start up time

griffo70 · Apr 29, 2007

mines about 40 seconds iv had it for about a month but it has always been this long , is it average?? but im sure before i bought one i read somewhere it started up in 15 seconds or am i being a stupid ? cheers

UserofMacOSX · Apr 29, 2007

You should feel lucky. The time for my iBook is about 5-10 minutes. I'd kill for 40 seconds!!!

yogi · Apr 29, 2007

40 seconds is very good, even for the Intel machines. It will slow down as your hard-drive fills up, though. So keep your drives clean frequently.

Brown Study · Apr 29, 2007

Five to 10 minutes? Something's wrong, obviously. I have a dual 1 GHz G4, and I just timed it from off to usable. With a couple of doodad startup items, it took a shade over 44 seconds. Not a portable, but I'm trying to defend the honour of G4s everywhere.

buttuh · Apr 29, 2007

I clocked it at 30 seconds when I first got the MacBook w/ 1 GB ram. Now it's 25 seconds with 2 GB ram.

UserofMacOSX · Apr 29, 2007

Brown Study said:
Five to 10 minutes? Something's wrong, obviously. I have a dual 1 GHz G4, and I just timed it from off to usable. With a couple of doodad startup items, it took a shade over 44 seconds. Not a portable, but I'm trying to defend the honour of G4s everywhere.

Yes, MINUTES. From the time I push the button, it takes anywhere from 5-10 minutes to stop "thinking" when it reaches the desktop. The grayish Apple screen with the circle spinner thing stays up for about 3 minutes, then another 3 or more on the "Loading Mac OS X" screen. Then about 2 for it to stop clicking on the desktop. We start the process of clicking and "thinking" all over again when I launch my Apps. I just click Safari, iChat, iTunes, and Mail all at the same time so I can just get it over with.

D3v1L80Y · Apr 29, 2007

UserofMacOSX said:
You should feel lucky. The time for my iBook is about 5-10 minutes. I'd kill for 40 seconds!!!

When was the last time you let the maintenance scripts run?
When was the last time you cleared out system caches?
What do you have in your startup items?
How many items do you have on your Desktop at any given time?

TheCustomer99 · Apr 29, 2007

My startups were slowing down, but then I ran Onyx and it cleared the problem right up. Our very own Pulse-8 has created the easiest to follow guide on how to use the program, and those instructions can be found here. Don't worry, Pulse may have offended the unit as a whole, but he still made the easiest to follow instructions I've ever read. I'm just kidding about offending us, Pulse.

UserofMacOSX · Apr 29, 2007

D3v1L80Y:
1. I don't know what that is, but I have used MainMenu and OnyX
2. 5 days ago, with MainMenu. I don't like to do that because I have to re-login to everything,
3. None
4. I have Macintosh HD and that is it.

Here is a picture of my desktop at any given time:

Customer:
I ran OnyX and let it do everything it could. Nothing has seemed to help.

Thank you both!!!

MaDDoG · Apr 29, 2007

That does seem just a touch slow....mine is 20 seconds until I can start opening and using programs.
In a windows machine there are lots of programs which have secretly put scrpits that run when you boot up. My windows laptop, which is not as modern as my MBP, takes about 2 minutes to load.
You are running a bare bones basic system by the look of things. I would be inclined to take it to shop you bought it from and have them take a quick peek.

TheCustomer99 · Apr 29, 2007

If it's really a problem, you can reinstall OS X. But that should only be done under EXTREME circumstances, or so I've heard. I've never done a reinstall.

proxy · Apr 29, 2007

mine is fast i will time later but when my hard drive had only like 5gb left it was very slow my mac is a macbook 2ghz and 2gb and now i have the 100gb hard drive it flys

Kash · Apr 29, 2007

UserofMacOSX said:
Yes, MINUTES. From the time I push the button, it takes anywhere from 5-10 minutes to stop "thinking" when it reaches the desktop. The grayish Apple screen with the circle spinner thing stays up for about 3 minutes, then another 3 or more on the "Loading Mac OS X" screen. Then about 2 for it to stop clicking on the desktop. We start the process of clicking and "thinking" all over again when I launch my Apps. I just click Safari, iChat, iTunes, and Mail all at the same time so I can just get it over with.

What do you mean by clicking? Is it an actual noise your computer is making or something else?

UserofMacOSX · Apr 29, 2007

You know, like the "thinking" sound that any computer makes when opening an application or doing something "strenuous." That is the best way I know of to describe the sound. If it helps, it is coming from the left side of the computer, right under my palm.

Kash · Apr 29, 2007

Sort of like a light grinding noise? Or is it a sharper clicking noise, like a fast tapping?

D3v1L80Y · Apr 29, 2007

UserofMacOSX said:
You know, like the "thinking" sound that any computer makes when opening an application or doing something "strenuous." That is the best way I know of to describe the sound. If it helps, it is coming from the left side of the computer, right under my palm.

That sounds more like a bad hard drive. The area you described is where the HD is located.
I had a G4 iBook 14" some time ago and I had a similar issue. I had the HD replaced and never had a problem after that.

Kash · Apr 29, 2007

D3v1L80Y said:
That sounds more like a bad hard drive. The area you described is where the HD is located.
I had a G4 iBook 14" some time ago and I had a similar issue. I had the HD replaced and never had a problem after that.

That's what I'm thinking, but it could very well be just a loud hard drive. There is a distinct difference between a loud drive (grinding) and a dying one (clicking)

UserofMacOSX · Apr 29, 2007

It didn't do it *much* when new, but now it does it a LOT whenever opening an application, sometimes moving the cursor if it's been idle for a while, clicking on something in the menu bar, scrolling with images on a page, or especially loading .pdf pages. I just had it to the Apple store two weeks ago before the warranty ran out, and they said it (the RAM, which is what they focused on and tested) was fine. Am I just expecting too much here?

Kash · Apr 29, 2007

If it's been making more noise than when you first got it, then that is most definitely a dying hard drive. You should backup everything important ASAP and get the drive replaced. It is practically a time bomb waiting to explode. One day instead of taking 5-10 minutes, it just won't turn on at all.

UserofMacOSX · Apr 29, 2007

Oh goody. How do I go about backing up things? I don't save things that are not important, so pretty much everything on here is important. If I get a new drive, won't I have to reinstall everything I've put on here and reset all my specs and redo pretty much everything from scratch? Like redo my bookmarks list in Safari and my Buddy List in iChat??? I can see this is going to be a fun task.......

Would it be worth my time and save me a headache just to buy a new computer and be done with it???