[shifuimam]

I recently acquired an 800MHz DVI TiBook (stock 40GB 4200rpm HDD, 1GB RAM) from work. I installed Leopard on it right away...and holy crap, is it s-l-o-w, even compared to my 733MHz PowerMac G4 I have at home. I was talking to a friend about it a few nights ago, and he pointed out that the TiBook has a crap GPU, while my G4 has a decent-enough video card (64MB ATI Radeon 7000) to handle Leopard's graphical load, so the speed difference overall is pretty noticeable.

Are there things that can be done to optimize Leopard for older, slower machines - specifically in the graphical/visual area? In Windows (XP and Vista), for instance, you can disable pretty much every visual effect (alpha blending, drop shadows, animations, fade effects, etc.), which can provide a decent performance increase on older hardware.

The TiBook is just about unusably slow with Leopard on it - it's as painful as running Tiger on my 466MHz clamshell iBook, which is pretty pathetic. IIRC, the RAM is maxed out (do they even make 1GB PC133 SO-DIMMs?), and I may or may not be able to put a faster hard drive in it - I'll have to see if my department's hardware guy has any old laptop drives available.

I don't want to downgrade to Tiger, since I took possession of this PowerBook for web application testing in a native OS X environment (also why I picked up the PowerMac G4, but this is more portable and can go to work with me). Do I have any alternatives, or am I stuck downgrading?

[64stang06]

Considering Leopard is meant for 867MHz G4s or later, I'm honestly not too surprised at the results. Upgrading the hard drive to at least a 5400rpm drive would see a little benefit, but nothing too considerable. Honestly, Tiger would be the best bet on the TiBook, unless you have apps that are 10.5 only.

[Back up 15 and punt]

I own a G5 2.3 gig dual core and leopard is not much more than piece of crap. I have daily kernel panics, sometimes three or four a day and it is not a hardware problem. I have tried everything under the sun to fix it and it just does not seem to work. I have not had this much of an issue since I was running the original beta version of OS X. If I wanted this much trouble I would have bought Vista. What ever Apple does they better find a way of fixing these soon or they will have created a tremendous amount of ill will with those of us who have been loyal users.

[msuper69]

Originally Posted by Back up 15 and punt 

I own a G5 2.3 gig dual core and leopard is not much more than piece of crap. I have daily kernel panics, sometimes three or four a day and it is not a hardware problem. I have tried everything under the sun to fix it and it just does not seem to work. I have not had this much of an issue since I was running the original beta version of OS X. If I wanted this much trouble I would have bought Vista. What ever Apple does they better find a way of fixing these soon or they will have created a tremendous amount of ill will with those of us who have been loyal users.

No. Some ill will might be created but only by those who are having the kind of problems you're experiencing. And you're describing hardware problems no matter what you think.

[Gavin]

Throw lots of ram at it - 1GB of ram is minimal for leo

Also remember that it starts to index everything and that can take a few hours to complete. It will be faster the next day after installation.

[Back up 15 and punt]

Originally Posted by msuper69 

No. Some ill will might be created but only by those who are having the kind of problems you're experiencing. And you're describing hardware problems no matter what you think.

No matter what you think this is not a hardware problem. I have run every test under the sun and this includes memory tested multiple times. I have run Apple hardware test and the machines passes with flying colors. The fact is that I can load a fresh copy of leopard on my machine and it will be fine for about two weeks. After that the problems begin. In fact, in responding to this forum my machine died. The following is the kernel panic that occurred.

Interval Since Last Panic Report: 86 sec
Panics Since Last Report: 1
Anonymous UUID: E3888F1F-C9B5-4C49-986E-A3ECA77A0E2C

Sun Jun 7 20:20:22 2009
panic(cpu 1 caller 0x000AD128): simple lock (0x09D4C498) deadlock detection, pc=0x00030AC8

Latest stack backtrace for cpu 1:
Backtrace:
0x0009CC88 0x0009D63C
backtrace terminated - unaligned frame address: 0x00000D00

Proceeding back via exception chain:
Exception state (sv=0x574f2a00)
PC=0x900381F8; MSR=0x0000D030; DAR=0xBFFFD210; DSISR=0x0A000000; LR=0x9003F120; R1=0xBFFFFAC0; XCP=0x00000030 (0xC00 - System call)

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: launchd

Mac OS version:
9J61

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 9.7.0: Tue Mar 31 22:54:29 PDT 2009; root:xnu-1228.12.14~1/RELEASE_PPC
System model name: PowerMac11,2

System uptime in nanoseconds: 3384739627847
unloaded kexts:
com.apple.kext.webfilter 1.2 - last unloaded 39057683176
loaded kexts:
com.StudioNetworkSolutions.driver.globalSAN 3
com.apple.kext.webfilter 1.2 - last loaded 42851057237
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothSerialManager 2.1.6f8
com.apple.filesystems.autofs 2.0.2
com.apple.driver.AppleTopazAudio 2.5.8f1
com.apple.driver.AppleOnyxAudio 2.5.8f1
com.apple.GeForcePPC 5.4.4
com.apple.nvidia.nv40halppc 5.4.4
com.apple.driver.AudioIPCDriver 1.0.6
com.apple.driver.IOI2CSMUSat 1.9d0
com.apple.driver.AppleHWSensor 1.9d0
com.apple.driver.IOI2CLM7x 1.9d0
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBDisplays 2.0.2
com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireIP 1.7.7
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBAudio 2.6.4b10
com.apple.driver.AppleK2Driver 1.7.2f1
com.apple.driver.PowerMac11_2_PlatformPlugin 3.4.0d0
com.apple.driver.IOI2CMaxim6690 1.9d0
com.apple.driver.AppleSMUMonitor 1.9d0
com.apple.driver.IOI2CMaxim1631 1.9d0
com.apple.driver.AppleI2S 1.0.1f1
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBHIDMouse 1.2.3f1
com.apple.driver.AppleHIDKeyboard 1.0.8b1
com.apple.driver.IOI2CPulsar 1.5.2d0
com.apple.driver.IOI2CControllerSMU 1.1.1d2
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBMergeNub 3.4.3
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBBluetoothHCIController 2.1.6f8
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIMultimediaCommandsDevice 2.0.9
com.apple.iokit.SCSITaskUserClient 2.0.9
com.apple.driver.XsanFilter 2.7.91
com.apple.iokit.IOATABlockStorage 2.0.5
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBHub 3.4.0
com.apple.iokit.IOATAPIProtocolTransport 1.5.2
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBUserClient 3.3.1
com.apple.driver.AppleK2SATA 1.0.4f2
com.apple.driver.AppleGPIO 1.3.0d0
com.apple.driver.MacIOGPIO 1.3.0d0
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBEHCI 3.4.3
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBOHCI 3.3.5
com.apple.driver.AppleK2 1.7.2f1
com.apple.driver.AppleMPIC 1.5.3
com.apple.driver.AppleI2C 4.0.0d2
com.apple.driver.IOI2CControllerPPC 1.1.1d2
com.apple.iokit.AppleBCM5701Ethernet 2.2.3b1
com.apple.driver.AppleFWOHCI 3.8.2
com.apple.driver.AppleKauaiATA 1.2.1f4
com.apple.driver.AppleK2SATARoot 1.0.5b1
com.apple.driver.AppleSMU 1.2.1d1
com.apple.driver.AppleMacRiscPCI 3.4.0
com.apple.driver.AppleFlashNVRAM 1.0.5
com.apple.security.seatbelt 107.12
com.apple.nke.applicationfirewall 1.6.77
com.apple.security.TMSafetyNet 3
com.apple.BootCache 30.4
com.apple.driver.DiskImages 199
com.apple.driver.AppleMacRISC4PE 2.0.4d9
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIParallelFamily 1.5.2
com.apple.driver.AppleOnboardAudio 2.5.8f1
com.apple.driver.AppleDBDMAAudio 2.5.8f1
com.apple.NVDAResmanPPC 5.4.4
com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport 1.7.3
com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily 1.7.3
com.apple.iokit.IOSerialFamily 9.4
com.apple.iokit.IOAudioFamily 1.6.9fc3
com.apple.kext.OSvKernDSPLib 1.1
com.apple.driver.SMU_Neo2_PlatformPlugin 3.4.0d0
com.apple.driver.IOPlatformPluginFamily 3.4.0d10
com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse 1.2.3f1
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHIDDriver 3.2.2
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothFamily 2.1.6f8
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBComposite 3.2.0
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSI@

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Back up 15 and punt 

No matter what you think this is not a hardware problem. I have run every test under the sun and this includes memory tested multiple times. I have run Apple hardware test and the machines passes with flying colors.

My MBP passed all tests with flying colors too, but that didn't mean the thing wasn't royally messed up in a way that was 100% reproducible on that machine and on no other, even if you booted the two machines from the same external hard drive. The guys at the Apple store tried the same thing, and were able to reproduce it every time with my machine, and not with other machines of the same model. As a result, I'm getting a new unibody MBP tomorrow morning to replace it (woohoo!).

Moral: those tests are useless. They fail to catch hardware issues all the time. The bottom line is, the issues you are describing are almost certainly caused by hardware, because if it were inherent to Leopard, then other people would be having the same issues.

[Back up 15 and punt]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

My MBP passed all tests with flying colors too, but that didn't mean the thing wasn't royally messed up in a way that was 100% reproducible on that machine and on no other, even if you booted the two machines from the same external hard drive. The guys at the Apple store tried the same thing, and were able to reproduce it every time with my machine, and not with other machines of the same model. As a result, I'm getting a new unibody MBP tomorrow morning to replace it (woohoo!).

Moral: those tests are useless. They fail to catch hardware issues all the time. The bottom line is, the issues you are describing are almost certainly caused by hardware, because if it were inherent to Leopard, then other people would be having the same issues.

The apple people have not been able to reproduce this problem and I am not the only one having it. All you have to do is look around and by the way I have a desktop not a macbook.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by 64stang06 

Considering Leopard is meant for 867MHz G4s or later, I'm honestly not too surprised at the results. Upgrading the hard drive to at least a 5400rpm drive would see a little benefit, but nothing too considerable. Honestly, Tiger would be the best bet on the TiBook, unless you have apps that are 10.5 only.

Um, I'm not convinced that a 67MHz processor difference is going to be that significant.

Not to mention that my 733MHz G4 runs considerably faster than the TiBook.

I'll take it as a "no" on the possibility of disabling graphical effects in order to improve performance. Bummer.

[Simon]

Options:
a) put Tiger on the Ti and increase its RAM
or
b) put DSL or another lean Linux distro on it
or
c) toss it.

And FTR, it's absolutely no surprise a desktop is faster than a notebook even if the notebook has 133 MHz more CPU clock.

[Andy8]

Tiger is the only way to fly.

[angelmb]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

I'll take it as a "no" on the possibility of disabling graphical effects in order to improve performance. Bummer.

Not saying this is going to be all you need but you can turn off some of the eye-candy with the help of OnyX, Tinkertool, Cocktail.

You can also accelerate the speed of display for the sheets (those dialogs about saving changes and so…) with the help of some of that tools, OnyX (which is free) does that.

[shifuimam]

Thanks. I might mess around with some of that stuff tonight.

I want to avoid putting Tiger on if I can. We'll see...

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by Simon 

Options:
a) put Tiger on the Ti and increase its RAM

As mentioned, I'd like to stick with Leopard. I've also already maxed out the RAM at 1GB.

or
b) put DSL or another lean Linux distro on it

Defeats the purpose of acquiring this Mac at all. I specifically mentioned I'm using it to test web apps in a Mac environment.

or
c) toss it.

It's not mine to toss. I could put it back on the shelf where it sat unused for the last year and a half, but where's the fun in that?

[King Bob On The Cob]

Originally Posted by Back up 15 and punt 

No matter what you think this is not a hardware problem. I have run every test under the sun and this includes memory tested multiple times. I have run Apple hardware test and the machines passes with flying colors. The fact is that I can load a fresh copy of leopard on my machine and it will be fine for about two weeks. After that the problems begin. In fact, in responding to this forum my machine died. The following is the kernel panic that occurred.

Interval Since Last Panic Report: 86 sec
Panics Since Last Report: 1
Anonymous UUID: E3888F1F-C9B5-4C49-986E-A3ECA77A0E2C

Sun Jun 7 20:20:22 2009
panic(cpu 1 caller 0x000AD128): simple lock (0x09D4C498) deadlock detection, pc=0x00030AC8

Latest stack backtrace for cpu 1:
Backtrace:
0x0009CC88 0x0009D63C
backtrace terminated - unaligned frame address: 0x00000D00

Proceeding back via exception chain:
Exception state (sv=0x574f2a00)
PC=0x900381F8; MSR=0x0000D030; DAR=0xBFFFD210; DSISR=0x0A000000; LR=0x9003F120; R1=0xBFFFFAC0; XCP=0x00000030 (0xC00 - System call)

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: launchd

Mac OS version:
9J61

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 9.7.0: Tue Mar 31 22:54:29 PDT 2009; root:xnu-1228.12.14~1/RELEASE_PPC
System model name: PowerMac11,2

System uptime in nanoseconds: 3384739627847
unloaded kexts:
com.apple.kext.webfilter 1.2 - last unloaded 39057683176
loaded kexts:
com.StudioNetworkSolutions.driver.globalSAN 3
com.apple.kext.webfilter 1.2 - last loaded 42851057237
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothSerialManager 2.1.6f8
com.apple.filesystems.autofs 2.0.2
com.apple.driver.AppleTopazAudio 2.5.8f1
com.apple.driver.AppleOnyxAudio 2.5.8f1
com.apple.GeForcePPC 5.4.4
com.apple.nvidia.nv40halppc 5.4.4
com.apple.driver.AudioIPCDriver 1.0.6
com.apple.driver.IOI2CSMUSat 1.9d0
com.apple.driver.AppleHWSensor 1.9d0
com.apple.driver.IOI2CLM7x 1.9d0
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBDisplays 2.0.2
com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireIP 1.7.7
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBAudio 2.6.4b10
com.apple.driver.AppleK2Driver 1.7.2f1
com.apple.driver.PowerMac11_2_PlatformPlugin 3.4.0d0
com.apple.driver.IOI2CMaxim6690 1.9d0
com.apple.driver.AppleSMUMonitor 1.9d0
com.apple.driver.IOI2CMaxim1631 1.9d0
com.apple.driver.AppleI2S 1.0.1f1
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBHIDMouse 1.2.3f1
com.apple.driver.AppleHIDKeyboard 1.0.8b1
com.apple.driver.IOI2CPulsar 1.5.2d0
com.apple.driver.IOI2CControllerSMU 1.1.1d2
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBMergeNub 3.4.3
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBBluetoothHCIController 2.1.6f8
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIMultimediaCommandsDevice 2.0.9
com.apple.iokit.SCSITaskUserClient 2.0.9
com.apple.driver.XsanFilter 2.7.91
com.apple.iokit.IOATABlockStorage 2.0.5
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBHub 3.4.0
com.apple.iokit.IOATAPIProtocolTransport 1.5.2
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBUserClient 3.3.1
com.apple.driver.AppleK2SATA 1.0.4f2
com.apple.driver.AppleGPIO 1.3.0d0
com.apple.driver.MacIOGPIO 1.3.0d0
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBEHCI 3.4.3
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBOHCI 3.3.5
com.apple.driver.AppleK2 1.7.2f1
com.apple.driver.AppleMPIC 1.5.3
com.apple.driver.AppleI2C 4.0.0d2
com.apple.driver.IOI2CControllerPPC 1.1.1d2
com.apple.iokit.AppleBCM5701Ethernet 2.2.3b1
com.apple.driver.AppleFWOHCI 3.8.2
com.apple.driver.AppleKauaiATA 1.2.1f4
com.apple.driver.AppleK2SATARoot 1.0.5b1
com.apple.driver.AppleSMU 1.2.1d1
com.apple.driver.AppleMacRiscPCI 3.4.0
com.apple.driver.AppleFlashNVRAM 1.0.5
com.apple.security.seatbelt 107.12
com.apple.nke.applicationfirewall 1.6.77
com.apple.security.TMSafetyNet 3
com.apple.BootCache 30.4
com.apple.driver.DiskImages 199
com.apple.driver.AppleMacRISC4PE 2.0.4d9
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIParallelFamily 1.5.2
com.apple.driver.AppleOnboardAudio 2.5.8f1
com.apple.driver.AppleDBDMAAudio 2.5.8f1
com.apple.NVDAResmanPPC 5.4.4
com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport 1.7.3
com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily 1.7.3
com.apple.iokit.IOSerialFamily 9.4
com.apple.iokit.IOAudioFamily 1.6.9fc3
com.apple.kext.OSvKernDSPLib 1.1
com.apple.driver.SMU_Neo2_PlatformPlugin 3.4.0d0
com.apple.driver.IOPlatformPluginFamily 3.4.0d10
com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse 1.2.3f1
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHIDDriver 3.2.2
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothFamily 2.1.6f8
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBComposite 3.2.0
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSI@

Let me bold the important part here...

Have you gone ahead and upgraded to the absolute latest version of that driver?

http://www.snsftp.com/public/globalsan/

What you're seeing is some kext is thinking it's smarter than the kernel and bypassing the kernel for direct memory access, which is wrong, and I'm pretty sure Apple would notice that in a code edit, leaving me to suspect the iSCSI software you have installed.

[Big Mac]

It's always surprising to me to see that some people who have problems with their computers (i.e. Back up 15) automatically assume that it can't be their particular hardware at fault and must invariably be a problem with the OS.

[P]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

It's always surprising to me to see that some people who have problems with their computers (i.e. Back up 15) automatically assume that it can't be their particular hardware at fault and must invariably be a problem with the OS.

Because historically, that was the most likely reason personal computer failed. With newer OSes, we're approaching UNIX territory where a kernel panic usually means hardware failure, but that hasn't sunk in yet.

[Judge_Fire]

Yeah, I noticed that extension too and found this discussion on its crashiness in some version.

You could perhaps attempt removing it from /System/Library/Extensions/ and see if the Mac gets more stable after a restart? This could hose your drive access to this storage device etc. so proceed with caution.

[ul1984]

You could try going into System Prefs -> Energy Saver -> Options, and set its processor performance to Highest. (Not sure if the tibook has that feature tho)

At least on my old Powerbook 1.25Ghz setting it to Highest makes the computer feel a lot more usable, it seems the automatic cpu scaling isn't really responding fast enough, for it to feel anywhere close to as snappy at Automatic.

[komputist]

Shifuimam,

I cured my (admittedly much faster) 1.3Ghz 12" Powerbook. I had grown to accept its slowness ... But this week I felt - enough! To increase the speed, I followed Lowend Mac's 11 Ways to Optimize Your Mac's Performance - those things I could afford to do had a positive effect.

In addition, I turned off antialiasing for font sizes below 12 ... That had a very positive effect. (Look in the Appearance control panel.) Just my 2 cents ... ;-)