[The_FrO]

So, my recent install of 10.2 is being REALLY terribly slow. According to top, I'm not using too much memory (about 300 megs), but my VM is huge (at around 1.7 gigs). Normally, I wouldn't complain, but my apps are starting to suffer, which is annoying. Mplayer is starting to drop frames, and even surfing the web is going really slow. I'm currently running 10.2.6 on a G4-867 with 1 gig PC133 and 60 gig 7200 RPM HD.

Hrm, I'm wondering if installing linux on this Mac would solve my problems...

[macmike42]

Originally posted by The_FrO:
Hrm, I'm wondering if installing linux on this Mac would solve my problems...

Probably not, but a fresh install of OS X (or a freshly Carbon Copy Cloned version) would probably do the trick.

[Mastrap]

Originally posted by macmike42:
Probably not, but a fresh install of OS X (or a freshly Carbon Copy Cloned version) would probably do the trick.

Exactly. If a Mac of his specs is running X as slow as described something is wrong.

[Graymalkin]

You give absolutely no helpful information. What apps are you running, what screen savers, what extensions or special anything might you have? Run ps cux in Terminal to show us all the active applications you've got running. When did your massive paging problems start, what applications did you first notice it? How long has it been since you've logged out or rebooted?

Why the hell would Linux solve your problems? It's got far worse support on the Mac than OSX does despite what propoents will tell you. It's not OSX's fault your computer is running slow, its yours. Your job is to figure out what you're running that is slowing you down.

[Powaqqatsi]

Originally posted by The_FrO:
So, my recent install of 10.2 is being REALLY terribly slow. According to top, I'm not using too much memory (about 300 megs), but my VM is huge (at around 1.7 gigs). Normally, I wouldn't complain, but my apps are starting to suffer, which is annoying. Mplayer is starting to drop frames, and even surfing the web is going really slow. I'm currently running 10.2.6 on a G4-867 with 1 gig PC133 and 60 gig 7200 RPM HD.

Hrm, I'm wondering if installing linux on this Mac would solve my problems...

Learn how VM works first. Where do you get that 1,7Gb figure from ? from top where it says "VM: xx,xx GB + xxx MB" ? If so you are wrong, that's NOT the VM. Dunno what it is exactly but it is not the amount of VM pagedout to your HD.
VM is not your problem. It must be something else.

[The_FrO]

I fresh-installed OS X on this machine about 2 months ago.

As for what I'm running, when I looked at top, I wasn't running any applications other than finder and terminal (and even they were slow). the only thing that I know of that's non-standard that would start with the system is my scanner drivers (for a Canon Canoscan LiDE 30). I'm using the apple Flurry screen saver, and not really running anything that out of the ordinary. I do keep my computer on all the time (although I do reboot it about once a week). I've been having problems with it being slow intermittently for a couple of weeks now, and I first noticed it because mplayer was dropping frames and desynching.

That value that top gives you is your allocation + usage (if OS X's top is anything like the linux version). I just thought that 1.7 gigs idle was really high allocation.

How would Linux help? It's fast and I know what I'm doing in it.

[JKT]

Originally posted by The_FrO:
I fresh-installed OS X on this machine about 2 months ago.

As for what I'm running, when I looked at top, I wasn't running any applications other than finder and terminal (and even they were slow). the only thing that I know of that's non-standard that would start with the system is my scanner drivers (for a Canon Canoscan LiDE 30). I'm using the apple Flurry screen saver, and not really running anything that out of the ordinary. I do keep my computer on all the time (although I do reboot it about once a week). I've been having problems with it being slow intermittently for a couple of weeks now, and I first noticed it because mplayer was dropping frames and desynching.

That value that top gives you is your allocation + usage (if OS X's top is anything like the linux version). I just thought that 1.7 gigs idle was really high allocation.

How would Linux help? It's fast and I know what I'm doing in it.

Things to try:

1) Run top -u

This lists the apps in order of %CPU usage - if something is sucking up too many cycles it'll appear at the top of that list (watch the output for a few tens of seconds to see if something effectively sits at the top of the list and consistently uses a high %CPU). Poorly written apps or drivers (*cough* HP all-in-one drivers *cough*) that bog down the CPU will cause you to suffer sluggish performance everywhere (your Canon drivers seem a likely culprit - do you have the latest versions etc?)

2) Repair disk permissions - Launch Disk Utility (in the /Applications/Utilities folder) and select your hard drive, then under the First Aid tab, run the "Repair Permissions" procedure.

3) Download the freeware MacJanitor (search at MacUpdate.com) and run your system cron jobs to cycle and clean your system logs

4) Run fsck - either boot off the installer disk and use Disk First Aid (accessed via the Installer menu) or boot in Single-User mode (hold down command-S at bootup) and type fsck -y at the prompt. If it finds problems, repeat the process until it doesn't anymore. Once done, enter reboot to restart

Read more details on basic maintenance of Jaguar here

HTH

[Art Vandelay]

Originally posted by Powaqqatsi:
Learn how VM works first. Where do you get that 1,7Gb figure from ? from top where it says "VM: xx,xx GB + xxx MB" ? If so you are wrong, that's NOT the VM. Dunno what it is exactly but it is not the amount of VM pagedout to your HD.
VM is not your problem. It must be something else.

Not quite. That is the amount of VM allocated. It is not the amount of memory swapped out. It is merely the amount of memory that all of the apps believe they have access to, not what they have used in physical and swap memory.

[The_FrO]

Originally posted by JKT:
Things to try:

1) Run top -u

This lists the apps in order of %CPU usage - if something is sucking up too many cycles it'll appear at the top of that list (watch the output for a few tens of seconds to see if something effectively sits at the top of the list and consistently uses a high %CPU). Poorly written apps or drivers (*cough* HP all-in-one drivers *cough*) that bog down the CPU will cause you to suffer sluggish performance everywhere (your Canon drivers seem a likely culprit - do you have the latest versions etc?)

2) Repair disk permissions - Launch Disk Utility (in the /Applications/Utilities folder) and select your hard drive, then under the First Aid tab, run the "Repair Permissions" procedure.

3) Download the freeware MacJanitor (search at MacUpdate.com) and run your system cron jobs to cycle and clean your system logs

4) Run fsck - either boot off the installer disk and use Disk First Aid (accessed via the Installer menu) or boot in Single-User mode (hold down command-S at bootup) and type fsck -y at the prompt. If it finds problems, repeat the process until it doesn't anymore. Once done, enter reboot to restart

Read more details on basic maintenance of Jaguar here

HTH

Thanks, that was some helpful information, although I don't know if it fixed anything. fsck didn't find anything, and my system logs look fine. I'm running backups onto DVD-RWs and Firewire HDs, and I'll reformat sometime this weekend.

[suthercd]

Your symptoms could indicate a memory leak in one of the applications you are running. When you run top from the terminal, look at the column with RPRVT (resident private memory) at the top. If an app has a leak, this will show up here.

After logging out and back in with zero login items, is your performance hampered? Do you have items in /Library/PreferencePanes or ~/Library/PreferencePanes? Is so move them and restart. Check your performace then. I had a large memory leak from the beta version of the new WindowShade PrefPane.

Are there any files/packages in /Library/StartupItems?

A good check is to create a new user and then log in as that user. If there is a problem in your account, the new user account will have a marked performance difference.

Craig

[Powaqqatsi]

Originally posted by Art Vandelay:
Not quite. That is the amount of VM allocated. It is not the amount of memory swapped out. It is merely the amount of memory that all of the apps believe they have access to, not what they have used in physical and swap memory.

Yep, it is POSSIBLE that this 1,7GB is pagedout, right ? but in this case it's very unlikely. So this 1,7GB hasn't much to do with his problem I think.