Wonder if anyone has any suggestions for me.

We have OS X running on a G3 at work so I know how fast it should be (more or less).

I got my PB and ran home to install it on my G4 (my first Mac, purchased late last winter in anticipation of the release of OS X).

I upgraded OS 9 to 9.0.4. I upgraded my firmware. I upgraded my DVD driver (suggested when I upgraded 9.0.2 to 9.04).

I ran the install. At work, this took maybe 20 minutes. At home, it took an hour.

Once everything was up and running, performance was horribly slow. Opening a folder in the finder can take 30-45 seconds. Popping up a dialog to ask for an admin password takes over a minute from the time you click the little padlock. Trying to shut down Clock took so long I finally did a ForceQuit after a few minutes. Clock!

Clearly, something is in conflict.

When I did the install, I had some non-Apple USB geegaws hooked up: a Palm cradel, a Macally (?) keyboard and a Microsoft Optical Intellimouse. After reading some support boards I yanked all of that, hooked up the old Apple mini-keyboard, but couldn't find the puck. Settled for a Contour Mouse (at least it only has 2 buttons, the Intellimouse has 5).

That didn't help anything. Could the install have been fubar'd from having those things connected during the install?

The only internal mods to the machine are an extra 64 megs of ram (128 megs total) and an Airport card. I know Airport isn't supported, but will this screw up the system?

One other thing. The G3 has 256 megs of ram, my G4 only 128, so I could see how the G4 might be a bit slower... but I mean, this isn't "Gee, this could be snappier" slow. It's "Shoot, this thing is broken" slow.

Oh, the hard disk is all one partition, so both OS X and OS 9 are on the same partition. Formatting and re-partitioning isn't out of the question... I don't do a lot with this machine these days.

I've also read about 'zapping PRAM.' How do I do that? As I said, this is my first Mac so I don't know many of the tricks. I'm a long-time Windows user who is desperately looking for an alternative OS. I did the Linux/KDE thing for a while, but OS X looks to have the power of Linux with a slick interface, which is why I'm so interested.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions, and if you need more system details I'd be happy to provide (I'm already going to check the ROM version when I get home).

Oh, 1 detail I left out: its an AGP system. 400 mhz.

I can't help much, but I'll say that I have a number of USB devices hooked up, and they don't cause any trouble. They won't work , except mice and keyboards, but they won't hurt.

Anyway, you might want to open the Process Viewer and sort by CPU usage to make sure there isn't some startup process that's out of control. Classic can easily monopolize the CPU, especially if it hangs on "boot", so you might want to check in that it's not set to "launch on login".

Great idea!

I'm running it right now, entering this from another machine. The Desktop is listed as using 16.7% of memory. ProcessViewer itself is using 8.4, window manager 7.5, loginwindow 7.1 (?? I already logged in) and down from there. I don't see a total but a rough count would say it all totals to about 70% in 27 processes.

Sitting idle, the highest CPU usage is 1.4%, for Software Update. If I move a window around, the Desktop starts to take 37.9 % of CPU usage, and the Windows manager 26%! That seems awfully high to me....Launching a program (System Profiler) Windows Manager pops up to 60% for a moment, then LaunchCFMApp takes 80.7% while Windows Manager drops. Now, the profiler is open. LaunchCFMApp is still at 61.9%, and Window Manager at 30%.

Anyway, those numbers seem awfully high to me.

Another oddity: the finder looks different on the G4 than it does on the G3. On the G3 above the 'content pane' of the Finder there's like a shelf that contains a row of icons for Applications, Network, Documents, or whatever (sorry, going from memory here). These aren't present on the G4...I'm sure you can turn them off but I didn't. Also, the Monitors Control Panel in the System Preferences is different on this system. On the G3 is has a pick list with various resolutions. On the G4 it has a slider bar pointing to different resolutions.

Mysteries all around...

[Todd Madson]

Jaded: format the drive you have it on and start over from scratch. Something is horribly wrong and it's not a good thing. I'm running a AGP G4/400 with 128 megs of ram total and two 10 gig drives. The drive I have X on is a 10 gig 5400 rpm - nothing real special. And windows open rather quickly and while things aren't real fast once I have 15 apps open at once, then issues of more obvious slowness occurs. I think if I had a faster 2nd drive (which I'll get eventually), and another 128 megs of ram that ought to do the trick.

Jaded,
Look at my topic: OSX runs Slooow on a G4 500 with SCSI OS9 Partition. I also have this slowness. I am replying to you from X right now. In the applications the system isn't slow but to bring up the system preferences took 25 seconds!! I also brought up the process viewer and saw that the LaunchCFMApp was very high. I even went into the terminal window to kill the process and that didn't speed up things. That process starts right back up in less than a minute. Not sure what it does!! I now do NOT have the SCSI drive installed at all, Zapped the PRAM (cntrl,option,P.,R) prior to me installing OS X but that didn't help either. I'm disappointed that so far I've seen no improvement in whatever I've tried If there is anyone who has ANY Ideaes let us (jaded and I) know.
Bobkrez

bobkrez --

Drat, I thought I was on the trail of something, but your post indicates I'm not.

I came in to work today to find that I'd been moved into a new cubicle. Booted up OS X and found that my network connection was dead (hardware problem not having anything to do with OS X -- the jack in the wall was dead).

I called the help desk and went to reboot into OS 9 (because use of OS X beta certainly isn't sanctioned!). I needed to unlock the Startup Disk control panel and, lo and behold, it took a long, long time to open, just like at home.

So I was thinking maybe this was a networking problem, like the system was constanly polling the NIC looking for a signal. At home in OS 9 I was using an Airport card, but of course in OS X I'm not connected. Maybe some setting somewhere thinks I am connected and that's causing a problem?

But if you were in OS X when you posted, then that probably isn't it. Still, I think I'll run a cable to a linux NAT and give the G4 an internal IP address and see if that changes anything.

If it doesn't, I'm going to reformat and repartition and start from scratch.

Well, with the weekend here I had a chance to reinstall OS X.

First, I repartitioned the drive and zero'd it.

Then I installed OS 9 on the second partition, and finally I installed OS X on the first partition.

It once again took a long time, but performance is improved. It's still sluggish, but I can use it. At this point the difference between the speed here and the speed on the G3 at work might be a memory issue (G4=128, G3=256).

Recall I said the Monitor Control Panel looked different here at home? Now it looks the same as on the G3.

All that said, I think I screwed up a bit, as I made the OS X partition small-ish (3 gigs) and now I've read that it likes a lot of swap disk space, so I may follow the whole process thru yer again!

Has anyone tried initializing an OS X partition using the "Unix Format" (rather than MacOS Extended Format).

For kicks, I tried playing one of those QuickTime movie trailers that get installed.

Ugh, that was bad. I was seeing one frame every few seconds (of movie time). And I couldn't shut the thing down, since the system was crawling so poorly... clicks weren't registering.

Back to square one, I guess...

Sorry to keep talking to myself, but I just remembered one other detail I'd forgotten...

When I initialized the drive, I noticed that the bus number was 2. Is this normal? Does MacOS start at 0 or 1? If 1, then I would guess the DVD is on 1, the hard drive on 2.

Would it help me to swap those?

Gosh, this is frustrating. I don't have a background in MacOS/hardware to fall back on.... if this was an Intel machine I'd have all sorts of ideas on what to try -- believe me I've had to do my share of troubleshooting on those... heh heh.

I thought to check out the Console, and found these error messages:

WindowServer[260] CGXDisableUpdate: Updates disabled by connect on ox6803 for over 1.00000 seconds.

(ox6803 varies....)

Well, I think I give up...

Last night I re-partitioned and zero'd the hard disk again. I opened up the case to make sure, for instance, the DVD was at the end of the cable (it was). I jabbed the little button by the lithium battery (have -no- idea what that does!)

I installed OS 9, upgraded it, confirmed that the firmware didn't need upgrading. I updated everything I could find that needed updating: ethernet, multimedia, dvd player, open transport... and a bunch more I now have forgotten, but everything I could find at Apple and/or VersionTracker.

Then I zapped the PRAM, and finally installed OS X over this freshly upgraded version of OS 9.

And have the same problem.

I stumbled on the CPU Monitor and ran that. With nothing but Finder running, it sits at about 3 bars... but when I move the mouse across the screen, it spikes to 100% until the mouse stops moving.

Is that typical behavior? The problem with a CPU monitor like this is that it doesn't tell you if the system wants more power... iow, if nothing is running and the system decides to devote 100% of its power to tracking the mouse, that's fine. But if another app is running and the system has to pull cpu cycles from it to track the mouse, that's a real problem. But in either case the monitor will be at 100%.

Anyway, I digress...

I'm fresh out of ideas, actually. The only non-Apple stuff I'm using is the monitor (a Sony 17"). Heck, I even unplugged the speakers. The machine is as shipped aside from a second 64 mb DIMM and an Apple Airport card.

Maybe I'll try pulling those, just for grins. Will OS X even work with just 64 mb of RAM?

[reader50]

Jaded,

I have a G4 350 AGP, a bit slower than yours. I have the factory 64MB and a 2nd 64MB module, again just like yours. No Airport card, but that should not make any difference since the Public Beta left out Airport support. You could pull it, see if there is any difference.

My X install runs faster than you describe. CPU Monitor seems to be a processor hog, instead I would suggest you use ProcessViewer, in the Applications/Utilities folder. It comes set to a sampling frequency of 20 seconds if I recall correctly. Change it to 1 or 2 seconds for testing purposes. After testing, if you leave it running set it back up to at least 5 seconds, or it takes a decent amount of CPU.

Click the mouse on the "%CPU" column title so it will sort on that column. Whey you run your mouse constantly across the Dock with magnification on, the Window Manager should zoom up to 70%, otherwise Window Manager drops below 2%, and ProcessViewer itself has 15% with a 1-sec sample setting. Less frequent sampling drops ProcessViewer down quite a bit further.

Further suggestions: Put a basic install of OS 9.04 on the same partition first, then install X on top of the base 9 install. If you run Classic from a different partition of the same HD, you are making the Mac jump back and forth across the distance of the HD. Note that this would not be a problem if the OS 9 install were on a 2nd HD. And go into System Preferences to the Classic pane. Set Classic to NOT launch when you start up X. The system will start faster without Classic, and with more memory free for other activities.

Also, try reducing your screen resolution. I use 1280 x 1024 on my main screen, and a bit lower on the 2nd monitor. I would suggest trying 1024 x 768 if you have a single monitor. I have heard that OS X's speed in the Public Beta is greatly dependent on screen resolution, that 1600 x 1200 is much slower than lower resolutions for example.

OS X will run in 64 MB, but much slower than with more memory. Don't pull the extra RAM, please.

Oh, yes. I run the SETI@home client in the background under X while surfing. My system is more responsive than you describe, even with a CPU hog like SETI running. The preemptive multitasking that they talk about is for real. Something is definitely off a bit, so do keep on trying.

[This message has been edited by reader50 (edited 10-02-2000).]

Hi reader --

Setting the sample to 2 seconds, with "nothing" running (ie, no apps) but finder and Process Viewer, Viewer is taking 48.5% with no mouse activity, Window Manager bops around between 1 & 2%.

If I run the mouse around in circles over an empty part of the desktop (not the Dock and not another window) Window Manager climbs to 25%.

If I run the mouse back and forth over the dock, without magnification on, Window Manager climbs to 50% and Dock to about 25% (max, sometimes it drops as low as 15%).

This install, I installed and patched OS 9.0.4 on one partition and installed OS X over it. Second partition is currently empty.

Last install, I put 9 on one partition and 10 on the other.

Classic isn't running. Heck, I even shut Clock down!

Monitor is at 1024x768, thousands of colors, 86 Htz.

I'll try pulling the Airport and, at least temporarily, the second 64 meg module.

BTW, I installed OS X on my iBook (G3 300 mhz, 6 gig, 128 megs RAM) and it runs just fine on that system.

Thanks for your suggestions!

[reader50]

Your OS X install sounds OK. One of the RAM modules could be a slower one, but that should not produce as much of a slow down as you describe. A faulty RAM module would fail the startup memory test before OS X loads.

Try this: leave your X install as is, it seems clean and OK. On the second partition, install normal OS 9.04, boot straight into 9.04 and check a few things.

Go to the Memory Control Panel, and hold down Command-Option while you select the Memory CP. At the bottom, you will see a new option "Startup Memory Test". If the test is not turned on, turn it on. It should already be on, but it does not hurt to check. If the test was off, turn it on and restart. If you get a sad Mac and a simple toon instead of the happy Mac, then you probably have bad RAM.

Also, go to Newer technology and download Guage Pro. This is a utility that will read out things like your CPU speed, cache speed, and memory bus speed. It works under OS 9, but would not start under Classic when I tried it, so do this test in OS 9 also.

You should get a CPU speed of 400MHz, an L2 cache speed of 200MHz, and memory performance speeds of around 250 MB/sec. Substantially lower readings on any of this could mean a hardware fault of misconfiguration.

If nothing here checks out, then I am just about tapped out of ideas. For reference, if I run ProcessViewer (selected) with a 1-sec update and nothing else running (not even Clock) I can get 20% CPU on it. That is with no mouse activity of course. 15% if ProcessViewer is not selected, if Desktop is the foreground application.

Wish I could help more.

Hi reader --

Thanks for all the tips. Before I followed any of them, I pulled the second 64 mb of RAM and the airport card, just in case. No change, so I replaced them.

Memory startup test was on, as you suspected.

Guage Pro says CPU speed of 398.5, L2 cache speed of 199.3 Mhz (backside) and memory speed of only 206 mb/sec.

BTW it lists the CPU as PowerPC G4 version 2.9...

Is that memory speed off enough that I should be concerned?

Thanks again for all your help.

[reader50]

- Jaded

No, that memory speed is OK. I saw a speed like that until I fired up a Quicktime movie and loaded the system down. If you run some applications, the reading should go up.

Since everything is normal, I do not know what could be slowing X down on your system.

Good luck.

Ha! You thought you'd seen the last of me, did ya? Well, I have to admit I did give up for a while but I'm back trying new things.

First, I reinstalled OS X and let it reformat the partition as a UFS disk. No change.

Then I looked at hardware. I diconnected the DVD-Rom. No change there. I removed the jumper from my hard drive, which flew in the face of reason to me, but someone had reported that it had helped them with the "Unable to Install" problem. Well, as expected, the machine no longer saw the hard drive. (Not sure what the other person was talking about...) OK, it was a long shot...

I yanked the videocard, which was probably wishful thinking on my part. On an Intel box, when you yank a card and plug it in, the "Plug & Pray" system re-polls it and seems to sometimes re-initialize it. Dunno if it works like that on a G4, but in any case it didn't help.

Then I yanked the processor daughter card, because someone had mentioned pulling and replacing the G4 had fixed some problems. I wasn't brave enough to actually pry the G4 off the daughtercard, though.

Again, no change..

To compare with reader50's stats, running ProcessView with an Sample time of 1 second, with PV in the foreground PC is taking 64-65% of the cpu cycles. Click on the desktop, with no other windows open and the dock hidden...well, not much changes... it blips around more but still tends towards 64-65%

If I run the mouse in circles over an empty part of the desktop. PV gets 30%, and Window Manager and Desktop tak about 20% each.

Next thing to try is maybe start swapping parts with my girlfriend's G4. I'm sure that'll go over big with her! LOL!

Now its time for my sad tale to come to an end...

Tonight I lugged my G4 to my girlfriend's house. Hers was purchased a week or two after mine, so you'd -think- they would be identical.

Not so. First off, she has a different video card. Mine has a heat sink. Hers has a fan. Mine isn't labeled, hers has an ATI Rage Pro logo on it.

I tried putting her video card into my machine. Cleared the P-RAM. It was slightly faster after that, insof as redraws went, but opening, say, IE, still took 3-4 minutes.

So, I'd eliminated the DVD-ROM, the video. What about the drive itself?

I took my hard drive and installed it in her G4. OS X came up in, conservatively, 1/4 the time it took to launch on my G4. Apps popped up very quickly. The dreaded Movie Trailer Test was a total hit (on my G4, 2xclicking on one of the large trailers causes QuickTime player and the movie to load -- that takes ~5 minutes, then the player shows a frame and a blip of sound for about every 9 seconds of trailer). On hers, the movies opened quickly and played without a hiccup.

So, at this point, I can only assume that its my motherboard/processor.

Quite an irony for the guy who bought a G4 in anticipation of the OS X beta, and last week spent $400 more to become a select member of the ADC so as to get -ALL- the toys...

But my biggest fear is that, since this doesn't seem to be a very widespread problem, it will never be fixed. My prediction is that the Release Version will be just as problematic on this hardware... that I simply have a "lemon" of a G4.

[reader50]

- Jaded,
I am not that easy to get rid of either.

Surprisingly, I can give you some more information based on the additional info you just posted. You have a Revision A G4 (AGP). It came with an ATi Rage 128 video card.

Around December of 1999 Apple switched to the Revision B G4 (AGP), which came with an ATi Rage 128 Pro. The Pro has a fan, and is somewhat faster than the Rage 128. I have the Rev B G4, and your girlfriend must have one also.

There are some other differences: The Rev A (yours) has 66 MHz PCI slots, the Rev B and later dropped back to 33 MHz PCI slots. Another thing you can check: The Rev A came with a short FireWire cable to connect up internal FireWire devices. With the Rev B, Apple stopped including this cable. You should have one, your girlfriend should not.

If your speed problem is related to the Rev A G4 motherboard, then you have a fair amount of company. And Apple should create firmware updates to address this issue.

You probably already did this, but in OS 9.04 (not Classic), open the Software Update control panel and click "update now". There may be a firmware update available, along with other stuff. Apple has been known to post software/firmware updates to the Software Update CP before posting them to the normal web site for download. If you got your software/firmware updates from Apple's web site, then you may be pleasantly surprised by some updates that fix everything.

Better luck this time.

"If your speed problem is related to the Rev A G4 motherboard, then you have a fair amount of company. And Apple should create firmware updates to address this issue."

That alone gives me cause for hope. Thanks reader50!

I'll try the Software Update CP... iirc, I got all the updates manually during my last attempt.

I

reader50, if you're still out there (or anyone):

Assuming mine is a Rev A with the 66mhz PCI slots... how common are these? Were the 66 mhz slots an experiment of Apple's that they gave up on?

What I'm wondering (ok, long shot from an uninformed layman..heh) is whether its the 66 mhz slots that are bogging down OS X PB? Not that I have anything using any of the slots, but the bus must be different to accomodate them, right?

And, to get even more unrealistically hopeful... is there some kind of hack out there that might slow down the speed of the slots? Or even a jumper on the motherboard?

I know its probably wishful thinking, but what the heck...

[reader50]

I never heard why Apple went back to the 33 MHz PCI slots, but I assume it was just a cost issue. Most PCI cards would not benefit from the faster speeds. The exceptions would be really high-end SCSI cards and high-end graphics cards. At the time, there were no high-end graphics cards for the Mac. The V5 has since hit, the Radeon is still promised.

I seriously doubt the faster slots are an issue for you, in part because nothing is in them. Also, they were not experimental, PCI slots on PC's routinely run 66 or faster. Apple was just catching up.

Try the Software Update control panel. You will likely go through it several times. The first time, all you will see is an update to the Software Update CP itself. It will install the update, then require a reboot. Then you should try it again. Some updates depend on earlier updates, keep trying it until it stops offering new updates.

[This message has been edited by reader50 (edited 10-08-2000).]

Thanks. Like I said, it was a long shot..

I must've done the Software Updater at least once before because when I tried it, I got some URL fix... but I didn't go back and try it again. I'll do that tonight.

Actually, OS X PB is working really nicely on my iBook, so I'm a bit less freaked about not having it run on the G4 -- I might just set the G4 with a default user of >console and use it as a server until a version of OS X comes out that works for me.

Again, I appreciate all the time and effort you've put into trying to help me out. Very much appreciated!

[weinc2001]

Moving memory test in GaugePro goes down when you open more apps??? And it should be 250MB/Sec in a G4? I have a B&W G3 and it peaks around 105MB/Sec with nothing running. My friend has a G4 400Mhz bought just a month ago and it peaks at 112 MB/Sec. You are saying this is a problem? What does this number with the moving memory test mean? I thought 110MB/Sec was fast. Is there a problem with my friend's G4? Is that number too slow, and why is it too slow, and what specifically is the problem if there is one? Please e-mail me as well if possible with any fact's on this, I am concerned because Newer has no info on what the normal readings should be for the moving memory tests using GaugePro.
thank you,
weinc2001