[Rychiar]

So i got a imac G5 like 2 months ago expecting things to be so much quicker than my G4 450 powermac but im kinda frustrated at alot of things. A big one is at startup when everything goes so quickly until my desktop background pops up on screen, then it sits there beachballing with nothing else for what seems like an eternity before my hard drive and taskbar and dock appear. Anyone know what could be causing this?

I tried deleting all my startup items and switching to an apple desktop background and screensaver and still same lag. I was at a friends house and he has a dual processor G4 and his started up in seconds. I thought the G5 was sposed to be blazing fast

I hope Tiger comes along soon and fixes everything...

[Randman]

Have you repaired permissions? Might be worth doing a clean install and seeing if that helps. Ram-wise, you could use more and 512 is bare minimum for a G5. Do you have Konfabulator or anything running? What about Virex? Is your disk encrypted? All will slow things down on startup. And are you starting up each time? And if so, why? Try waking from sleep and see if that helps.

[Morpheus]

Originally posted by Rychiar:
he has a dual processor G4 and his started up in seconds.

Was his Dual G4 on 10.3.8?

Mine here used to start up in seconds, but since 10.3.8 I've got the same beachball-thing as you.

Tried a lot of things - so far no success.

[Rychiar]

I have repaired permissions. A clean install is to drastic for my tastes. I don't use konfabulator or virex and my disc isn't encrypted. As for the RAM i would think 512 would be sufficient enough. When i can afford a gigabyte chip ill ad that but as for now i dont want to waste the second of my 2 ram slots on something smaller. I have an external firewire drive and if i boot from that i don't have any of these problems but i do want all my preferences and what not. AS for starting up i do start up each time. I shut the computer down at night which i always assumed is better for it and comsumes less power.
I guess ill just have to live with it till Tiger. It's no huge deal. Im just disappointed at the overall lack of hueg difference from old computer to this

Morpheus, I beleive he was using the newest version on his G4

[ThisGuy]

I just noticed that yesterday on my PowerBook after 7.5 days of uptime (10.3.8/384 MB RAM). I restarted and walked out of my office. Came back after about 5 minutes and the dock was just appearing. odd.

[Randman]

Why do you think Apple put the power button in the back on iMacs? So people will sleep it.

You could create a new user and see if the same problem exists. If not, you might need to take the drastic step of doing a re-install (or live with it until Tiger).

[Morpheus]

Originally posted by Randman:
Why do you think Apple put the power button in the back on iMacs? So people will sleep it.

I think you are completely missing the point here.

Or do you really think they put the power button in the back, because they figured all G5 iMacs boot up slowly?

[Tsilou B.]

Originally posted by Rychiar:
So i got a imac G5 like 2 months ago expecting things to be so much quicker than my G4 450 powermac but im kinda frustrated at alot of things. A big one is at startup when everything goes so quickly until my desktop background pops up on screen, then it sits there beachballing with nothing else for what seems like an eternity before my hard drive and taskbar and dock appear. Anyone know what could be causing this?

I tried deleting all my startup items and switching to an apple desktop background and screensaver and still same lag. I was at a friends house and he has a dual processor G4 and his started up in seconds. I thought the G5 was sposed to be blazing fast

I hope Tiger comes along soon and fixes everything...

I had the same problem with 10.3.7, but on my computer it's fixed with 10.3.8.
My temporary solution for 10.3.7 was to disable DHCP and enter all network information manually. Be sure to enter a name server that is always reachable (e.g. don't enter your company's name server if you can only access it when you're connected to your VPN) or if you're not connected to a LAN, enter no name server at all. When I did that, there were no longer any delays at startup.

[Tsilou B.]

Originally posted by Tsilou B.:
I had the same problem with 10.3.7, but on my computer it's fixed with 10.3.8.
My temporary solution for 10.3.7 was to disable DHCP and enter all network information manually. Be sure to enter a name server that is always reachable (e.g. don't enter your company's name server if you can only access it when you're connected to your VPN) or if you're not connected to a LAN, enter no name server at all. When I did that, there were no longer any delays at startup.

You could also try this first: Disable all network interfaces in the Network preferences and reboot. If you still get the spinning beachball even though all network interfaces are disabled, then my tips probably won't help you. But I really think that your problem is (almost) the same one I had.

[Morpheus]

@Tsiou B.

Did you get the beachball also right before the dock etc. appear?

I would expect the delay in your case during the "Initalizing Network" message, which appears before.

[Tsilou B.]

I got it exactly at the same moment as Rychiar, not during Network startup. The desktop picture always appeared before the spinning beachball came up. Sometimes even the menu bar status items (volume, clock etc.) appeared (directly on the desktop picture, because the menu bar came up only after a few minutes).

[Theodour]

I have this problem, but I know what is causing it in my case: my Font cache.

If I delete my font cache, my login returns to normal speed.

The problem returns, however in subsequent logins ... I think one of my fonts is bad, or I'm overloading Font Book.

I don't know if this is your problem, but search for Font Cache Cleaner on VT or MacUpdate, or just run a search for "font cache problems" on google to see how to do this.

[SMacTech]

Try booting using another account. It seems your problem is after logging in, not waiting to get to the log in panel.

Do you have file sharing turned on? Have you connected to other servers recently in a LAN?

Have you looked in to your system.log in the system profiler? You should see what process started and then the delay the follows until the next entry in the log.

The DHCP and font cache problem could also be a cause, but a peek in the log mentioned above will give you a big clue.

[markponcelet]

I have this same problem. It's caused by having lots of fonts!

Here's my experience. Back in the <10.3.5 days, I dumped a whole bunch of fonts into my font folder thinking it would be nice to have some variety. Well, I soon became intimately acquainted with the infamous "Optimizing font performance" routine that runs when certain programs load, such as Word and Photoshop. All those fonts turned application loading intto a nightmare. (I am using a 300 mhz ibook, so things are slow to start with, but this was a nightmare!)

When the newest updates came along, I noticed that horribly long (10 minutes plus) startup times. Listening to my hard drive, I noticed it makes exactly the same brief little pulses that it makes when my programs are busy parsing through those fonts. I know, it's a bit circumstantial. But it makes sense to me.

I did disable the fonts with my font book, but that only marginally improved startup time, if at all. It's my guess that Apple has added a font optimization process to the startup. When my new 17" powerbook arrives on Monday, I'll be reformatting my iBook. I'd physically remove the fonts from that folder, but I don't want to remove a font that I need.

It's fonts. I'd swear it.

[Tsilou B.]

If you wait until the Finder and Dock have finally started, and immediately "force quit" the Finder, will it restart quickly or does the spinning beachball come up again?

[Rychiar]

Im eorking deadline at work right now and havent had a chnace to read this or try any of your many great tips till now but as far as fonts go i do have a ridiculous ammount and many are crappy fonts got off the internet or PC fonts. The problem is i am a graphic designer and want these fonts for my design work as i have many unique ones and ones from bands. What can i do to keep them but fix all this slowness. I know what you mean about Microsoft word. Version X used to start up automaticlaly but now that i have 2004 its horribly slow with that font optimization crap. Now I assume the OS is doing the same thing. I wish there was a way to turn this feature off. What is the use of having it anyway. Things worked a hell of alot better b4 it

[Rychiar]

One really odd thing that has been a problem for me for about 2 years now is many random webpages come up in this barely legible font called Savatage which is a logo font for the band. On my iMac this isn't so frequent but i happened all the time on my old computer. I've even deleted this font b4 and the problem still exists

[brutal]

It's definitely font-related. My friend had the exact same problem, and he fixed it by running the script seen here.

[chris v]

Originally posted by Rychiar:
Im eorking deadline at work right now and havent had a chnace to read this or try any of your many great tips till now but as far as fonts go i do have a ridiculous ammount and many are crappy fonts got off the internet or PC fonts. The problem is i am a graphic designer and want these fonts for my design work as i have many unique ones and ones from bands. What can i do to keep them but fix all this slowness. I know what you mean about Microsoft word. Version X used to start up automaticlaly but now that i have 2004 its horribly slow with that font optimization crap. Now I assume the OS is doing the same thing. I wish there was a way to turn this feature off. What is the use of having it anyway. Things worked a hell of alot better b4 it

If you're using tons of fonts, you really owe it to yourself to get a commercial font management program like Suitcase of Font Agent Pro. Having hundreds or thousands of fonts in your ~/Library/Fonts folder will definitely cause slowdowns. With a commercial font app, you can store your fonts somewhere else where they won't be activated on startup, then build a library within your font management program, and activate only the ones you need with it.

I've got close to 5000 fonts, and Suitcase has worked well enough for me over the years.

[chris v]

Originally posted by Rychiar:
One really odd thing that has been a problem for me for about 2 years now is many random webpages come up in this barely legible font called Savatage which is a logo font for the band. On my iMac this isn't so frequent but i happened all the time on my old computer. I've even deleted this font b4 and the problem still exists

You need to clear your font cache and get all those fonts out of your font folder. Have you been storing fonts in your root-level /Library/Fonts folder?

[Rychiar]

i thought i only had them under my username/library/fonts folder but now i see them under the main one too

[Devin Lane]

Sorry to nitpick, but /Library/Fonts isn't the root level fonts folder. /System/Library/Fonts is, and you should never be storing your own fonts there.

/Library/Fonts is where you store fonts you want active for all users.

[Rychiar]

my bad, no my fonts aren't there. Why are there 3 separate fonts folders anyway, always found that confusing liek i didnt knwo what library to use