[timmerk]

Hi,

My friend is a recent switcher from the Windows world (took me many years to get him to switch). However, his brand new PB 15" is acting crazy. About twice a week, OS X slows down to about a 20 Mhz machine it seems. If he tries to change the brightness, it will take literally 10 min. After the slowness goes on for a bit, then then screen goes blue with the spinning wheel (the one that you get when you are shutting down after logout). Then, it all goes away and relogs him in.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

[RooneyX]

All I can think of is to check your memory modules and then reinstall the OS.

[wataru]

How much RAM does he have? It sounds like massive pageouts.

[Blah64]

I also have a 15" AluPB, and have seen the same thing, although it does usually recover by itself after a bit.

Does he also suffer the occasional wake-from-sleep-coma problem? i.e. you open your screen and instead of waking up the computer seems like it might be on, but the screen just stays dim forever and you need to hold the power button to force-shutdown.

Initially, I was having that problem and the S-L-O-W brightness adjustment problem quite a bit. I changed my screen saver to the simple one that just shows some photos, and the coma problem has gone away (knock on wood) for probably a couple months now. I may have had the slow-brightness problem again in the meantime (can't remember exactly, it wasn't so devastating), but if at all, it's been very infrequent as compared with before.

In any case, a simple thing to try.

- Blah

[RooneyX]

Might need the latest updates too. I was getting this slow system feedback for a while when Panther came out. Slow system response when changing brightness and volume, system slow downs, etc...especially with an external monitor. Doesn't happen anymore.

[timmerk]

He has 512 Mb of RAM. It's a new system, so he is hesitant to reinstalling already. If all else fails, then I will convince him to.

Also, he doesn't experience the screen coma problem that was described.

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally posted by timmerk:
He has 512 Mb of RAM. It's a new system, so he is hesitant to reinstalling already. If all else fails, then I will convince him to.

Also, he doesn't experience the screen coma problem that was described.

Triple check that he has every OS update as others have said, sounds like an issue that was resolved a while back.

[Big Mac]

If he has any extra RAM modules installed, he should take them out. It sounds like bad RAM to me - my iBook slowed to a crawl when its extra RAM died.

[bergy]

Don't forget ...

After any update .. Repair permissions: Close all files and applications on the disk you want to repair. Go to Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility and double click it. Then select your hard drive in the left panel and First Aid at the top. Then click on "Repair Permissions." It will take a few minutes.

Also every now and then use this or a similar utility ..

Cache Out X
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/9538
Cache Out X clears out the cache entries on your machine, helping you recover valuable disk space on your machine. Items removed include the caches in System, Users, and Library, along with the Internet Explorer download cache. Optionally clears the IE's history cache as well.

For other speed issues ..
Mac OSX Speed Troubleshooting
http://www.macmaps.com/Macosxspeed.html

[CharlesS]

Doesn't that PowerBook come with a Hardware Test CD? Try booting from that and run a thorough test on the RAM.