I don't know how original this experience is, but I'll throw it out anyway.
I bought an imac 800mhz a couple of months ago.
It had osx 10.1.4 pre-installed. It wasn't running very snappy, but not slower than i'd seen store models run.
Anyhow, to cut a long story short, after playing around I had ended re-installed using software restore, the 6 cd set of images, and re-installed the system once with that for another reason. The speed and everything else was the same. Big surprise right?
WELL. I re-installed again a couple of hours ago, but this time, instead of using software restore, I just used the OS X 10.1.4 install CD.
The speed is totally better. Window redraws are dramatically faster, IE runs like a charm. [ie 5.1, havent upgraded yet], etc. There is a noticeable, percievable performance improvement. I am much happier with the experience so far, so much that I had to come here and talk about it.
Now, I will keep testing to see if any apps I install slow it down, etc. But I just wanted to throw this out as a suggestion to anyone else in the same scenario who is thinking of re-installing. Try with just the install CD, not the system-image CD's. Let me know if you have/had a similar experience.
[edit- I just wanted to add after reading my post, it sounds like I bogged down my system before, but I actually ran/run very few 3rd party programs, and the system is fairly new, just so you guys know]
I bought an imac 800mhz a couple of months ago.
It had osx 10.1.4 pre-installed. It wasn't running very snappy, but not slower than i'd seen store models run.
Anyhow, to cut a long story short, after playing around I had ended re-installed using software restore, the 6 cd set of images, and re-installed the system once with that for another reason. The speed and everything else was the same. Big surprise right?
WELL. I re-installed again a couple of hours ago, but this time, instead of using software restore, I just used the OS X 10.1.4 install CD.
The speed is totally better. Window redraws are dramatically faster, IE runs like a charm. [ie 5.1, havent upgraded yet], etc. There is a noticeable, percievable performance improvement. I am much happier with the experience so far, so much that I had to come here and talk about it.
Now, I will keep testing to see if any apps I install slow it down, etc. But I just wanted to throw this out as a suggestion to anyone else in the same scenario who is thinking of re-installing. Try with just the install CD, not the system-image CD's. Let me know if you have/had a similar experience.
[edit- I just wanted to add after reading my post, it sounds like I bogged down my system before, but I actually ran/run very few 3rd party programs, and the system is fairly new, just so you guys know]