[mikills]

Please help. I'm trying to optimize the performance of my PowerBook. I have a few questions about Process Viewer under OS X 10.2.4 on my 1GHz PowerBook.

When no applications are present, I have 8 user processes and 28 root processes. My computer has been running slower and slower and I'm trying to pinpoint the problem.

1. When no applications are running, how many background processes should be running?

2. What are these root processes that run in the viewer?

3. Are all the root processes critical to the operation of the computer?

Thanks in advance.

Michael

[dark3lf]

Open Terminal, run 'top', then copy/paste the info here.

[mikills]

Originally posted by dark3lf:
Open Terminal, run 'top', then copy/paste the info here.

Processes: 33 total, 2 running, 31 sleeping... 92 threads 11:36:24
Load Avg: 0.30, 0.06, 0.02 CPU usage: 12.4% user, 10.5% sys, 77.1% idl
SharedLibs: num = 54, resident = 17.1M code, 1.76M data, 5.39M LinkEdit
MemRegions: num = 2251, resident = 17.9M + 5.33M private, 51.7M shared
PhysMem: 58.1M wired, 56.8M active, 91.2M inactive, 206M used, 818M free
VM: 1.74G + 37.5M 5604(13) pageins, 0(0) pageouts

PID COMMAND %CPU TIME #TH #PRTS #MREGS RPRVT RSHRD RSIZE VSIZE
426 top 4.7% 0:01.19 1 14 17 192K 336K 488K 13.6M
425 tcsh 0.0% 0:00.02 1 10 16 348K 588K 788K 5.73M
424 login 0.0% 0:00.33 1 12 33 248K 388K 576K 13.7M
412 hdid 0.0% 0:00.04 1 10 28 296K 1.18M 320K 14.8M
387 Terminal 12.4% 0:12.19 4 84 186 2.18M+ 9.54M+ 9.61M+ 116M+
347 Microsoft 0.0% 0:00.36 2 69 103 1.79M 6.70M 4.18M 109M
344 Finder 0.0% 0:06.10 3 96 207 5.33M 18.7M+ 17.2M 133M
343 SystemUISe 0.0% 0:00.71 1 144 140 1.43M 4.41M 3.97M 108M
342 Dock 0.0% 0:00.58 2 78 119 804K 8.77M 2.66M 108M
336 pbs 0.0% 0:00.86 2 27 27 408K 968K 1.21M 14.4M
330 DirectoryS 0.0% 0:00.33 3 56 141 736K 3.21M 3.12M 21.0M
313 loginwindo 0.0% 0:01.03 4 155 140 1.75M 9.13M 8.34M 114M
310 cron 0.0% 0:00.01 1 8 17 84K 336K 172K 13.8M
308 cupsd 0.0% 0:00.08 1 8 17 180K 480K 404K 2.94M
304 inetd 0.0% 0:00.01 1 8 13 56K 316K 116K 1.28M

[xtal]

Have you checked your login items to see if anything was surreptitiously placed there unbeknownst to you?

Other than that, I'll let others deal with your 'top' list. I'm not as much of a *nix pro as I think I am...

[mikills]

Originally posted by xtal:
Have you checked your login items to see if anything was surreptitiously placed there unbeknownst to you?

Other than that, I'll let others deal with your 'top' list. I'm not as much of a *nix pro as I think I am...

Where can I find the logon information?

[philm]

Ah ha! I know this one. Check under System Preferences...Login Items and see what is listed there.

[absmiths]

BTW, this has nothing to do with the process viewer app in OS 10.2.4.

This probably should have gone in the Unix forum as "Background processes under 10.2.4".