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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Os10.4.2 S-l-o-w-s

jrbehm - Oct 25, 2005 - 1:25 pm

I'm having work flow problems, and am looking for anwers, since MacOSX has been very helpful. Allow me to explain:

I just recently got the 1.42 GHz 80G Mac Mini with OS 10.4 installed and promptly updated to 10.4.2. It has 512 MB of RAM.

I cannot believe how slowly many applications open or take to perform routine tasks.

Photoshop 7.0 can be fairly fast or interminably slow on the same operation from one use to the next or one image to the next. Saving or opening images can be a yawn.

iTunes takes forever to open. Hey, I like to listen while I work...

iCal, Mail and Safari take forever to open or close. Some emails take a long time to send, others are quick as you'e expect. It doesn't seem that size matters.

I'm used to OS 10.2.8 on a G4 Powerbook that only has an 867 MHz processor and 640 RAM, and am sure that many of the items I'm disappointed in actually perform as well or better there.

Finally, digital photo processing (my work) is faster on my old B&W G3 runniing OS 9.2.2 at 350MHz. It does have 1G of RAM, but I'd expected the G4 processor and newer architecture to at least compensate.

All in all, it hasn't been the boost I'd expected.

If you have experience with solutions to these types of issues, please let me know.

Thanks
Jeff

philippe99 - Oct 25, 2005 - 1:53 pm

Jeff, welcome to macosx.com

before going further in your issue, may I suggest you the following maintenance tips ?

=====A: basic========
(1) Could you try to repair permissions
(must be admin)
Launch Applications/Utilities/DiskUtility
On the left pane, select the drive
On the right, select the First Aid (or SOS) tab
Then click on repair permissions and let run; don not worry about messages like " new permissions...."
Quit DiskUtility
Shutdown and reboot

(2) could also download Macjanitor
http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_...acjanitor.html
and use it to run the maintenance scripts
The maintenance scripts are Unix scripts which are automatically ran on your
Mac between 02Am and 04 am..if your Mac is on at this moment.
I can advice you to run, through Macjanitor, the daily script each day, the week script each week, ..and so on

(3) Could you also download Onyx
http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs/english.html
and use it to clean the caches. Use Onyx defaults

So, now, after these operations -that you could apply on a regular basis-, test again your machine.
If this is not better, so the next round.


===B: fsck========
fsck is a nunix low level routine for checking the file system of the machine
To run fsck, you first need to start up your Mac in single-user mode. Here's how:
1. Restart your Mac.
2. Immediately press and hold the Command and "S" keys.
You'll see a bunch of text begin scrolling on your screen. In a few more seconds, you'll see the Unix command line prompt (#).
You're now in single-user mode.

Now that you're at the # prompt, here's how to run fsck:
1. Type: "fsck -y" (that's fsck-space-minus-y).
If the 1st pass says that nothing has to be repaired, try "fsck -fy"
Option "-y" forces a "yes" response to every question of the system, which is very important because answering "no" to a fsck question will stop the process !
Option "-f" forces fsck to chack a system that this command seems to have find "clean"
2. Press Return.
The fsck utility will blast some text onto your screen. If there's damage to your disk, you'll see a message that says:

***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****

If you see this message--and this is extremely important-- repeat running fsck. It is normal to have to run fsck more than once -- the first run's repairs often uncover additional problems..

When fsck finally reports that no problems were found, and the # prompt reappears:
3. Type: "reboot" to restart,
or type "exit" to start up without rebooting.
4. Press Return.

Your Mac should proceed to start up normally to the login window or the Finder.


So, after this, post back, especially the applications which still are slow.

Regards
Philippe

jrbehm - Oct 25, 2005 - 3:01 pm

Phillippe,

I just retrieved your message and am about to do as you suggest. I'll let you know.

Thanks,
jeff

jrbehm - Oct 26, 2005 - 2:41 pm

Phillippe,

Wow! The good news is...everything works better.

The bad news is....Onyx ate my OS!

So I had to re-install from the DVD, saving my apps and docs, then upgrade all my software again. Took a while, as you can guess.

Since you had included a warning, I have to assume that Onyx is not without it's flaws.

In your opinion, is there a disproportionate risk with Onyx over MacJanitor? I also just discovered that Onyx seems to have done away with Macjanitor. Envy paly a role there?

I have used Cocktail on 10.2.8, but never on 10.4.2. Any opinions there?

Thank you, it did work, although I'm sure, not as either of us had hoped.

Jeff

philippe99 - Oct 26, 2005 - 3:00 pm

> The bad news is....Onyx ate my OS!
Onyx 1.6.4 ate your Tiger ?????? Are you sure you run Onyx 164 ?

Majanitor only runs the maintenance Unix scripts which are run during night if your Mac is on.
Onyx does more thing (cleaning caches, ...). I never use Cokctail.

Philippe

philippe99 - Oct 26, 2005 - 3:07 pm

I'm very surprised by your Onyx problem.
It will be very interestant to post it here, on the Onyx forums:
http://macapple.free.fr/forum/viewforum.php?f=4

I can do it for you, if you give me all the details.
Well, I daily advice Onyx to friends/macosx_clients and this is the first time I hear such a problem, believe me. I had to know why.

Philippe

jrbehm - Oct 26, 2005 - 3:16 pm

Phillipe,

Yes, Onyx ate my Tiger as well as the Janitor. Must have been hungry.

I'm not ruling out user error here, but I left the defaults as they were in "Cleaning" and just ran it. Afterwards, I couldn't restart under any circumstances except from the DVD. Ran all the checks from the disk, still couldn't restart.

I had run Mac Janitor just before, so perhaps there was a conflict. I really don't know beyond that.

While I have your attention, what about the other operations on Onyx? Maintainance, etc.? Are they useful or should they be left to more knowledgeable operators?

Jeff

philippe99 - Oct 26, 2005 - 3:32 pm

Well, normally, the Maintenance tab contains,by default, the basical maintenance steps: (1) repairing permissions (2) run the maintenance scripts (what does Macjanitor)
As I repair permissions through DU and launch Macjanitor, I never use this tab.

History is a Unix logs viewers: very usefull to select a particular log, without launching the Application/Utilities/Console and browsing in the all stuff this application displays

Utilities contain a set of Unix commands used to check corrupted plist files (plutil), see Unix help (man) or search "in the Unix way" for a file (locate).

Info gives information on your system, like the "About your Mac"

Appearence and Preferences are self-explanatory


I would you like to apologize myself for the disater my advice of using Onyx has generated on your system.
Personnaly, for running Macjanitor each day on a G3-panther and a G5-Tiger, Onyx each weekly on the same machines, I never (please believe me) faces such a problem.
I 'll directly report this incident to the developper and will send you back his answer

Regards
Philippe

jrbehm - Oct 26, 2005 - 3:45 pm

Phillippe,

First, thank you for your apology.

Second, in no way do I blame you.

In reading about Onyx it was actually mentioned that "if you have problems restarting..." or words to that effect. So I knew there was a chance that there could be a glitch somewhere in the use.

I was just to the point that the slow performance of my Mac was worth the risk I thought might exist.

Other than what I've already told you, there's not much to add. I wish there was more I could give you to send the developer.
Jeff

philippe99 - Oct 27, 2005 - 6:58 am

Jeff, about Onyx crash: are in 10.4.0 or 10.4.1 ?
Philippe

jrbehm - Oct 27, 2005 - 10:20 am

Phillippe,

No, I'm in 10.4.2. Is that the issue, perhaps? Wrong version?

Jeff

philippe99 - Oct 27, 2005 - 10:53 am

Noel, Joel Barriere, the creator of Onyx would imagine that your problem might be due some deep bugs in the 10.4.1 release, but surely not in 10.4.2 !

Still investigating this problem, he said me that the best reflex to have when you had been unable to restart was to repair the permissions when booting onto the DVD of Tiger; he thinks that this sould prevent your for re-installing the whole OS

I'll post back if I have other news
Philippe

jrbehm - Oct 27, 2005 - 11:11 am

Phillippe,

Thanks for all your follow up on this. I'll be curious to learn more, so good luck.

Bottom line, though is this....it runs better.

Jeff

philippe99 - Oct 27, 2005 - 11:57 am

Thank you for all Jeff, and for using macosx.com services
Regards
Philippe

philippe99 - Oct 28, 2005 - 7:58 am

Jeff...still trying to investigate the Onyx crash..

Could you confirm me that you had downloaded the Onyx 1.6.4 for Tiger, not the 1.5.2 for Panther ?
Regards
Philippe

jrbehm - Oct 28, 2005 - 10:42 am

Philippe,

Yes, it is 1.6.4. I just checked again to be certain

Jeff