Powerbook Suddenly Slow!

I don't know why, but as of the last two days, my powerbook has barely been able to start and has been extremely slow. I can't scroll without waiting 15 minutes! The thing is that it was very fast prior. I don't know why. Ram is not an issue because I have 1.256 GB. Any suggestions would be well appreciated.

Thanks.

I'm getting the spinning rainbow thing all the time...

did a stick of your ram go bad? If the gig stick went bad that would only leave you witn 256 of ram, check to see that you still have that much ram in the about this mac section.

If you still have the same amount of ram as when you bought the system then have your repaird persmissions lately?

I did all of that (repairing permission things) and it helped to get me to my desktop. I can't tell if a memory stick went bad. It says I have 1.25 GB. How can I tell?

You don't say what OS you have, go over to this site and look around..http://www.macfixit.com/

Panther

Thsi si strange. I am looking forward for an answer from the experts on this forum

Does the problem occur only in specific application, like Safari for instance? To test your RAM, run memtest and use the rember gui for a front end if you like. To see how much RAM is available, click on the apple, and then 'about this mac'.
http://www.versiontracker.com/php/s...ction=search&str=memtest&plt[]=macosx&x=0&y=0

Well even with only 256MB Ram it shouldn't be that slow!

Take out the RAM, reboot and see if the problem goes away.
If it does - exchange the RAM. If not: Try the other common maintenance tricks:
Repair permissions, run cron jobs (check out macjanitor).

Also check to see if the processor speed hasn't inadvertently been set to lower in the energy saver preference pane.

Harryc said:

Does the problem occur only in specific application, like Safari for instance?

Click to expand...

Nope the problem is all around. I can click on the desktop to move some files around and it runs pretty slowly. Now this is nothing compared to when I run applications in general. Applications and other operations, such as screen brightness, volume, expose, scrolling, typing all run slow. I recall closing my laptop lid hoping that it would enter sleep mode and somewhat refresh itself, but instead it didn't. The screen remained on, and after I opened the lid again, it fell into sleep mode about half a minute later. Waking it up took about ten seconds, which seems kinda long if you bother to count the seconds.

Aptmunich said:

Well even with only 256MB Ram it shouldn't be that slow!

Take out the RAM, reboot and see if the problem goes away.
If it does - exchange the RAM. If not: Try the other common maintenance tricks:
Repair permissions, run cron jobs (check out macjanitor).

Also check to see if the processor speed hasn't inadvertently been set to lower in the energy saver preference pane.

Click to expand...

Ok, I've repaired permissions, and that helped. I've used cocktail but I'll check out macjanitor (I assume it's a program), and my energy saver preferences.

How would I go about doing the ram thing? I'm also considering a full system erase (after I transfer a copy of everything to my pc). Do you think this might help?

PowerBookG4 said:

did a stick of your ram go bad?

Click to expand...

If a stick did go bad (for future reference) would this be my fault?

vbr2 said:

Ok, I've repaired permissions, and that helped. I've used cocktail but I'll check out macjanitor (I assume it's a program), and my energy saver preferences.

How would I go about doing the ram thing? I'm also considering a full system erase (after I transfer a copy of everything to my pc). Do you think this might help?

Click to expand...

Yep Macjanitor is a program, but it'll do more or less the same as Cocktail...

Have you tried rebooting yet? Might sound silly, but we mac users often forget that...
To get the RAM out, just follow the step-by-step instructions that should have come with your powerbook on how to add Ram, but instead remove it.

If a stick did go bad (for future reference) would this be my fault?

Click to expand...

No, it's usually a quality control issue, so as long as you're covered by some sort of warranty, the retailer should replace it.

Aptmunich said:

No, it's usually a quality control issue, so as long as you're covered by some sort of warranty, the retailer should replace it.

Click to expand...

So it just kinda ages right? I've had my powerbook since november I think.

My Powerbook had a very similar issue, it got very very slow. I did several things, and they really sped it back up to speed. My test was always the fps on the iTunes visualizer because I could pull that up easily. I went from approx. 15 fps, to 60 fps (average) after this....

I used MacJanitor, then I used a program called Yasu (much better program). It does the same thing as MacJanitor, but it also does many other things. For example, it clears the logs that you specify.

Repair disk permissions through the disk utility. (Yasu does this for you, but I do it a second time. Why not?)

Reset Pram and Vram. You do this by holding certain keys at startup. You'll have to look them up as I don't remember them. (or someone might post it here...)

Doing those things above are good maintenance for your Mac anyways. Also, check in the activity monitor and look at how your ram is being used. See if there are any big activities that are eating up lots of CPU or Ram.

EDIT: it posted twice

hmm I am baffled, I think you should do a fresh intstall of panther... back everything up to your pc like you said you would.

PowerBookG4 said:

hmm I am baffled, I think you should do a fresh intstall of panther... back everything up to your pc like you said you would.

Click to expand...

The problem with that is when he puts the stuff back onto the mac, he could be bringing the problem back too.

However, if the maintenance stuff I mentioned doesn't work, expecially if resetting the Pram and Vram doesn't (I think that is the main thing that fixed mine), I agree. His only option would be a reinstall of Panther (or maybe move up to tiger then :black:.