any possibility that it was running low on memory - or to see if I had a bad chipset... etc. ).

Then some things were happy.

I started looking at my machine as a whole, and from what I can tell... it just keeps getting worse and worse, slower and slower. One or two of these items would be easily dismissed. But the collection of things going wrong on my machine point to a bigger problem... the OS. Is OSX dying? Do I simply have to make time to do a re-install of the OS every few months? Because, althought I've been on X for a long time, this machine is not that old.

What's not posted here are the problems I've encountered, and that is for a reason. My post isn't to try to solve the errors that are occuring on my machine, I can do that, but more to raise the question, is OSX getting slower by the month on your box, like it is on mine?

Before you answer, remember to be honest, I don't work for IBM or M$, I am an honest to goodness Apple lover just like you. But I want the company I love to still be responsible for its product... and this seems to be a problem widely discussed on the boards.

 

[dlookus]

I haven't noticed any slowdowns of any kind. I feel like it gets faster with every update. There are a few quirky things here and there that bug me, but I'm very happy with OSX.

 

[genghiscohen]

How much RAM do you have, and what size hard drive(s)? How much free space left? It's possible that you need to defrag your hd.
Also, when was the last time you ran the update_prebinding command?

 

[evildan]

I have 384Megs of Ram and about 23 gigs of free space on my drive.

I typically have about five apps running at once. And almost always have Classic and X running.

I prebound my directories... with the following results.

Number of non-prebound files: 0
Number of files that may need to be re-prebound: 908
Number of files re-prebound: 0

What does this mean? Did it pre-bind anything? Or did it prebind 908?

Anyway... X is still running slow, even after the prebind.

 

[edX]

gee, i could just cut and paste my response to this issue from at least a half dozen threads.

either you reformat and reinstall (some weird linux/unix method of dealing with simple problems, i assume it originates from not having 3rd party options) or you invest in a good third party diagnostic/repair and defragmentation/optimization tool. This is still a mac os on a mac file system and it is going to need maintainence to keep things zippy. How often depends a lot on your habits and what apps you use regularly. Believe me, the purchase of a good repair and optimization program will pay for itself over and over as time goes by.

i didn't answer the poll because there is no choice that says "it gets slower from time to time but then i do my maintainence and it is like new again."

 

[evildan]

Ed, you could have opted for option 4 response "Dan, you are evil, evil people need not concern themselves with these things." it kind of fits into the category of your response.

My experience with X is that the speed decreases much faster and thus requires much more matainence then I remember doing in 9. Simply put, the box runs better, less crashes, but slower and slower speeds prgressivley make it more of a "high matainence OS" than I think it should be.

 

[edX]

but dan, i don't think you are evil and i think you should be concerned about this. an highly fragmented HD will thrash itself to death much quicker. literally destroying itself in the process if i understand it correctly.

the thing is that osx swaps a lot more files with all the memory sharing and whatnot. it caches and temps tremendous amounts of files. as the size of these grow, so does the amount of fragmentation. it may mean more maintainance work, but it is worth it. one little trick that seems to have reduced how often i need to defrag was putting the swap files on a 2nd hd that has lots of room on it. there is a program called Swap Cop that will do this for you. you can get it at versiontracker.

 

[neutrino23]

Try MacJanitor.(available via version tracker)
Apparently, OS X runs a set of daily, weekly and monthly maintainence routines. The daily routines run late at night. If you normally shut down or sleep at night these don't get run. MacJanitor tells OS X to run those actions immediately.

I would try using this as well as rebuilding the desktop in OS 9 and checking the disk integrity either with Disk First Aid booted from a CD or with fsck from the terminal.

You might also try zapping the PRAM.

 

[Matrix Agent]

To call him anything else other than evil, would be to insult his family.

 

[evildan]

Thanks Ed, neutrino23, and for that matter, Matrix for defending my family name.

I'll take your advice, it's great advice to live by X.

Again my intent in this poll wasn't to bash Apple, just to test the waters with other users.

The machine in question is my work machine, I have a 30 gig drive, so I am trying to delay the option of partitioning it, because that would require a reformat.

I cannot afford to go through that until I finish up the project I'm working on. I'm a bit backed up, in work right now, so I'm at a loss.

Is a second partition really the way to go for the swap file? I was ready to do the partition, but then I read some more about it and there seems to be some debate on it's effect. I know Apple recommends, or at one time was recommending, to put the swap file on it's own partition, but I thought that was for older machines (G3 - imacs, etc) and that most of the G4's would see little improvement in fragmentation and speed. I have a dual G4 533Mhz and, while the speeds don't seem to be great, I'm not sure that this alone would improve the quality of my speeds.

I'm willing to do the work, I just wanted to raise the issue, again, that maybe some people wouldn't want to put in this much time with their daily os's.

 

[evildan]

Well I just had the closest thing to an actual crash in OSX.

My finder began relaunching over and over... My system is hurting bad.

I have actually centered the problem as being a Classic problem, not so much an OSX problem.

I've tried running osx without classic, and the system is much more responsive - over all - then it is after classic is launched.

I don't doubt that OSX needs some attention, and I'm considering a reinstall, once I learn more about what the installer actually overwrites.

This doesn't solve my problem, but it really addresses the issues I raised in this thread. I have not given up on the idea that OSX is slowing down the more I use it, simply NOT using Classic going to seem to speed up my system, because I am compairing it to speeds with Classic running.

 

[mschmidt]

if i was you i would zap the PRAM = "option" + "command" + "p" + "r" after the "bong" sound i do it normally 5 times or as many as i can handle the PRAM is parimiter random access memory which actually stores certain items that you run and keeps file memory from the day the first os was put on your machine it never cleans but slowly fills up i use all these as basic cleanup monthly

then start up in single user mode using "command" + "s"
in a few secs you get the blank prompt type in "fsck" hit return keep doing this until it doesnt say ***modifications made*** or whatever then just type "reboot" into the prompt

those are the two things i would do personally my mac runs great with OSX but i got rid of 9 the second i could so far os 7.5 and 8.1 were the best of the last generation but osx has continually gotten better anyway keep in mind they are pulling a typical Microsoft move by releasing products before they are ready...
Matt Schmidt Computer Technician Morristown, NJ
~hey its better then working on a PC or in os; 9, 8, or 6... 7 was good too
~OSX is the revolution gear up itll be a bumpy ride but UNIX is the answer

 

[bames53]

it could be slowing down due to the fact that the memory swap files are no on their own partition. Mac OS X often swaps out chuncks of ram to swap files on the hard drive. because those fies are not in their own partition, they suffer from the same fragmentation issues as normal files so when the os needs to swap memory to the hard drive it has to look for all the pieces.the april issue of MacAddict talks about it.

 

[evildan]

Thanks guys for all the advice. I really appreciate it. I think The idea of a swap file on it's own partition sounds good, but I'm wondering if it will help my system out as much as the slower machines.

I'll zap the p-ram, I actually have not done that since I started using x... sounds like a good idea.

 

[SCrossman]

If you are low on RAM, ie <256mb, you will sustain pageouts of memory to the swap file. Relocating the swap file to a different partition will marginally improve performance when switching apps or doing repetitive tasks.
There are several classic apps, extensions and control panels in OS 9 that suck up CPU time. This happens in OS9, but you really notice it in OSX. Run top in terminal or CPU monitor in extended view to see what the CPU load is. Early versions of OmniWeb <4.1 have serious memory leaks, AppleWorks can be a cpu hog and a single bad classic app will have a big impact on performance in OS X. Using the tools in OS X, you should be able to isolate where the drain is. It is not that you should have to do this, but if you learn how, your OSXperience will be much better.
BTW, running top in terminal, I see QuickTime using 15-18% cpu time doing nothing but displaying the channels screen. Time to quit that app and regain some speed.

Think RAM! I know I want more.

 

[nkuvu]

What does zapping the PRAM actually do?

Will I lose desktop modifications? User settings? Current time? I know it won't touch the HD. OK, I expect it not to touch the HD.

TIA

 

[Jasoco]

I chose the "Gets Slower Every Day" option because it DOES. On my machine it does. I will be getting a FireWire HD for backup soon, so when I do, answer me this...

Should I:
A) Backup the files, reformat the HD and just copy all the files back?
B) Backup the files, reformat, reinstall 9.1, update to 9.2, install 10.0, update to 10.1 then to 10.1.3

And with that 10.1.3 update, can I just use the PKG file I found in my Library/Reciepts/ folder? Or do I need to start with 10.1.1 then 10.1.2 and THEN 10.1.3?

Serious questions here. Thanks.

 

[chevy]

Remember.... I just saw a thread discussing the death of Classic earlier today... so here is how we were discussing the slow OS X a few years ago ....

 

[nixgeek]

You know, I was going to post regarding the person that post before you, but then I checked the date.

Tiger 10.4.4 is running nicely and zippily on my iMac G5 2 gigger.

 

[Mikuro]

Even back in 2002, I didn't find OS X to get much slower over time. More than OS 9, definitely, because OS X uses virtual memory and thus is much more susceptible to disk fragmentation, but aside from that, not at all. Then again, I never used Classic much. When I needed OS 9, I usually just used OS 9.

Tiger 10.4.4 is running nicely and zippily on my iMac G5 2 gigger.

Well I should damned well hope so!