powerbook g4 slowing down with every update

[ormus1]

hi!

i have a PB g4 17" 1.33ghz, 1gig ram, 80 gig HD running 10.3.9

seems that with every update my system slows down, it ran like a fireengine to start with, really impressive with every update after 10.3 problems started, slower start-up time, firewire problems, recently, the last 6 months the startuptimes have become a joke, illustrator takes 5 minutes, yes i hae a lot of fonts open but i did before too without problem. mail takes forever, iphoto was always very slow but slows down every other program too, the dock freezes at times....
i have repaired permissions, zapped the pram, etc still remains very very slow and is really starting to slow down my work. why is one punished with a slow system for doing software updates? i really don't find redoing the whole system a satisfying solution, first one wastes time doing software updates and then one has to redo the whole system anyway and waste a day and this is excluding the time restarting from carshes!

is there somehting i am missing, this is getting very frustrating! it used to be the first versions of the system that were unstable now the updartres seem moreunstable then the original!

thanx for any help!

best,
m

 

[perfessor101]

I have found each upgrade (10.2, 10.3, 10.4) of OS X to be more stable and faster then the previous version but I have never noticed any performance change with the updates (10.4.1, 10.4.2). Your slowdown may well be the result of the detritus that accumulates on any system with time. Use a utility such as Cocktail, Onyx, or Tiger Cache Cleaner and use it to flush all the various logs, caches, etc. Cocktail can also rebuild the Launch Services and Whatis databases which can speed application launching.

If your hard drive is getting down to less then 25 or 20% free space you may also receive great benefit from defragmenting the drive. IDefrag or TechTool Pro can do that job for you.

It is also likely your directory structure has become highly fragmented and that will also slow things down quite a bit. The previously mentioned TechTool Pro or DiskWarrior can rebuild and optimize the volume structure.

 

[Decado]

Start Activity monitor and sort the applications after how big percent of the processor they are using (make sure you have selected to view all processes). see if there is anything strange.