G4 spinning pinwheel and possible cure

As a follow up to the freezing troubles and fan control cure (which is still working brilliantly so far), my next task on the iBook G4 recently acquired was to sort out the constant spinning pinwheel.
I tried disk verification and resetting permissions from the OS X installation disk - no result.
Next I used iDefrag in case some system files had been badly fragmented (yes there was minor fragmentation but fixing it didn't stop the wheel) and then Disk Warrior and all it's tools - waste of time, although now I know everything is as healthy as can be
Finally I installed OnyX - at last, a complete optimization from the maintenace menu did the trick !

No more spinning wheels, I recommend trying OnyX first before spending any money.
The only thing is, I fresh installed the iBook as soon as it arrived so how on earth did things go downhill so quickly?

Hope this helps others in the same position

Cheers

Hugh

No result from OS X running Repair Permissions comes about as Disk Utility may well have been updated during a Software Update. After updating, run from within Disk Utility.

Sorry, what I meant by 'no result' was that I did use Disk Utility; permissions were corrected OK but the pinwheel came back.

Cheers

Hugh