[Andrew Stephens]

So two days into ownershipa nd how does it "drive"

Well, not well.

I cannot beleive that this machine is twice as powerful as my old 667 Ti. System response is sluggish in the extreme. Every single action no matter how trivial results in the appearance of the beachball and constant disc churning.

Files crawl to save and open and applications unexpectedly quit all over the place. Sleeping or shutting down is a complete lottery as applications fail to shut down without force quitting. Classic also refuses to die without a force quit.

Transformations in photoshop are very slow also. My desktop 1 Ghz is so much faster both in actual and percieved speed

I have installed an additional 256Mb but will be increasing this to 768Mb in a few days when a 512Mb stick arrives. Hopefully this will speed things up, it needs to.

Anyone else got speed issues with this machine?

[h00ligan]

You know, I'm really sorry to hear that. My new 12" 1.33 is not liek that at all. Granted the 7200 rpm drive did help but it wasn't sluggish by any means before. This book for day to day tasks is much faster then the desktop dual 867 I use at work.. again with things that don't rely on dual processors.

[riotge@r]

Originally posted by h00ligan:
You know, I'm really sorry to hear that. My new 12" 1.33 is not liek that at all. Granted the 7200 rpm drive did help but it wasn't sluggish by any means before. This book for day to day tasks is much faster then the desktop dual 867 I use at work.. again with things that don't rely on dual processors.

7200 rpm? Did you install this yourself?

[striker100]

Well obviously something is wrong. Perhaps the extra ram you added is bad, try removing it and see what happens.
If that doesn't help run the hardware diagnostic CD and see what the results are.
And don't wait, Apple gives you 10 days to replace a defective computer.

[riotge@r]

I just received my BTO 15" 1.5ghz PowerBook and it screams. I use to have a 667 TiBook, so I know how slow that machine is. Something is seriously wrong with your AlBook if you don't notice a significant speed increase.

[CarbonG4]

In addition to removing your potentially crappy RAM module, check your Energy settings in Sys. Prefs to make sure you aren't on "Reduced" settings... 'specially if you're using Photoshop.

Good luck working that out, hopefully you didn't get a lemon and it's just an easy fix.

//Carbon

[yongfook]

I'll have to second what other people have said - check out possible problems with your RAM. I don't think your powerbook is behaving normally.

My 1.33ghz 15" absolutely flies. Even on reduced processor usage it just zips through everything.

Best computer evAr.

[Andrew Stephens]

I,m getting a 512Mb stick today so I'll put that in and see what difference it makes to the speed of things.

Another odd thing. When I connect my 22in NEC monitor the mac will only run it at 1280x(something, sorry at home now). The monitors panel shows my normal resolution of 1680xwhatever as available . The first time it ran at that resolution but the display was really shitty and out of focus (which it isnt at 1280) and now it will only run at 1280. When i try to change it nothing happens.

[riotge@r]

Originally posted by Andrew Stephens:
I,m getting a 512Mb stick today so I'll put that in and see what difference it makes to the speed of things.

Another odd thing. When I connect my 22in NEC monitor the mac will only run it at 1280x(something, sorry at home now). The monitors panel shows my normal resolution of 1680xwhatever as available . The first time it ran at that resolution but the display was really shitty and out of focus (which it isnt at 1280) and now it will only run at 1280. When i try to change it nothing happens.

Is the native res for your monitor 1280x1024? Is it an LCD or CRT? My PowerBook is pushing 1600x1200 on my 20" Dell LCD, which is the native res.

[Andrew Stephens]

No it's a 22in NEC CRT so it has no native res. This morning it has decided to allow the higher resolution but the display is very poor with blurred outlines and shadows etc.

I guess I could try adjusting the monitor itself but then the dsplay will be out when connected to my G4 tower which displays perfectly!

[Babar]

I previously had a Ti667 DVI, it was and still is a nice machine, but I just got a 1.5 15' and it runs plenty fast. No sluggish-ness at all. maybe run software restore ?

[Andrew Stephens]

Woooooaaaah!

I can't beleive that adding a 512Mb stick made such a difference. I don't think the second 256 I put in was working.

Now photoshop opens in a second and everything is waay snappier.

As Bender would say "Oh yeah, that's the good stuff!

[dodo_nutter]

amazing what crap RAM does!!! Where did you get that dud 256 stick from?? Did putting the 'good' RAM in sort your monitor problem out too?

Im always really wary of adding RAM because of things like this happening. I put an extra 512 stick in my iMac 15" and suddenly it wouldn't do anything fast...XBench results dropped by 20-30 points, it was amazing that adding something that should increase the overall 'snappyness' could slow the machine down that much! But i installed the next version of OSX (10.2.2 to 10.2.3 or something) and it fixed itself and the snappyness i was expecting all along came back.

BEWARE OF THE FICKLE RAM GODS!!!

[Andrew Stephens]

Sadly putting the 'good' ram in hasn't fixed the monitor problem at all.

At 1280 it is crystal clear but at 1680 it is very poor indeed. I will have to fiddle some or my eyes will go nuts!

[Andrew Stephens]

btw: The 256 stick was a Hynix chip (same brand as the one that shipped with the PB. Is this a branding of Samsung memory as most people seem to think that these machines ship with Samsung chips. The new 512 chip is Kingston - who I have never had a problem with on any of my other machines and seem good to go on this one too!