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steve1341 · Feb 5, 2005, 07:49 AM

Dear All,

So i have a 20" iMac with 512MB RAM fitted by Apple.

Dont even get me started on the loud fan problem - It is still loud on a 20".

Anways i find the G5 iMac very VERY slow. Before this i had a G4 powerbook - Rev A - and that was faster then this machine - which is surprising.

Safari normally always has a constant spinning wheel and I cant understand why - Its on a whole range of different sites and not just one or two. For example in Slashdot etc.

Also when I do a "top" I get the follwoing :

Code:

Processes:  60 total, 3 running, 57 sleeping... 158 threads            13:45:57
Load Avg:  1.40, 1.31, 1.18     CPU usage:  68.5% user, 31.5% sys, 0.0% idle
SharedLibs: num =  120, resident = 27.1M code, 2.13M data, 6.85M LinkEdit
MemRegions: num =  8032, resident =  151M + 14.0M private,  176M shared
PhysMem:  72.4M wired,  281M active,  147M inactive,  501M used, 10.6M free
VM: 5.71G + 83.3M   44001(0) pageins, 3700(0) pageouts

What i dont understand is what the system is using nearly 30 % CPU time.

I tried this on a G4 at work and it was closer to 8% - What is the CPU time that the system uses on your machine.

I tried explaining this problem to Apple support online but they were not very helpful.

Please help if you can.

steve1341 · Feb 5, 2005, 07:50 AM

ALso - when starting the machine up in verbose mode i get the following message (among others)

RS232 returnng false early - connetcor or machine is incorrect.

Anyone had this before

What is the RS232 port.

Some sort of serial port ????????????

CHeers

Cadaver · Feb 5, 2005, 07:56 AM

If its new and you don't yet have too much on the machine, I'd suggest simply booting from the restore CD that shipped with your machine, wiping the HD and reinstalling the OS & applications.

Your TOP printout shows 0% idle. Something's not right... but you didn't show which app(s) were using all the processor time.

But again, if you don't yet have too many files on the machine, the simplest way might be to just start over.

steve1341 · Feb 5, 2005, 07:59 AM

I cant retsore the machine - Its got a lot of data on it.

Code:
Last login: Sat Feb  5 00:02:01 on console
Welcome to Darwin!
JAVA_HOME == /usr;




Processes:  61 total, 2 running, 59 sleeping... 164 threads            13:57:33
Load Avg:  0.54, 0.62, 0.80     CPU usage:  41.8% user, 27.5% sys, 30.7% idle
SharedLibs: num =  121, resident = 27.4M code, 2.68M data, 6.94M LinkEdit
MemRegions: num =  8326, resident =  144M + 11.0M private,  170M shared
PhysMem:  76.4M wired,  276M active,  136M inactive,  489M used, 22.8M free
VM: 5.81G + 83.4M   54567(7) pageins, 22632(0) pageouts

  PID COMMAND      %CPU   TIME   #TH #PRTS #MREGS RPRVT  RSHRD  RSIZE  VSIZE
  528 top         20.6%  0:01.11   1    16    26   368K   476K   744K  27.1M 
  523 BBEdit       0.0%  0:04.80   1    70   220  6.23M  45.3M  18.9M   158M
  515 Microsoft    0.0%  0:00.54   2    58   119  1.83M  9.47M  4.82M   131M
  511 Microsoft    9.6%  1:39.41   6   104   582  33.8M  79.4M  59.2M   377M
  496 iCal         0.0%  0:07.15   1    82   172  5.21M  39.3M  11.6M   147M
  476 Mail         0.0%  0:47.55  12   178   276  11.4M  45.9M  23.1M   167M
  461 iTunes       9.6%  3:31.24   7   216   254  8.39M  44.8M  15.2M   179M
  406 LaunchBar    0.0%  0:57.57   1    70   177  2.94M  36.7M  5.33M   144M
  396 bash         0.0%  0:00.05   1    12    15   144K   888K   720K  18.2M
  395 login        0.0%  0:00.04   1    13    37    60K   440K   396K  26.9M
  394 Terminal     2.7%  0:17.28   3    67   154  3.78M  35.9M  8.73M+  144M
  363 AppleSpell   0.0%  0:00.56   1    50    38   668K  1.47M  1.41M  35.9M
  353 SecurityAg   0.0%  0:01.40   2    76   127  1.55M  32.9M  2.13M   138M
  352 iChatAgent   0.0%  0:00.87   5    70    55   612K  2.30M  2.02M   102M
  351 Safari      21.3%  9:22.70   7   152   478  37.6M  58.4M  55.0M   239M
  346 MagicMenuH   0.0%  0:00.41   1    49    85   432K  3.15M   980K   121M
  343 UniversalA   0.0%  0:14.11   1    56   104   796K  4.85M  1.93M   135M
  340 iTunesHelp   0.0%  0:00.22   1    49    79   280K  3.11M   704K   121M
  339 StuffItAVR   0.0%  0:01.71   2    60   268  1.02M  3.79M  3.15M   146M
  338 Archive As   0.0%  0:00.21   1    52    90   284K  3.94M  1.01M   123M
  337 MagicMenu    0.0%  0:01.13   2    56   278   356K  4.46M  2.89M   150M
  336 AutoPairs    0.0%  0:51.31   1    53    82   364K  3.43M   996K   122M
  335 System Eve   0.0%  0:01.78   1    57   106   804K  3.53M  1.43M   129M
  334 LaCie Back   0.0%  0:00.55   2    72    90   320K  3.39M   844K   122M
  333 iCalAlarmS   0.0%  0:00.59   1    60    95   504K  2.61M  1.34M   125M
  327 Finder       0.0%  6:13.42   3   165   236  3.93M  39.9M  14.0M   167M
  326 SystemUISe   0.0%  0:37.31   2   227   251  2.33M  37.2M  5.26M   151M
  324 Dock         0.0%  0:05.99   2    96   140   928K  32.3M  2.39M   125M
  320 pbs          0.0%  0:00.86   2    32    43   208K  1.90M   668K  44.6M
  319 xinetd       0.0%  0:00.02   1    13    19    12K   372K    64K  26.8M
  289 automount    0.0%  0:00.03   2    29    27    96K   928K   428K  28.3M
  284 postfix-wa   0.0%  0:00.00   1     9    15     8K   368K    52K  17.6M

Cadaver · Feb 5, 2005, 08:14 AM

Hmmm... Nothing looks abnormal there. And I can see you're on a relatively fresh boot, too. Next time it starts beachballing, check the TOP and see what apps are using the most CPU time. Report back.

You've got SuffIt Deluxe it looks like. Any other haxies? Perhaps some that aren't loaded at the moment? Just for fun, try disabling StuffIt Deluxe and the MagicMenu utility. These types of problems can be tricky to track down... start disabling non-standard stuff first.