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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac OS X > Expert Advice- Speed/Performance degradation- may help others

Expert Advice- Speed/Performance degradation- may help others
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glo
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Apr 28, 2003, 08:59 AM
 
Hi All,

I have three macs. g3 graphite - 384 megs. dulie 867, 1 gig, and a 15 " TI Book, 768 megs, 1 ghz. Anyway, it seems that my g3, performs better than my ti book. Browsers start faster, office starts faster, render time is faster. I cannot seem to figure out why my ti is just so slow. In fact, the dock, hesitates when I float my cursor over it and sometimes it even gets stuck...I have to wiggle the cursor to get it to unhide. I have checked network settings to make sure that I am not going out to any mounted drives, or using any protocols that I i do not need, and I have no haxies on this machine. The ONLY difference between all of the machines is that I loaded the developer tools on the TI book, since I wanted to play around with PVCS. Could I trouble some of you to help me out....I am so frustrated with the TI book, that I sometimes <gasp> use my crappy dell inspiron with XP, just to get some work done.

The most frustrating thing about the performance is that I had to convince my employer to get me a g4 for work instead of the company standard xp laptops....I insisted that it would be better, well now I have this expensvie machine that is slower than my 2.5 year old g3, and I am eating crow....

Should I remove the dev tools? If so how?

Could there be things running in the background that dev tools put there? I can I find them....

I cannot do a reinstall, I have to much crap on the machine....

I do not run classic apps, nor do I run any Java apps and there does not seem to be anything crazy when I look at top...just the machine is very hesitant...

Please help experts...

Thanks in advance

glo
Dual 867
imac Graphite
TiBook 1 Ghz
Ipod
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Prozac
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www.fatchicksinpartyhats.com
     
Senior User
Join Date: Mar 2001
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Apr 28, 2003, 09:05 AM
 
Open the terminal and type "top" without the quotes. Paste the results here.
     
Mac Elite
Join Date: May 2001
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Apr 28, 2003, 09:05 AM
 
Try to defragment your harddisk.... if you did all the updates + install dev tools, the disk is probably very fragmented and this probably slows things down...
     
glo  (op)
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Apr 28, 2003, 09:56 AM
 
Here is my top


Processes: 54 total, 3 running, 51 sleeping... 210 threads 10:55:31
Load Avg: 1.08, 0.64, 0.48 CPU usage: 68.0% user, 16.0% sys, 16.0% idle
SharedLibs: num = 54, resident = 20.6M code, 1.66M data, 4.71M LinkEdit
MemRegions: num = 8705, resident = 211M + 11.2M private, 130M shared
PhysMem: 79.7M wired, 284M active, 234M inactive, 598M used, 170M free
VM: 4.06G + 37.5M 38420(0) pageins, 222589(0) pageouts

PID COMMAND %CPU TIME #TH #PRTS #MREGS RPRVT RSHRD RSIZE VSIZE
2224 TextEdit 0.0% 0:01.79 1 62 119 1.47M 8.28M 5.19M 105M
2219 Preview 0.0% 0:01.10 1 55 114 1.39M 17.8M 12.9M 117M
2217 mount_webd 0.0% 0:00.27 7 36 31 324K 696K 472K 17.0M
2212 Grab 0.0% 0:13.39 4 130 184 8.83M 18.2M 18.3M 129M
2208 top 2.3% 2:43.25 1 14 18 364K 368K 448K 13.6M
2207 tcsh 0.0% 0:00.01 1 10 15 344K 632K 784K 5.73M
2206 login 0.0% 0:00.56 1 12 33 244K 420K 572K 13.7M
2205 Terminal 46.3% 0:20.55 3 60 149 1.72M+ 9.00M+ 6.03M+ 107M+
2173 lookupd 0.0% 0:00.80 2 31 46 380K 556K 852K 14.9M
2172 imserviced 0.0% 0:02.32 1 20 33 408K 844K 1.09M 14.6M
2170 imserviced 0.0% 0:08.64 1 20 31 324K 904K 1.01M 14.4M
2124 writeconfi 0.0% 0:00.33 1 51 19 336K 676K 1.26M 14.0M
2121 System Pre 0.0% 0:18.69 2 80 134 2.52M 8.00M 5.86M 106M
1931 Safari 0.0% 0:13.39 4 132 370 14.9M 26.3M 26.2M 172M
1472 Camino 27.9% 2:08:05 16 278 1047 90.6M 30.5M 95.7M 378M
1445 System Eve 0.0% 0:00.36 1 50 84 888K 5.06M 1.95M 98.9M
1349 Print Cent 0.0% 0:58.34 1 57 106 1.23M 9.68M 2.73M 111M
1339 SecurityAg 0.0% 0:00.85 1 53 99 1020K 6.95M 2.43M 103M
1324 AEServer 0.0% 0:00.31 2 28 32 308K 792K 760K 78.8M
1121 Mail 0.0% 0:18.19 3 111 179 3.72M 11.2M 8.21M 111M
934 AppleSpell 0.0% 0:01.02 1 30 22 396K 1.16M 860K 15.0M
627 Microsoft 0.7% 2:11:08 9 158 744 29.1M 38.4M 34.0M 235M
428 automount 0.0% 0:00.05 2 22 21 76K 428K 372K 14.7M
363 imservices 0.0% 0:05.41 3 26 143 1.47M 1.00M 1.58M 22.9M
362 Transport 0.0% 0:51.12 2 78 103 588K 3.68M 1.54M 97.9M
361 Palm Deskt 0.0% 12:20.35 1 42 76 316K 4.23M 1.00M 99.8M
358 Show Deskt 0.0% 0:01.39 1 53 94 732K 6.08M 1.67M 102M
357 Proteus 0.0% 59:45.93 6 154 623 27.0M 18.6M 23.2M 169M
356 Microsoft 0.0% 4:51.64 2 70 122 2.25M 9.78M 4.86M 108M
354 Finder 0.0% 1:43.85 2 96 305 4.43M 25.3M 15.8M 141M
353 SystemUISe 0.0% 1:21.41 2 156 177 2.30M 7.71M 4.07M 107M
352 Dock 0.0% 9:31.10 2 148 164 1.63M 11.1M 4.73M 109M
346 pbs 0.0% 0:00.74 2 27 27 312K 864K 700K 14.4M
339 DirectoryS 0.0% 0:03.52 3 55 146 732K 2.04M 1.89M 21.6M
Dual 867
imac Graphite
TiBook 1 Ghz
Ipod
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.
.
Prozac
_______
www.fatchicksinpartyhats.com
     
Posting Junkie
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Apr 28, 2003, 10:06 AM
 
What kind of memory are you using? Did you install it? Factory installed?

You have some serious pageout issues going on...

Restarted?
     
glo  (op)
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Apr 28, 2003, 10:16 AM
 
...I have 1 factory 256 and 1 512 from datamem, which I installed.....

512mb pc133 64x64 SDRAM SO DIMM Titanium....

I am not sure what pageouts are....is that something that I can fix?


dan

Also, there was a suggestion that i defrag....how do I do that.....


glo
Dual 867
imac Graphite
TiBook 1 Ghz
Ipod
.
.
.
Prozac
_______
www.fatchicksinpartyhats.com
     
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Apr 28, 2003, 10:35 AM
 
Originally posted by glo:
...I have 1 factory 256 and 1 512 from datamem, which I installed.....

512mb pc133 64x64 SDRAM SO DIMM Titanium....

I am not sure what pageouts are....is that something that I can fix?


dan

Also, there was a suggestion that i defrag....how do I do that.....


glo
I wouldn't mess with defragging now unless your hard drive is almost full. If you have 10-15 GB free then that won't help much (besides, you don't see such dramatic speed ups from defragging anyway (my experience, YMMV)). Pageouts happen when you run out of physical memory and RAM has to be paged to the disk. This can be one of the largest contributors to system slowness on any computer regardless of OS. BTW, I have a 667 TiBook and it runs very nicely - several times faster than my Beige G3/300 with the same OS.

That said, you didn't have any pageouts in the last second so maybe this is just the result of a heavily used system that has been up for a while.

Here are my statistics:

Beige G3/300 384MB: 0 pageouts in 24 hours.
TiBook 667 512MB: 0 pageouts in 3 hours.

You might try taking the datamem RAM out and see how the system behaves.
     
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Apr 28, 2003, 10:41 AM
 
Originally posted by glo:
Also, there was a suggestion that i defrag....how do I do that.....


glo
You have to buy a defragger - there is no free way (that I know of).
     
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Apr 28, 2003, 10:46 AM
 
How is the Powerbook after a fresh restart?

Do you leave it on and awake at night so that it can clean out it's cache files? If not then download Cocktail to clean them out manually.

The only thing that I see is that Camino is taking 27.9% of your processor and you do have a lot of things open.
     
JKT
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Apr 28, 2003, 10:48 AM
 
If you don't have enough space to do an archive and install then it suggests that you don't have enough space left on your disk to run the OS properly, full stop. How much disk space do you have and how much is taken up - do a Get Info on the HD?.

Try backing up older stuff that you don't need to a CD-R(W) or another computer and deleting it (and the Developer tools?) from your Ti to free up some MB/GBs of space.
     
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Apr 28, 2003, 11:56 AM
 
222589(0) pageouts

I'd consider that a slight paging problem... Camino is a cpu sucker aint it? Thats why i use IE or Safari (even safari has been guitly of it, but its my primary browser)

Processes: 46 total, 3 running, 43 sleeping... 167 threads 10:52:33
Load Avg: 1.15, 0.78, 0.53 CPU usage: 31.3% user, 14.5% sys, 54.2% idl
SharedLibs: num = 108, resident = 29.1M code, 2.79M data, 8.86M LinkEdit
MemRegions: num = 5048, resident = 129M + 10.9M private, 104M shared
PhysMem: 68.1M wired, 139M active, 396M inactive, 603M used, 165M free
VM: 2.08G + 65.7M 15752(0) pageins, 0(0) pageouts

thats my top. I have the same amount of ram, and i run a TiBook667 (dvd) The system runs flawlessly except for the 10.2.5 USB bug that has me kernel panicing every now and then... *ahem* My system is very fast, very responsive. The 512 mb ram I bought was Kingston, never had a problem. I'd check to see how much freespace you have. Then go in to /private/var/vm and delete everything marked swapfile0, swapfile1 etc etc etc. Then do a reboot. With paging like that its possible your system could be paging out to many swapfiles (possibly fragmented swapfiles)

I think the new version of Cocktail deletes swap files, making your life just that much easier. And OS X boots so darn fast (45 seconds for me) theres no reason *not* to reboot periodically and flush out what the OS sometimes forgets to.

-Telusman
"No ma'am i'm not angry at you, I'm angry at the cruel twist of fate that directed your call to my extension..."
     
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Apr 28, 2003, 01:42 PM
 
Originally posted by Telusman:
I think the new version of Cocktail deletes swap files, making your life just that much easier.
Does Cocktail also perform the system maintenance tasks that MacJanitor does so nicely? I really like seeing RAM usage shrink in top while MJ rotates logs and whatnot.

(Edit: from the MJ page:
If these maintenance tasks are never run (such as on a laptop that is always shut off at night), many log files and system database will grow extremely large or fail to get backed up.
.)
MBP 15" 2.33GHz C2D 3GB 2*23" ACD
     
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Apr 28, 2003, 03:22 PM
 
do you guys think I might have a slight memory problem?
I ormally use photoshop and other graphics aps, but the performance seems to be ok, I'm using a pb Pismo.

Processes: 59 total, 2 running, 57 sleeping... 179 threads 21:20:47
Load Avg: 2.29, 2.08, 1.91 CPU usage: 44.4% user, 30.5% sys, 25.1% idl
SharedLibs: num = 134, resident = 27.2M code, 2.63M data, 8.23M LinkEdit
MemRegions: num = 7641, resident = 105M + 10.7M private, 80.9M shared
PhysMem: 49.5M wired, 116M active, 148M inactive, 313M used, 6.76M free
VM: 2.39G + 75.4M 227006(0) pageins, 483291(0) pageouts

PID COMMAND %CPU TIME #TH #PRTS #MREGS RPRVT RSHRD RSIZE VSIZE
3497 top 12.2% 0:01.28 1 14 18 256K 324K 552K 13.6M
3476 Speed Down 5.3% 0:55.27 13 107 141 2.18M 7.72M 12.1M 51.0M
3473 lookupd 0.0% 0:01.12 2 33 46 420K 508K 952K 14.9M
3451 pppd 0.0% 0:00.05 1 10 31 204K 824K 368K 14.1M
3448 httpd 0.0% 0:00.01 1 8 73 144K 1.69M 608K 15.1M
3440 httpd 0.0% 0:00.02 1 8 75 164K 1.68M 612K 15.6M
3437 httpd 0.0% 0:00.22 1 16 72 44K 1.69M 1.26M 15.1M
3388 mi 0.0% 0:04.22 3 80 167 2.56M 12.0M 15.9M 56.6M
3349 Yahoo! Mes 0.5% 0:31.39 8 92 178 3.00M 13.8M 17.6M 86.8M
3336 Safari 4.2% 2:03.82 8 237 481 17.4M 17.8M 41.2M 106M
3335 tcsh 0.0% 0:00.18 1 10 15 340K 588K 796K 5.73M
3334 login 0.0% 0:01.13 1 12 33 244K 376K 576K 13.7M
3333 Terminal 17.6% 0:12.08 4 72 181 1.58M+ 8.84M 16.5M+ 46.4M
3332 PGPservice 0.0% 0:00.37 2 49 45 504K 1.82M 1.80M+ 25.1M
3331 Mail 0.0% 0:21.93 5 101 236 4.01M 12.1M 25.8M 52.9M
     
glo  (op)
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Apr 28, 2003, 03:47 PM
 
Very Helpful.....Cocktail seemed to help out. Thanks. I appreciate all of the quick responses...I will keep monitoring the pageouts...
Dual 867
imac Graphite
TiBook 1 Ghz
Ipod
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.
.
Prozac
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www.fatchicksinpartyhats.com
     
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Apr 28, 2003, 03:51 PM
 
You have a definite memory problem, SubGeniux. I have a G3 CRT iMac with 768 MB of RAM. Here's my current top:

Processes: 74 total, 3 running, 71 sleeping... 356 threads 16:49:07
Load Avg: 2.99, 3.00, 2.66 CPU usage: 66.1% user, 33.9% sys, 0.0% idle
SharedLibs: num = 59, resident = 19.9M code, 1.88M data, 6.39M LinkEdit
MemRegions: num = 11057, resident = 206M + 26.8M private, 140M shared
PhysMem: 84.1M wired, 143M active, 435M inactive, 662M used, 106M free
VM: 3.52G + 39.5M 13677(0) pageins, 2(0) pageouts
/mal
"I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until you cheer up."
MacBook Pro 15"/2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo/4 GB DDR2 SDRAM/200 GB Hitachi HD/8x SuperDrive/Mac OS X 10.6.1
     
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Apr 28, 2003, 04:02 PM
 
cheers Malvolio, better get the memory ordered. lol
can't believe you can get 0 pageouts, my machine must crawl, it's got 320mb ram,
     
   
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