[Koralatov]

I was having problems with my G3 iMac, as I detailed in this thread here, but I thought I'd solved them. Checking the cable was attached firmly seemed to fix the problem, and everything was working peachy after a reinstall of Tiger. However, for some reason, it's now taking forever to boot up. When it had the stock 20GB drive in (which I also installed Tiger on), it was much faster than it is now.

I've booted up from my OSX install CD and run Disk Utility—both the permissions and the disk itself check out as fine. But, as I said, it takes forever to load. The only thing on it that wasn't there when the stock drive was in is Microsoft Office and iPhoto 5. I can't imagine they'd affect boot-time from power-on, but I may be wrong.

Anyone have any ideas what's happened, or how to fix it? I'm getting incredibly frustrated with this iMac: I just want to get the damned thing working 100% and then give it to my friend as originally intended. The whole idea behind it was to give her a computer to use for email, Word and the internet that wouldn't cause her problems. This iMac seems determined to cause me grief, and undermine Apple's "it just works" mantra.

[dowNNshift]

When you re-installed Mac OS X v10.4, which disk format did you choose? How big of an aftermarket HDD did you install? The iMac G3's Firmware may not be updated and have limit of 132GB. Also memory, looking in Apple System Profiler, how much memory is installed? More memory equals more performance.

Does it take a longer time at a certain part of the boot up process than another? Like the time from the start chime to Kernel (Apple with a Spinning gear), or Launchd (Blue Screen)? That will help identify if its a Mac OS problem or a hardware compatibility issue.

How long of a delay are we talking, Minutes or seconds? Keep in mind that the early G3s will not feel as snappy with Tiger as a G4 or G5, especially if the machine is bordering the minimum specifications of Tiger.

[Koralatov]

Originally Posted by dowNNshift 

When you re-installed Mac OS X v10.4, which disk format did you choose? How big of an aftermarket HDD did you install? The iMac G3's Firmware may not be updated and have limit of 132GB. Also memory, looking in Apple System Profiler, how much memory is installed? More memory equals more performance.

dowNNshift: thanks for your interest. The answers are: it was formatted Mac OS Extended; it has 1GB (2 × 512MB) of RAM; and the HD is a 7,200RPM 40GB Western Digital Cavalier, so it's below the 132GB limit by quite some. Also, I updated the firmware to the most recent version before I got rid of OS9, so I don't think that should be posing a problem.

Originally Posted by dowNNshift 

Does it take a longer time at a certain part of the boot up process than another? Like the time from the start chime to Kernel (Apple with a Spinning gear), or Launchd (Blue Screen)? That will help identify if its a Mac OS problem or a hardware compatibility issue.

How long of a delay are we talking, Minutes or seconds? Keep in mind that the early G3s will not feel as snappy with Tiger as a G4 or G5, especially if the machine is bordering the minimum specifications of Tiger.

It takes about five or ten seconds to get to the Apple logo with the spinning gear (Kernel), and it then sits there for about two minutes before reaching the Blue Screen. The blue screen then has a cog that appears and it takes about two or three minutes to reach the OSX box, whereupon it takes about a minute to load up from there. Sometimes, however, it just sits at a blue screen indefinitely; the cog disappears, and nothing more happens.

As I said earlier, I did have Tiger installed on the stock drive, and it was much faster--it booted in less than a minute from power button. I'm not expecting it to respond like my G4 iMac, but it's definitely slowed down significantly. The strangest thing is that it worked much faster when the drive was first installed (about two days ago), and it's only over the last day or so that it's become so cripplingly slow.

Any ideas on how to fix it? Or would I be best just cutting my losses and putting the stock drive back in, which had none of these problems?

[rubaiyat]

1. Check how congetsed the boot drive is. Should have at least 10% free

2. Slight possibility that it maybe a font problem, possibly from your Word install.

3. Strong possibility it maybe hunting for a network connection on startup. In which case it will persist in trying and waiting several times unsuccessfully. Go to your system preferences and stop whatever auto network connections, sharing whatever there may be. A test for this would be to give it an internet/web connection if that is what it is looking for. If it is set to share or connect to a server or other Mac give it that as well, having found them, turn them off. To check for attempted net connections get Little Snitch which will intercept them.

4. Maybe it is hunting for the original Harddrive, before finally settling on the one installed. Check your System Preferences > System > Startup Disk

5. It may also be trying to auto load an app or system process on startup. I'd check whatever applications you have (starting with the Ms stuff) to see whether they are set to launch/register on boot. Also check any font utilities etc that may be doing the same.

6. Run DiskWarrior over your drive to clean up and optimise your desktop files.

7. If your dates and time zones are all screwed, it is possible you need a new battery. It will have been trying to resolve the Time by accessing a web clock.

I know the feeling. I have always done the right thing by those I pass my Mac onto, but it can be hard, they seem to know they are about to leave home and start to sulk

[Koralatov]

Originally Posted by rubaiyat 

5. It may also be trying to auto load an app or system process on startup. I'd check whatever applications you have (starting with the Ms stuff) to see whether they are set to launch/register on boot. Also check any font utilities etc that may be doing the same.

Bingo. I disabled Office's auto-update program from the start-up, and it seems to have fixed the problem. I'm not sure exactly why it would affect booting so dramatically, but it seems to have fixed the problem. I think extensive testing over the next week or two will be required to ensure the problem doesn't recur, though.

Originally Posted by rubaiyat 

I know the feeling. I have always done the right thing by those I pass my Mac onto, but it can be hard, they seem to know they are about to leave home and start to sulk

I think that also may have been part of the problem. It obviously doesn't like the idea of leaving the company of my iBook and iMac. On a realted note, I think I might be a bit sulky when I pass it on. Even though it's the much-maligned 'Blue Dalmatian' model, I'm really rather attached to it...

Many thanks for your help, rubaiyat--your advice and input was invaluable, and saved me from tearing any more hair out over this!

[seanc]

Whats the SMART status on the HDD? Could well be on its way out.

[rubaiyat]

Glad it has all worked out Koralatov

[Koralatov]

Originally Posted by seanc 

Whats the SMART status on the HDD? Could well be on its way out.

Nope, the SMART status is still in the green—I installed SMARTReporter, and it's monitoring it. I think the MS Office Update Daemon was causing the problem. Good old Microsoft...

Thanks for the input though—it's appreciated.

Originally Posted by rubaiyat 

Glad it has all worked out Koralatov

So am I. Thanks for all your input.