Slower Boot Up

[jdgti]

Hi All,

I have a Powerbook G4 and I have been experiencing longer than normal boot up times. I guess that doesn't really bother me as much as what happens after I type in my password in the login screen. When I used to hit enter to log in menu bar and dock would come right up and then everything would be ready to go in a matter of seconds. Now when I hit enter on the login screen it takes about 30-45 seconds for the menubar and dock to appear, and the menubar somteims appears and takes even longer to show text and all other settings i have on it. Even more annoying is the gargling noise the computer makes for the first 1-2 mins after the dock and menubar appear. This noise is all too familar to me from my old PC that use to take forever to start up. I believe the sound is coming from my hard drive because my external hard drive makes the same noise.

I presume all of this slowness and gargling is due to the multitude of settings and leftovers from applications that are just sitting there on my hard drive. I have cocktail and have used it several times to try to "clean" my computer. I would rather have no settings and have my computer start up in a jiffy and make no noises than have this annoying set of characteristics. Is there any way I can fix this?

My hard drive is 80GB and had 9GB free if that matters.

Thanks in advance,

James

[novicew]

Next time you start your Mac, open the Activity monitor and see all the running processors. If see some unwanted Apps. running, either you can deactivate from the Preferences or remove it from the startup items. However you should be careful not to remove the core startup items.

[jdgti]

Next time you start your Mac, open the Activity monitor and see all the running processors. If see some unwanted Apps. running, either you can deactivate from the Preferences or remove it from the startup items. However you should be careful not to remove the core startup items.

Thanks for the response. I tried this and :

I only have one process opening from startup items and it is iCalAlarmScheduler. I unchecked it in the accounts area of system preferences, but the problem persists. Is there something else I can do to?

James

[dtravis7]

What PowerBook G4 is it? How much RAM? Also what version of OSX? What I would suggest is to download OYNX (Be sure to get the one for your OSX Version) and run all the under the Maintenance tab. For sure the permissions, Scripts and Optimize. Reboot and see if that helps at all. If not your HDD might be getting old and having issues. Also run the Disk Utility from the Utilities folder and have it verify the volume. Let us know if that helps at all and what disk utility tells you.

[jdgti]

I have isolated the problem... I believe. First of all, if you turn off all startup items, this helps a bit. However, I belive my problem was that I have a USB hub connected to my computer with External Hard Drive, Printer, Scanner, Mouse, and Blackberry hooked up to it. None of these devices are like an iPod and require iTunes or any other program to start up for them to be useful, but they still somehow drastically slow down the startup. Possibly there are background programs running all the time like novicew suggested, but I was unable to be sure this was the case.

At any rate, if you are concerned with smooth, quick startup, unplug your USB hub with five devices hooked into it.

Good Luck All,

James