08-30-2007, 03:10 PM

I am not very tech savvy but this is my problem: I have a G4 1.25 GHz Power PC Powerbook with 512 MB DDR SDRAM. Lately I have noticed it has become a lot slower, especially during photo-editing. I tend to use Photoshop a lot and it has been very very slow lately. I have about 7000 photos in my iPhoto library.

Would my problems disappear if I added more RAM? If so, how much would you recommend?

Would my problems improve if I removed pictures from the iPhoto library? If so, would you recommend storing them on an external drive?

Many thanks!
RB

08-30-2007, 03:20 PM

More RAM would help for sure, but if the machine is slowing down you might want to try downloading and running ONYX and run all the optimizing tasks. That might speed it up a lot. Is your Hard Drive close to being full? You could move the pictures to an external and point iPhoto to the moved library. I would suggest first running Onyx and see if that helps speed things up a bit.

08-30-2007, 03:53 PM

I have about 10 gigs of free space on my 80 gb drive.

Where do I find Onyx?

Thanks,
RB

08-30-2007, 03:59 PM

http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs2/english/download.html

Be sure and get the one for your version of OSX. Hope that helps you but I would suggest more RAM later down the line.

08-30-2007, 05:05 PM

Rebuild your thumbnail cache and it should increase iPhoto performance.

To invoke the rebuild thumbnail cache option, press and hold Command+Option while launching iPhoto. (or try a combination of those with the Shift key. I'm not sure about the exact combination, but its between those four keys)

08-30-2007, 10:25 PM

Just did it on mine after reading this post and it's definately snappier. Thanks all!

08-31-2007, 12:39 PM

wow u used that 80 gigs up pretty quick....if your storying all those pics on that 80 gigs try to save your computer some space swap it all over to an external hardy drive

08-31-2007, 01:58 PM

If you have lots of applications, use this app Xslimmer. It deletes all the extra language files and PPC data from the applications. Can shave off upto 5GB with that app..

09-01-2007, 01:25 PM

iPhoto has never prompted me to rebuild my thumbnail cache so I don't think I've ever done it. I've read posts by others who had bad experiences doing this. One user said that he lost all of his thumbnails. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm worried that rebuilding the thumbnail cache will somehow screw things up. Any comments?

Also, if I were to do this, should I back-up my entire iPhoto library on a hard drive first?

Many thanks,
RB

09-01-2007, 01:49 PM

I think the ten commandments should be modified to support this technological age. The first commandment should be 1: Thou shall Backup. We'll think of the rest later.

Until Time Machine comes, I backup my stuff every week. Even when Time Machine comes, I will do it once a month. DVDs are cheap nowadays and External HDDs are even cheaper (well not exactly).

Anyway, I've rebuilt my thumbnail cache quite a few times and it has never given me problems.

09-04-2007, 01:21 PM

i call it the beachball of death ha ha, its so annoying when it wont stop spinning.

09-04-2007, 02:59 PM

A little command+option+esc usually does the trick!