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Rich Jercha · Mar 7, 2005, 12:43 AM

Hi I am currently working on an iMac DV 400 with a brand new 512mb ram card in it, a 10 gig HD and an internal dvd drive. It had panther on it, but was starting up/running insanely slow (I have a g3 all in one that runs faster). Startup takes, no joke, approximately 20 minutes. What in the world is the problem and how do i fix it? Like i said it had panther, but i zero'd the disk (after backing up files to my powermac) with the panther cd, then installed jaguar (I need to have os X on it before using the panther upgrade cds). I decided to try and use jaguar first to see if zeroing the drive had sped the computer up at all, and the result was that its actually slower. My first thought was the ram, but i have a 128 meg card that seems to allow the same performance issue.
any ideas?
thanks
Rich

indigoimac · Mar 7, 2005, 05:08 PM

i could be wrong but i don't believe that the drive u have in there 10gig is the orig one and either way it is 5400RPM and at this point is getting a little old so might i suggest a nice new one any seagate or maxtor will certainly suffice as long as it is less than like 130gigs

Hi I'm Ben · Mar 7, 2005, 05:25 PM

it's not taking 20 minutes because it's a 5400 RPM drive.

yikes600 · Mar 7, 2005, 05:58 PM

I'm guessing corrupted caches. First, try running Font Findangler to clear font caches. If that doesn't work, try Cache Out X for everything else.

iLikebeer · Mar 7, 2005, 07:45 PM

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75430

If it's a slot-loader, you must install firmware update in OS 8 or 9 before installing X.

Rich Jercha · Mar 8, 2005, 08:22 AM

ok i actually timed it and it takes over 6 minutes to fully boot os x. I checked and the firmware is up to date. Could the hard drive be dying? is it because i have pc133 ram (512mb card)?

hldan · Mar 8, 2005, 01:27 PM

Originally posted by Rich Jercha:
Hi I am currently working on an iMac DV 400 with a brand new 512mb ram card in it, a 10 gig HD and an internal dvd drive. It had panther on it, but was starting up/running insanely slow (I have a g3 all in one that runs faster). Startup takes, no joke, approximately 20 minutes. What in the world is the problem and how do i fix it? Like i said it had panther, but i zero'd the disk (after backing up files to my powermac) with the panther cd, then installed jaguar (I need to have os X on it before using the panther upgrade cds). I decided to try and use jaguar first to see if zeroing the drive had sped the computer up at all, and the result was that its actually slower. My first thought was the ram, but i have a 128 meg card that seems to allow the same performance issue.
any ideas?
thanks
Rich

No pun intended but it seems like it's your time to get rid of that bugger and get a brand new Mac that will fully support OSX. Not that OSX is the problem but a newly updated machine will handle better especially for speed. That machine is really an OS9 optimized computer and due to the age of the machine the components have probably played out their time. Have you tried installing OS9 only? If it works well under OS9 then the problem is its optimization for OSX.
If it acts the same way in OS9 then it would not be very cost effective to replace aging components. It's best to buy a new machine.

discotronic · Mar 8, 2005, 02:33 PM

Originally posted by hldan:
No pun intended but it seems like it's your time to get rid of that bugger and get a brand new Mac that will fully support OSX. Not that OSX is the problem but a newly updated machine will handle better especially for speed. That machine is really an OS9 optimized computer and due to the age of the machine the components have probably played out their time. Have you tried installing OS9 only? If it works well under OS9 then the problem is its optimization for OSX.
If it acts the same way in OS9 then it would not be very cost effective to replace aging components. It's best to buy a new machine.

Could you explain what an OSX optimized machine means? Getting a new machine won't do anything for the iMac he already owns. That iMac should run OSX decently for basic applications. It shouldn't take 6 minutes to boot into OSX. My iBook 300MHz boots in less than a minute under Panther.

It could be your hard drive. Since changing the RAM doesn't help and re-installing OSX doesn't help. The speed of the hard drive shouldn't be an issue. If you could get your hands on a cheap HD just for testing you would be better off. That way you don't have to spend a large chunk of cash on something you may or may not need.

Have you tried resetting the PRAM and all that good stuff?

Rich Jercha · Mar 9, 2005, 09:14 AM

Originally posted by discotronic:
Could you explain what an OSX optimized machine means? Getting a new machine won't do anything for the iMac he already owns. That iMac should run OSX decently for basic applications. It shouldn't take 6 minutes to boot into OSX. My iBook 300MHz boots in less than a minute under Panther.

It could be your hard drive. Since changing the RAM doesn't help and re-installing OSX doesn't help. The speed of the hard drive shouldn't be an issue. If you could get your hands on a cheap HD just for testing you would be better off. That way you don't have to spend a large chunk of cash on something you may or may not need.

Have you tried resetting the PRAM and all that good stuff?

Although I am aware that os x likes newer machines better, as i mentioned earlier, my 266mhz g3 runs quite snappily with panther. The iMac is actually my friends and I am fixing it for him. He wants it for his son to use for word processing, so its not like we're running final cut pro here. I just tried resetting the pram and that didn't do much... at first the computer wouldn't boot though...? what's up with that? haha but then i hit option on startup and the computer responded after i selected the already default partition. I guess i can try another HD... thanks

hldan · Mar 10, 2005, 10:43 AM

Originally posted by discotronic:
Could you explain what an OSX optimized machine means? Getting a new machine won't do anything for the iMac he already owns. That iMac should run OSX decently for basic applications. It shouldn't take 6 minutes to boot into OSX. My iBook 300MHz boots in less than a minute under Panther.

It could be your hard drive. Since changing the RAM doesn't help and re-installing OSX doesn't help. The speed of the hard drive shouldn't be an issue. If you could get your hands on a cheap HD just for testing you would be better off. That way you don't have to spend a large chunk of cash on something you may or may not need.

Have you tried resetting the PRAM and all that good stuff?

I'm sure that much older Macs will run OSX acceptably but what I meant by optimized is that the newer machines have better graphics solutions and this is what OSX is all about. The quartz extreme engine is relies on GPU performance as this will be even more necessary in Tiger for optimized speed. OSX has always relied on the GPU to minimize processor strain as OS9 was not designed this way.
His older machine behaving the way it does has nothing to with lack of OSX optimization, he just may need to replace the machine has it's played out it's time. Instead of putting good money to an old machine for repair it's better to just invest in an updated Mac. It's not worth consistantly updating an older machine with the latest OS as the older machine will begin to run short on resources to accomodate the software.