My 8600 with OS 9.0.4 and 64mb has developed a curious problem. It will frequently pause operations, clock included (but the mouse moves) for about 10 seconds, then resume as if nothing happened. Is seems to be independent of any specific program. I can only think that there must be a duplicate extention of control panel (haven't found any yet) or an internal process (control panel??? or invisible) that is taking up this time. It doesn't seem to cause any crashes, just takes the time away. Would duplicated fonts cause this in any way? I just got rid of Font Reserve and most (but not yet all) of the duplicated fonts it created.

Any suggestions for resolution or where I might start looking.

Thanks,

[reader50]

If a CD is left in the drive, the Mac will "check it" every once in a while. This creates a pause like the one you describe.

I have checked this in OS X and found that the "CD Pause" problem has been fixed. I left a CD in the drive for over an hour, and got no pauses.

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

Nope. No CD in drive. I am aware of that slowdown. It happened again just now when, while this browwer (Netscape) and AppleWorks were open, I checked the Notepad for something. Just a brief stop and then continuing as if nothing happened. Still stumped. It seems as if it would be something obvious.

[reader50]

It is possible that you are just seeing VM swapping with your 64MB. But I ran at 64MB for months, and VM just produced small hesitations for me, not 10 second pauses. And even my hesitations only happened when I loaded the system. Netscape & Appleworks alone would not do that, unless you upped the memory settings for them a great deal.

I would suggest you download PPCLoadWatcher. It is a freeware utility that can give a continuous readout of the percentage CPU each application & process is taking. It can be set to include background processes, to update every second, and to sort by CPU load. I suggest leaving PPCLoadWatcher running, and watch it the next time you get a 10-sec pause. See what process is causing it.

A faster possibility: you could give a force-quit during a pause. You should get a dialog asking if you really want to quit "xxxx", and "xxxx" might be the problem process rather than a foreground application. Note that you do not have to go through with the force-quit, you could click "cancel" and just continue with your work.

I downloaded PPCLoadWatcher. Good idea! But, wouldn't you know that the computer hasn't exhibited this behavior since then. One would think that the "system" knows it's being watched and it on best behavior. Only the usualy Netscape crashes when it tries to digest a site that doesn't agree with it.

Anyway, if I detect anything with this utility, I'll update this posting.

Thanks for a very good suggestion.

[P]

This sometimes happened to me when running Netscape is combination with some other programs, notably Outlook Express 5.0 (not 4.5). No, I don't suggest a Microsoft plot behind this, it has happened with only good ol' BBEdit Lite and Netscape as well, I'm just making an observation.

[oscar]

I know that network problems can cause these delay's Make sure your appletalk connection is either set to remote only, or ethernet.
Also, if you have macsbug installed, break into it, and type "bye" during one of these pauses, see if that helps. That turns appletalk off


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-See Yea!

[jog]

Boot while holding [Shift] down (disabling any extensions) and see whether the delays still occur. Probably they don't... Add extensions step by step

[This message has been edited by jog (edited 10-17-2000).]

I had the same problem with an Imac. I found it to be Appleworks. I upgraded it to the most recent patch and it was gone...