HELP! Internet VERY VERY slow

[Matt]

Help!

I have upgraded to Panther, and the internet is unbearably painfully slow. Safari is alot worse than IE for browsing, not only is IE unbearably slow, Safari managed to be even slower. The modem only connects approx. 20 BPS and this is a 56K modem (V 90).

When I installed 10.3, I selected the " erase and install" or something to that effect when it asked me what my prefered installation method was. Is this formatting the HDD, or do I need to reinstall.

By the way, I am running an iMac G3 600Mhz, 256MB OF RAM, 40GIG HDD.

I am starting to regret my switch. Please help!!!!!!!!!!!!

Any input appreciated

 

[Avalon]

Hmm... by my own experience i can tell you that any other browser I tried is slower than Safari, and I'm using a 56k modem too. Are you sure that your ISP isn't the reason for this? I had a problem with slow internet too (on PC) and after changing the ISP, everything was fine again.

"Erase and install" was the right choice, it initializes your harddisk (formats the harddisk, in Windows terms ) and then does a clean install.

A general suggestion from me:
Get more RAM! Preferably as much as you can put in (and afford of course). Apple says 256MB is the minimum for OS X, but I would say less than 512MB is not enough.I tried mine (PowerMac G4 1.25GHZ) with the original 256MB RAM, and it was sluggish. So I guess with the G3 it's even worse.
You can put up to 1GB RAM in yours (2x 512MB PC100 SDRAM, PC133 will work too).

 

[Matt]

Firstly,

It was so much faster before I installed Panther. Put it this way, it is so slow it takes Safari about 3 minutes to load a page. Too slow to be just RAM. And I also get the message "Server could not be found".

Thanks for your comments,

Matt

 

[Avalon]

I didn't say RAM was the issue for Safari being slow, the RAM comment was a general one...

Nevertheless, it sounds strange to me... I tried Mozilla, Camino and Firefox on my Mac, and all of them were slower than Safari.

3 minutes to load a page is definitely too long (except if the page contains a flash, than it can happen quite often with a 56k modem).

Sorry, can't help you this time I guess...

 

[Matt]

Yeah,

This computer is starting to worry me.

Thankyou for your help anyways,

 

[VastDeathmaster]

Can you try your computer at another location? (as in not in your house?)

This is coming from wintel experience, but as far as I know, 56k modems generally do not connect at 56k. It depends on the phone line or how close you are to the ISP (if local) or the phone company.

It may just be a coincidence. If the computer operates fine in every other way, then it might not be software related.

 

[Matt]

Thanks for that,

I have a laptop (Wintel), that never connects to 56K, of which I have seen at 19K, but didn't affect the speed much at all. Anyway, I re-installed Panther again, IE is now at a usable state, but Safari doesn't load anything in a bearable amount of time now.

Anyway, I'll see how my Mac experience goes from here, but it has sadly been a bit of a pain since day one with simple things. For example, I had 10.1.5, and the internet wouldn't connect at all at first, to get it right it took me about a week. I have, although, become very attached to this computer. I love the look of it, and love the look of the OS. It just is depressing when you see of what I had higer hopes on to fall into the "nusience" catigory. I think things will be OK from here on (I hope), well at least with IE. Maybe that Java update has something to do with it. I use top-up internet so downloading to the latest (10.3.5) is too difficult for now.

Anyway, I like my Mac, but I am dissapointed for now, because it just hasn't been this, but a series of problems since I bought it two or three weeks ago. I will let you know how I go.

 

[Matt]

I managed to get Safari working properly and IT'S FAST

It just started.... well working

 

[Aptmunich]

Wierd, btw have you repaired permissions?

If not, maybe that would help...

Strange that you've had so much hassle, mac's are so much easier to get online than wintel machines, basically just type in the number to dial and the password, hit connect and you're done.

Btw I get a decent connection speed here using 56k, but and my mum's house, using her phone line the connection speed is a lot slower, so that CAN be a factor..

 

[Avalon]

I managed to get Safari working properly and IT'S FAST

It just started.... well working

Great!
So your Mac experience can go on in a positive way now...

But, just by curiosity, what did you do to make it work? What was the issue?

 

[Matt]

I don't know Avalon. It just started working, don't ask me how. Plus the re-nstall might have helped.

About repair permissions, do I have to be connecect to the internet whilst runnig Mac Janitor, I ask only because last time I tried (with 10.1.5) it tried to connect to the internet?????

 

[rman]

The only thing that Mac Janitor does is clean you the system log files. To repair permissoions, you will need to run the disk utility application, Which is located in the application -> utilities folder.

You don't have to be connected to the internet to run either applications.

 

[Matt]

Thanks rman.

I will do that