G4 running slowly

[007]

My G4's started to run a little slowly and i'm not quite sure why. I've been having a few pop ups and stuff, and internet pages at times take ages to load.

Should I run a mac spyware or virus checker? Any recomendations as to where I can get some?

Cheers.

[Matt Horne]

Which browser are you using ? I would be surprised if its spyware etc are you on broadband ? if so have you tried the broanband optimizer ?

Matt

[007]

I'm using Safari. I've turned on use interferance robustness, but that's about it dude.

[simoran1]

sounds like spyware to me. i know nothing about macs though.

[bignige]

Don't think you get spyware on macs yet.
Try repairing permissions.
Is your G4 loaded up with mp3's and movies etc? The more you have on it, the slower it'll run.
Have you partioned the hd, or is everything on 1? Having apps, work, music etc all on 1 partition will slow it down also.

[Matt Horne]

Hmm why would having loads of data/mp3s/movies on one partition slow it down ?

I have a 80gb drive in the mini ..only 18 gb left the rest is movies/mp3s and it runs fine..you would only impact perfomance if there was so little space left it stopped the machine from using hard disc space as swap space with the ram.

007 is you machine on all the time ? There are overnight/weekend/monthly jobs that kick off and housekeep the machine.. I would download Onyx (free utlilty) and run them manually if you do not have your machine on all the time. Repairing permissions is also a good idea (onyx will do that to..)

Cheers

Matt

[segages]

Yeah, definitely give Oynx a whirl. Was it just in Safari where you were slowing up? If so, you may have been on sites with Java - Safari is notoriously poor with Java in Panther... the Tiger version is supposed to be a major improvement. Compare Safari vs Camino or Firefox here to see for yourself.

You could also try xbench and compare the results you get with the same spec'd machine on the results list. Usually when I do a clean install, I'll run Xbench and note the score down. Later down the line if my Mac feels slower, I'll run it again and then go troubleshooting if need be.

[bignige]

Hmm why would having loads of data/mp3s/movies on one partition slow it down ?

Not sure with OSX, but with OS9 it was always best to split your drive into smaller partitions. Otherwise it'd slow down like a bastard, the more stuff you'd load on to it.

My 17" iMac is partitoned in to 4 drives:
OS9
OSX
Applications
Work

Never slows down, not even using Safari.

[007]

Aye, I do have this on all the time. I never turn it off, just put it into sleep mode.

I've had **** loads of pop ups and stuff lately too. So do you reckon it's spyware?

[Matt Horne]

Bignige..aha never got to play with OS9

007 when do the pop ups appear ? Does safari have a built in pop up stopper.. maybe you should try firefox and see if you get the same issues? The only reason I am dubious about saying its spyware is the fact its not easy to install anything on the mac without it asking you to ok it (or having to enter the admin password)...

[bignige]

I really don't think its spyware.
You can block pop-ups in Safari, although this can crash it and you don't get legitimate pop-ups either. Stop looking at the porn & it'll go away!!

[segages]

Stop looking at the porn & it'll go away!!

Heh. 10.3.9 has just been released so you could update to that and see if it fixes anything.

[Paleface]

Christ, there's no ****ing spyware.

OK: first, start blocking popups in Safari. This blocks all popups you don't want. It does occasionally block some you do, but, TBH, that's only because they're implemented badly. (It blocks all popups you haven't specifically requested; if your request gets rerouted by the page, then it blocks them).

Next: it really needs a *proper reboot*. Long uptimes are cool, but you'll want a monthly reboot, I'd say.

And then, when you've done that, fire up Disk Utility-->First Aid and then "Repair Drive Permissions" on your primary volume. You can never do that enough when things start going weird.

Finally, don't fill the drive entirely full. You need 1gig of free space, really - things like Mail start playing up when they don't have free space to manoeuvre in.

Onyx sounds good; there are several utilities that will help you to run the jobs scheduled for 3am that never happen because your computer's asleep. These need doing.

In short: reboot it once a month, run scheduled tasks. Block pop-ups. Don't worry about spyware or viruses.

[Matt Horne]

Completely agree with the above.. I turned off the sleep function on my mini completely due to it stopping my squeezebox accessing the machine and my usb KVM went bananas.. its uses so little power I could not see any reason anyhow

Matt

[FelixofMars]

Don't think you get spyware on macs yet.

Or viruses either