[tavilach]

Part 1:

Lately, I've been feeling that my 1.67 15" PB is just plain slow. Way slower than it used to seem, or be. Maybe it's because I only have 9 GB left on the HD? Maybe I need to run Cocktail on it, and repair permissions, or something...? Any other ideas? I'm desperate!

Part 2:

If you think the HD is the issue, perhaps I should just get a bigger HD. Is that possible? How would I do that? Is there any way to do that without being lacking in a computer for a decent amount of time (which I really can't do...)?

Part 3:

Assuming that I do end up buying a MBP, I have some questions:

a) How long does it normally take a new OS to appear in the product line after a keynote? If I go to an Apple Store the day of the keynote on 1/9, or the next day, would the MBP's have Leopard?

b) How does one transfer over Applications from a PB to a MBP? If I copied the .app files, would they automatically run (but in Rosetta)?

b.2) Any idea how slow Dreamweaver runs in Rosetta?

[jasong]

Part 1: Running Cocktail and repairing permissions will do nothing for performance. Nothing.

Part 2: A new HD will help things along since the new one will be faster than the old one, and extra space is always nice. Not sure how hard replacing a HD in a Aluminum PB is, but it's simple in my TiBook. Anyway, a place like CompUSA could do it for you and transfer your data in a few hours (charges will apply). If you have a backup HD, you could clone your old drive, install the new drive (google replace HD in aluminum PB for instructions) and then clone it back.

Part 3: A) It's pretty unlikely that Leopard will be released at MacWorld, so you'll probably be waiting a while after the keynote to get Leopard pre-installed or complimentary with your purchase. The keynote happens at the same time every year, regardless of what's in the product pipeline.
B) Connect the two Macs with a firewire cable and run the Migration Assistant. All your OS X PPC apps will just work

B.2) Don't know, but based on testing using other PPC apps in Rosetta, it's likely faster on a MBP than it is on your PB.

[tavilach]

Thanks for the tips. Maybe I'll look into using CompUSA.

Any other ideas on what could be slowing down my PB's performance? What normally builds up over time and makes them slower? I know that's vague, but it seems to be happening...

Do other people agree that Leopard probably won't be released at MacWorld? I thought it would be? Interesting.

[jasong]

Take a look in the Activity Monitor when you get your system up to speed (all your usual apps open and running for a while). Sort by memory and processor usage and see if something is taking up an inordinate amount of either or both. Repair your disk using Disk Utility to make sure there isn't something going wrong there. It could also be a failing disk, so make sure the SMART status monitor in Disk Utility isn't warning you of something (unfortunately passing SMART does not equal a clean bill of health).

From there, what feels slow? Is it a particular app? Launching a particular app? Launching any app?

Unfortunately your PB isn't a speed demon, so it could also be that your updated applications are too much for it to handle (obviously this only makes sense if you have updated any applications since you bought the machine, the same version app should run more or less the same at this point). Also, are you perhaps using another, faster, machine at school or work? Nothing makes your system feel slower than time on a faster one.

[siflippant]

Originally Posted by tavilach 

Assuming that I do end up buying a MBP, I have some questions:

Assuming these questions won't lead us into a re-run of the 500+ posts before you bought your powerbook almost 2 years ago, everything should be fine...

[tavilach]

Originally Posted by siflippant 

Assuming these questions won't lead us into a re-run of the 500+ posts before you bought your powerbook almost 2 years ago, everything should be fine...

Haha. 2.5 years ago . That was kind of ridiculous. I was kind of ridiculous.

I think I'll just zero out my hard drive and reinstall everything...and wait for the graininess issue to dissapear before I splurge on a MPB around June.

[romeosc]

Originally Posted by jasong 

Part 1: Running Cocktail and repairing permissions will do nothing for performance. Nothing.

Running normal Unix scripts is very important to keep speed up! Coctail, just makes sure you daily, weekly and monthly tasks are run because a powerbook is often asleep when they are scheduled!

[johnpop]

I just upgraded to Tiger on a 1.33ghz 1.25ram powerbook and its a lot speedier now. Not because of tiger, but because things had just gotten kludgy and I wanted tiger at the same time so I reinstalled rather than trying to optimize or fix.

[rjt1000]

Originally Posted by tavilach 

Part 1:

Lately, I've been feeling that my 1.67 15" PB is just plain slow. Way slower than it used to seem, or be. Maybe it's because I only have 9 GB left on the HD? Maybe I need to run Cocktail on it, and repair permissions, or something...? Any other ideas? I'm desperate!

Part 2:

If you think the HD is the issue, perhaps I should just get a bigger HD. Is that possible? How would I do that? Is there any way to do that without being lacking in a computer for a decent amount of time (which I really can't do...)?

If your hard drive is otherwise functioning normally, 9 gb of free space on the drive should not be slowing down your system with routine tasks.

How much RAM do you have? Maxing the RAM is the most cost effective way of increasing your PB's performance. (Much more so than upgrading the OEM hard drive if it is otherwise functioning normally.

I would try running Macjanitor (its free) and let it do all the Unix maintenance utilities which as others have pointed out, may never get done if your PB is off at night.

If its still slow, try setting up a new user account. If that account is noticeabley speedier, then you have some application or process running that is responsible for slowing down your regular account. Trouble shoot it, or just do a clean reinstall.

BTW, my PB 12 1.33 with 1.25 gb RAM and 60 gb 4200 rpm OEM hard drive runs Tiger quite nicely with the routine tasks I do.

[mrmister]

"Running normal Unix scripts is very important to keep speed up! Coctail, just makes sure you daily, weekly and monthly tasks are run because a powerbook is often asleep when they are scheduled!"

Though if you are running Tiger it still runs the tasks--it just waits until the computer is awake.

[SierraDragon]

Sorry I do not have time to elaborate now, but:

-Having less than 10% of usable space remaining on your HD will cause substantial slowdown and sometimes stability issues as well. The throughput decrease at even 70% full is noticeable.

The HD part is easy to fix with an external FW800 drive. Offload the onboard drive to be 50% full and note the speed increase.

- Permissions Repair is done immediately before and after installs, and can in the long term when performed consistently make for improved performance. A one-time repair is seldom if ever some kind of fix. Folks who say Permissions Repair is irrelevant are wrong.

- Trying to anticipate when Apple will release OS 10.5 is probably a waste of time. However at this point (25 Dec) IMO we all should be holding any new Apple purchases until Mac Expo SF.

- Although it is a PITA, when you get a new box the best approach is to do fresh installs of every app rather than simple migrate.

-Allen Wicks

[DannyG]

TechTool Pro 4 is the solution for improving your machine's HD if it's slowing down brothers and sisters. You can defreg and optimise the HD and it has many more features. It is the best software out there for maintenance.

[wubrew]

Defrag! Oh blasphemy. For the love of mac please say clean install.

[solofx7]

i hate to jump in here late, but i have a powerbook... same if not similar model.
basically my hard drive started running slower and slower and getting worse and worse.
after going to apple and going through quite a bit, it ended up being the hard drve. i any event i ended up getting a new macbook core 2 duo 17 out of the deal because of miscelaneous store issues.
the os and hdd was getting slower and slower and not responding as it should and i ran every utility under the sun to no avail.
i ended up trying everything and then my powebook stopped booting from the hdd...
so long story short is i would go to the store and have then diag it..