Os 10.3 very slow

Heres the deal:

iMac g3 500 MHz 1 GB ram running os 10.3.9
Takes 7 minutes to to start up
Freezes and takes centuries to search items with the finder
Still works pretty well on the internet
Has 5 GB of songs on it if that may have anything to do with it.

I have another iMac of the same model running Mac os 10.1, and that one loads everything way faster.

Could there have been spy-ware/viruses downloaded at some point?

Thanks

Bool said:

Could there have been spy-ware/viruses downloaded at some point?

Click to expand...

I doubt it. But here are two possibilities:

1. This hard drive may be almost full.
2. This hard drive may be on its "last legs"...and is about to crash.

- Nick

With a boot time over about 1.5-2 minutes max, those are the 2 most likely causes.

With 1-1.5 minute boot times and I'd throw in a fragmented drive as a possibility.

You can consider the above to be typical no matter what OS you're running from a hard drive.

Quote:
Originally Posted by pigoo3 View Post

This hard drive may be on its "last legs"...and is about to crash.


So would a dying hard drive be due to just using it a lot and wearing it out?

Hard Drives are mechanical devices. They all wear out and some the first day, the first week, the first month, the first year! Eventually though a hard drive will die. I had a machine very similar to yours and the drives in some were old Quantums and those in many cases I have seen died quite fast.

Bool said:

So would a dying hard drive be due to just using it a lot and wearing it out?

Click to expand...

iMac G3 500mhz computers were released in 2001. That makes this computer 12 years old...and it may still have it's original hard drive.

There have been cases where folks have purchased a brand new computer...and the hard drive has crashed within a couple weeks. So I would say 12 years from the HD in your iMac is a pretty good.

Hard drives are mechanical devices. Mechanical devices wear out...and eventually stop working.

- Nick