Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

fowler · Jul 4, 2006, 12:51 AM

First off, specs are in my sig.

I don't know what the deal is, but my computer is running pretty sluggish. scrolling through webpages seems like a task that it struggles with and running parallels is pretty much useless. I've checked and rechecked whether or not I'm using an app that requires rosetta. Most of my programs, at least the ones I use on a regular basis are universal.

I've gone through Onyx and optimized as best as I could.. and yet, everything still feels slow.

What's a good program to use so that I can compare how fast my computer is vs. others? Cinebench, that sort of thing?

Any other tips?

fowler · Jul 4, 2006, 12:54 AM

one thing I should mention is that I've reinstalled the system a couple times already (complete erase, not just reinstalling the os). in the past, it seems like this has mucked some stuff up.. but I'm not sure if that's my imagination or not...

fowler · Jul 4, 2006, 01:05 AM

here are my xbench results, which seem a heck of a lot lower than what I read in an arstechnica article here: http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardw...cbookpro.ars/6

milhous · Jul 4, 2006, 01:15 AM

some thoughts:

1. you're using both the laptop display and the external lcd yes? try using the macbook without the external display and see if that works better. did yours come with 128 or 256 vram?

2. use the supplied diagnostic disc again with the external display disconnected and see what you find.

3. make sure that in the apple system profiler that all the ram that was installed is detected and that both cores of the processor are visible. if you open terminal and type 'hostinfo' (no single quotes), it should tell you whether or not the system's configured for either a single or dual processor. if it says single processor, then you've got a problem.

good luck.

fowler · Jul 4, 2006, 01:33 AM

Code:
Darwin Kernel Version 8.7.1: Wed Jun  7 16:19:56 PDT 2006; root:xnu-792.9.72.obj~2/RELEASE_I386
Kernel configured for up to 2 processors.
2 processors are physically available.
2 processors are logically available.
Processor type: i486 (Intel 80486)
Processors active: 0 1
Primary memory available: 2.00 gigabytes
Default processor set: 70 tasks, 265 threads, 2 processors
Load average: 0.06, Mach factor: 1.93

fowler · Jul 4, 2006, 01:34 AM

is that normal?

without the display hooked up, there's a noticable improvement.. but it's still not as fast as I think it should be..

harrisjamieh · Jul 4, 2006, 01:56 AM

Originally Posted by fowler

Code:
Darwin Kernel Version 8.7.1: Wed Jun  7 16:19:56 PDT 2006; root:xnu-792.9.72.obj~2/RELEASE_I386
Kernel configured for up to 2 processors.
2 processors are physically available.
2 processors are logically available.
Processor type: i486 (Intel 80486)
Processors active: 0 1
Primary memory available: 2.00 gigabytes
Default processor set: 70 tasks, 265 threads, 2 processors
Load average: 0.06, Mach factor: 1.93

All seems well there...

Frugle · 12:30 PM

Originally Posted by fowler

is that normal?

without the display hooked up, there's a noticable improvement.. but it's still not as fast as I think it should be..

that doesn't seem normal to me...

to compare it to,

This is what I am getting on my Macbook Pro.... 2.16GHz, 100GB 5400RPM, 1GB DDR2, 256MB X1600..

harrisjamieh · Jul 4, 2006, 12:34 PM

Tried an archieve and install (or erase & install)?

fowler · Jul 4, 2006, 12:45 PM

I can't do it now since I'm working on a project, but I have twice in the past when I ran into problems with bootcamp. Like I said before, when I've done a complete erasure and re-install, it's felt slower.. but I wasn't sure if it was just me. I guess it's looking like that's the case.

If a restore doesn't remedy the problem, I'd like to take it into Apple.. but I'm not quite sure that xbench would be sufficient evidence, you know?

Frugle · Jul 4, 2006, 01:05 PM

well wouldn't it be true across the board? if xBench isn't showing a lot, it seems like whatever the apple tech uses will also yeild a low score.

fowler · Jul 4, 2006, 01:12 PM

I ran cinebench and came up with this... which sorta disagrees with xbench..

confusing.

Code:
Rendering (Single   CPU): 331 CB-CPU 
Rendering (Multiple CPU): 626 CB-CPU 

Multiprocessor Speedup: 1.89

Shading (CINEMA 4D)                : 381 CB-GFX 
Shading (OpenGL Software Lighting) : 1483 CB-GFX 
Shading (OpenGL Hardware Lighting) : 2846 CB-GFX 

OpenGL Speedup: 7.47

Frugle · Jul 4, 2006, 01:30 PM

I went and ran the same test and got about the same score....that is pretty weird.

CINEBENCH 9.5
************************************************** **

Tester : David

Processor : Apple MacBook Pro
MHz : 2160
Number of CPUs : 2
Operating System : OS X 10.4.7

Graphics Card : X1600
Resolution : <fill this out>
Color Depth : <fill this out>

************************************************** **

Rendering (Single CPU): 330 CB-CPU
Rendering (Multiple CPU): 628 CB-CPU

Multiprocessor Speedup: 1.90

Shading (CINEMA 4D) : 382 CB-GFX
Shading (OpenGL Software Lighting) : 1493 CB-GFX
Shading (OpenGL Hardware Lighting) : 2854 CB-GFX

OpenGL Speedup: 7.47

************************************************** **

ender78 · Jul 4, 2006, 08:01 PM

Wow, that really is OFF. Here are the results of my MBP 2.0GHz 2GB RAM and 7200RPM HD

Chris Grande · Jul 4, 2006, 08:12 PM

If you open Activity Monitor are there any run away process?

bicamen · Jul 4, 2006, 10:08 PM

Go to your Energy Saver settings either at the Menu Bar or in System Preferences. Set it to "Better Performance" and rerun your tests.

fowler · Jul 4, 2006, 11:02 PM

Originally Posted by Chris Grande

If you open Activity Monitor are there any run away process?

all looks normal to me...

and the with better performance selected:

:/

fowler · Jul 4, 2006, 11:04 PM

in the next couple days, i'm going to remove the 3rd party ram that I've installed and run the tests again. even though everything says that it's okay, you never know.. this sucks though.

SpyManiac007 · Jul 4, 2006, 11:27 PM

Alright well I know it's a different computer and different chip, but when my iMac got slow and I took it in, an employee asked me there if I had installed any Unsanity things. As soon as he uninstalled them, my system instantly jumped back to peak performance.

Is there any haxie's installed, such as Unsanity, Themesaver, different icons, etc?

007

Chris Grande · Jul 4, 2006, 11:42 PM

I know those Canon Button Managers can cause issues, since they constantly keep pooling for the scanner.

fowler · Jul 4, 2006, 11:50 PM

uninstalled ape along with clear dock...

now with button manager deals killed..

this isn't making sense.. it's getting worse as I uninstall more garbage..

Frugle · Jul 4, 2006, 11:57 PM

are you restarting after you uninstall them? It helped my score by restarting before I take it so that it's working off a clean plate.

fowler · Jul 4, 2006, 11:59 PM

well, i logged in and out. i'll restart and see if that helps.

fowler · Jul 5, 2006, 12:05 AM

same thing.. nothing's changed.

SDDave · Jul 5, 2006, 04:45 PM

Here's a wild guess: have you checked for duplicate fonts? Now, whenever I install a new application, I check my fonts to make sure no duplicates have been installed. I found that it can really slow down things (especially my browser).
Here is a thread:

http://discussions.apple.com/message...415895#2415895

Hope that helps...

fowler · Jul 5, 2006, 05:26 PM

I use FontExplorer to manage my fonts. It does an iTunes type thing by copying them to a specific folder and and organizing them on it's own. It's been moving slow since I've installed all my fonts, so I don't think that's the issue.

I'm going to reinstall everything tonight, as well as remove my 3rd party ram. See if any of that makes a difference.

fowler · 12:46 PM

two things.

I reinstalled osx last night (which I'm now realizing, I didn't need to do). I did a few tests right off the bat with a clean install. It was better, but not great. then removed my 3rd party ram and everything drastically improved in xbench.

here's the code for the last test:

Code:
Results	62.23	
	System Info		
		Xbench Version		1.2
		System Version		10.4.7 (8J2135)
		Physical RAM		1024 MB
		Model		MacBookPro1,1
		Drive Type		ST910021AS
	CPU Test	82.42	
		GCD Loop	263.93	13.91 Mops/sec
		Floating Point Basic	98.41	2.34 Gflop/sec
		vecLib FFT	48.07	1.59 Gflop/sec
		Floating Point Library	72.56	12.64 Mops/sec
	Thread Test	208.98	
		Computation	188.39	3.82 Mops/sec, 4 threads
		Lock Contention	234.61	10.09 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
	Memory Test	108.35	
		System	108.56	
			Allocate	109.88	403.53 Kalloc/sec
			Fill	111.88	5439.94 MB/sec
			Copy	104.21	2152.32 MB/sec
		Stream	108.15	
			Copy	102.43	2115.56 MB/sec
			Scale	105.53	2180.31 MB/sec
			Add	113.11	2409.51 MB/sec
			Triad	112.29	2402.18 MB/sec
	Quartz Graphics Test	61.32	
		Line	58.71	3.91 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
		Rectangle	52.40	15.65 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
		Circle	52.75	4.30 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
		Bezier	81.62	2.06 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
		Text	70.32	4.40 Kchars/sec
	OpenGL Graphics Test	149.02	
		Spinning Squares	149.02	189.04 frames/sec
	User Interface Test	32.04	
		Elements	32.04	147.05 refresh/sec
	Disk Test	31.14	
		Sequential	66.70	
			Uncached Write	82.25	50.50 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	70.60	39.95 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	47.67	13.95 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	78.93	39.67 MB/sec [256K blocks]
		Random	20.31	
			Uncached Write	6.19	0.66 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	72.39	23.17 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	82.23	0.58 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	106.72	19.80 MB/sec [256K blocks]

after that, I used Backup to restore all my settings and what not, only to realize that my scores were back to where they used to be. I checked Activity Monitor and found that Xbench had been running as a PPC app. That, I'm not sure about. I don't know why it'd do that, even though it's a UB.

I created a new user and scores are back to normal.. so, this is a little confusing..