[michelangelo33]

Mac Pro
2 x 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
1 GB 667 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM

My new computer is incredibly slow. I work mostly in InDesign and Photoshop. I expect them to be a little slow running through Rosetta. But, everything seems to be taking a really long time. I know that more memory always helps, but this is even slower than my G$ which also had 1 GB of memory.

I rebooted the computer several times and opened up Safari. Each time it took almost one minute for the app to come up. Not for the webpage to load, but for the app window to come up. The beachball was spinning the entire time. And, yes I waited for the computer to finish booting before opening the app.

I have a few apps that open when I log in: FontAgent Activator, Microsoft AU Daemon and LaunchBar (which is really slow).

I checked the Activity Monitor and see the that a kernal task is taking up 1 GB of Virtual Memory, 92.46 MB or Real Memory. I have a process called configd that's taking up 30% of my CPU and SystemUIServer that's taking up 28%. What are these and why are they taking so much memory/CPU?

I did a little experiment and opened all of the iLife apps, Safari, Entourage and iCal. The computer seemed to handle all these without a problem. But when I first open Safari, it still takes forever.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

[OreoCookie]

You probably have too little memory. I've had the same problem on my ProBook until I added a second gigabyte of RAM.

[Ian_Bullock]

Surely a brand new mac pro should open safari instantly? My 2 year old DP G5 does, as does a 6 year old clamshell ibook (ok, more like 5 seconds). Almost a minute sounds ridiculous. One gig of ram should be plenty to run an internet browser.

[thebunny]

Something is wrong all right and it's not the amount of memory. The kernel_task's VM size isn't the problem either because mine is doing the same thing. My Safari pops up within a couple of seconds on a gig of RAM.

configd is a networking daemon. Try repairing permissions on your disc because that thing reads and writes configuration files all day long. Try disabling BT and WiFi and see what happens.

Can you see anything in the logs?

[michelangelo33]

Repaired the permissions. Rebooted. Safari opened right up. Maybe I should have done this after I updated all the software. I'm sure I still need more memory especially with so many apps using Rosetta.

I still don't understand why the kernal task is taking up so much memory.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[thebunny]

kernel_task is the one that hangs on to all the RAM and then dishes bits out to the applications when they need it. Huge VM size doesn't mean it's actually used. Private memory size is the one the app what the app has physically allocated. You'll see Photoshop is king there especially after you open a couple of large images.

[svtcontour]

This is a silly question and indrectly related to this thread I guess. The solution to the slowdown seemed to be a repair of permissions....but why is that necessary? Who or what would change permissions on Safari? I mean wouldnt a repair permission be something you'd do to reset system file permissions that the user changed back to its original state? Do permissions change on their own? I'm confused and its one of the things that bug me about OSX because I'm not sure why it has to be done once in a while.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Ian_Bullock 

Surely a brand new mac pro should open safari instantly? My 2 year old DP G5 does, as does a 6 year old clamshell ibook (ok, more like 5 seconds). Almost a minute sounds ridiculous. One gig of ram should be plenty to run an internet browser.

The OP said, he uses PowerPC apps a lot and Rosetta is a ginormeous memory hog. Also, Intel binaries tend to have a larger memory footprint.

[TheSpaz]

Originally Posted by svtcontour 

This is a silly question and indrectly related to this thread I guess. The solution to the slowdown seemed to be a repair of permissions....but why is that necessary? Who or what would change permissions on Safari? I mean wouldnt a repair permission be something you'd do to reset system file permissions that the user changed back to its original state? Do permissions change on their own? I'm confused and its one of the things that bug me about OSX because I'm not sure why it has to be done once in a while.

Sometimes funky App installers mess with permissions and screws them up. Maybe you installed something recently that did that. I don't think it's something to get too upset about. I have a Mac Pro on the way and I know I'm definitely upgrading the RAM as soon as it gets here.