OSX Running Slow ???

smithy

smithy

designer.
Hi - well most of you have probly read my other posts needing help with learning osx. Well i think i have bassically have learnt what i will need to know for the moment. But anyways like the title of this thread says i think osx is running slow for some reason. I have a eMac 1.25ghz G4 with 1gb of ram - And bassically when i run the programs i usually run eg. dreamweaver, flash, fireworks mx 2004 they all run very slow when like you change tools. But also i have noticed that when in the system prefrences panel that also runs slow changing to what you click on if you know wat i meen..?? Bassically like launching programs is fast like it launches faster compared to the emac i was using at the apple centre with 256 mb ram. Like i was just wondering if any of you's have had troubles with macromedia's products running slow on mac and like is nearly the same system specs to mine - like it might not be a problem with the mac itself for it may be a problem with mx suite running slow on all macs. Like it just seems to be lagging alot with those programs when i have sometimes safari msn messenger and eg fireworks open or flash which also runs very slow. Ive downloaded Cunning Fox which is very handy cause like you can stop what programs you dont want running then run them again - this is why i changed to macs because of the beutifal multi tasking the way the system handles programs. But see like i use mx suite everyday and if it runs slow maybe i shouldve just gotten another pc. Ive run the techtool deluxe that came with apple care and everthing seems to be running smoothly on here and also ive looked at the activity monitor.

But what im really asking is comparing my computer to your mac is mine running slow for some reason ?? :eek:

Anyways looking forward to hearing from all of you's and thanks alot for helping me - ive learnt alot from you's thanks alot !!

Bye
 
Can someone please help me with this problem or give any advice it would be really appreciated..
 
Go to Applications->Utilities and launch ActivityMonitor. Take a look at the processes that are running an see which one takes the most CPU time so that you'll know if there is a rogue process that is hogging all the CPU to itself.

You can also use Activity Monitor to see how much RAM is used by the system. In the bottom tab, choose the System Memory tab. That should display the amount of memory used, the amount free, etc. What you really like to pay attention to is the Page ins/out that show whether you are making heavy use of the swap file. If this is the case, that could mean that you're not having enough RAM on your system.
 
Hi Viro,

Thanks for replying - but may i ask what exactly is the Page/ins/outs. Well i have this mac maxed out with ram but i believe it can take 1gb Dimms - but only 2. But what im confused mostly about is how like it just seemed that the emacs with 256 mb of ram were faster. I dont really think this would be true but do you think the ram or something might be faulty - i highly doubt this just from pc experience i guess. Thanks for replying !
 
Well, you need to make sure there aren't any processes in the background that are hogging the CPU. When you say that you get slow performance, how many apps do you have open at one time? I don't use any Macromedia apps, so I don't know how much RAM they require when running.

Page-out is when data from the physical memory is written to virtual memory in order to make way for other apps. This normally happens when your machine doesn't have enough physical memory and needs to use virtual memory. If your machine has enough RAM, the number of page-outs will be 0.

Now my understanding of page-ins is when data from virtual memory gets copied into physical memory. But for some reason under OS X, even if there are 0 pageouts, there can be a lot of page ins. That doesn't make sense to me at all!!
 
Yer same it doesnt make sense - but basically when i run like fireworks (which is a paint editing program) or Flash normally i would have either msn messenger and itunes or just fireworks or flash running by itself and its till rather slow. Do you think there is anywhere i could ask or whatever to see that maybe my computer isnt running as good ??
 
Also - you may want to repair permissions. After installing any program it is good practice to repair the permissions just to assure that programs can access all the little bits they need to.

Open Disk Utility (Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility in Panther) click on your hard drive and choose repair permissions.
 
Thanks im trying that right now !! I'll get back to you later to see what happens and how it goes thanks again.
 
It's just Macromedia programs that exhibit this shoddy interface behavior. Ever since they switched their focus to the PC platform, and to web developers rather than Print designers (and managing to screw not one but TWO long time user bases in one foul - and I do mean FOUL - swoop), Macromedia software has consisted of dirty ports of their buggy PC versions.
Freehand 10 was bad on the PC, and absolutely terrible on the Mac (It was rushed out for OSX), even after the sneaky point release that was kept super quiet. Freehand MX is still unstable, and has a lot of bugs (a new one we discovered just this week is that it shifts process colour builds in vector art when you print to Postscript files). This is but one of many problems and crashers.
 
JeffCGD - I think you*solved my problem. I was really looking for someone who use macromedia programs aswell on a mac and just to see how it runs. I guess i prefer all the macromedia programs on pc but bassically i dont think ill ever go back to buy a total brand new PC - i think i osx is mad as. I think macromedia should really shift their focus back to the mac platform even though the majourity of webdesigners are based on pc's which is the smart thing to do. I feel like writing a letter to macromedia now lol. Thanks again you really solved my problem i guess. Oh and also do you ever have any troubles with like any macromedia (mx 2004) programs when laucnhing not responding most of the time. Im having that trouble at the moment which is really bugging me and makes me to restart the computer. Thanks again !

Pds - Thanks for shooting me to the disk utitlity its running alot faster now but i think its just macromedia programs that are playing up alot. Thanks again!!
 
My old G4 slowed down way too much after I upgraded to system 9.2. I was so frustrated I bought a new G5. But, when I upgraded Tiger to 10.4.7, it too slowed down. Nevertheless, the speed improved when I upgraded to system 10.4.8.

I think the newer the system upgrades are the more working memory they require. Also our graphics programs were built to support the older system we used, before upgrading. Try downloading any new fixes to Adobe programs or whatever you use. They may have fixes for the newer system update. Under the apple menu you can click on about this computer and see what your version is.

With my old G4, going back to the older system version helped.
 
Hi Smithy,
I had a similar problem with my G4 1,25GHz.
Running "Activity Monitor" I've found that HP Scanjet Manager extension spend about 6% of CPU time to test every second if HP Scanjet 4580 is on line or not, means powered or not.
After power on the scanner, this percentage go down at 0,3% so to solve this problem now I mantain on the scanner.
 
Hey all,

This advice has been really useful, especially the page ins/page outs thing - thanks Viro! At standing (that is, when no programs are opening or really working hard) my page ins are about 1000MB, with page outs at about 700MB. When programs are opening or working, this has gone up to 1.5GB, with page outs remaining around 700 or 800.

I've got a 10.6.2 with a 2GHz Intel chip and 1GB of memory, and my computer has been getting slower and slower, it seems. I run Adobe products from time to time, and recently upgraded to CS4 because CS2 was really chugging (I'm told that's because it was designed for the G chip, not the Intel chip).

Overall the biggest consumer of CPU power is Firefox for me (between 20 and 40% usually, sometimes right up to 60 to 80%!). I use the CoComments (http://www.cocomment.com/) extension, which tracks my commenting on blogs (and I think is actively drawing information from the internet, as it is an automated tracking program) and I thought this might be causing the problem, but I disabled the extension for a while and the problem remained.

I guess these figures mean that I need to install more RAM to cope with the amount and type of programs I run at the same time, but I was wondering if these details might indicate some other solution to the chugging problem.

Any ideas?

Ryan
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top