Performance Question... iBook 500

[cloudimpulse]

I'm a little frustrated on the way my "Brand New" iBook 500 is performing. I bought the machine installed with a 128 megs built onto the board and felt that I should upgrade the system. So I decided to upgrade it to the maximum amount of ram it could hold [640megs of Apple certified Ram]. After installing the ram I proceeded to do a clean install of Mac OS X, and get it up to do all the updates. But even after the upgrade, the machine still seems to run a bit sluggish. I mean programs aren't loading any faster or running any smoother. Even doing software updates take a long time to install [a 1 meg update for the Installer Update for OS X took 10 seconds to download the file but 15 minutes to install the update]. It took a plain html document with nothing special in it about 2 mins to open. Virtual PC 5's performance is still the same [Krappy] even if I have it set to take 448 megs of ram instead of the 64 megs I was using before. I know that program is a memory hog, but there was absolutely no change from 64 - 488. I mean the list of programs go on and on.

So basically what I want to know is, is there anything I can look at or some kind of program I can use to to make sure my system is running at the correct speed!? I mean I Know if i go to the apple and about my mac it shows 640 megs installed ram in the system, but is there anything I can do to actually make sure my system is running like it should be, so that maybe I can show an Apple Tech or somebody that something is wrong with my system and that it should be running a little bit smoother than what it is. Please let me know.


P.S. Sorry this msg is so long.

CloudyIMPULSE

 

[themacko]

Boot your iBook with the Hardware Test CD and let it run a system check .. there could be a problem with the ram.

I'm not sure what you were expecting though. I mean, speed is all a matter of personal opinion (for the most part). My iBook seems to run fine for me, but for you it may be slower than hell. As for a software program to see if it's running normally, I really don't know about that. Sorry.