Mac geeks

[gilana]

Any hard-core Mac geeks on my flist?  My computer seems to be running a lot slower than it should, and I have a lead on doing some more freelance work from home, so I'd like to make sure it's running the best it can.  It's a dual-core iMac G5, bought in July of 07, which I know is a little old in computer years, but still, it should not be taking this long to start up the Adobe products, for once thing. 

(Oh, wow.  I had thought I had the memory maxed out, but apparently I only have 1GB in there, and it can go up to 3, although I'm also seeing some things about keeping it in matched pairs.  But that's definitely a place to start!)

Anyway, if there's any way I can barter for some tech support -- graphic design, a home-cooked meal, my eternal gratitude -- let's talk!

Comments

[ron_newman]

I don't have an answer, but ... what do those "Alt+Enter to post" boxes do?

[gilana]

Ugh, I hadn't realized those were in the code. Not sure -- they're an artifact from one of the plug-ins I'm using, I think, need to figure out which one.

[ckd]

Drop me an email (@LJ will work); I'll be happy to see what I can do.

Not huge things, but stuff to check

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Expanding the RAM is good for a graphics guru :). Matched pairs is also a very good idea. I've used crucial.com in the past without incident, though some others claimed problems there and one of my friends went with datamemorysystems.com instead.

How are you doing on hard drive space? If things start getting tight, then the computer might slow down when swapping virtual memory to disk. Try to keep at least 2x your real RAM available.

Check what kind of start-up programs you have running--start Activity Monitor, sort descending by CPU, see if something is using up lots of CPU. It's unlikely but there might be a background daemon installed by some other product (e.g., Google Earth installs Google Updater and doesn't tell you; Updater takes up a small amount of resources, but if you had a number of such things they could add up).

Are you up to date on system software? 10.6 claims to be a significant speed improvement.

Re: Not huge things, but stuff to check

[heliopsis.livejournal.com]

I don't think 10.6 runs on the G5 processor.

Re: Not huge things, but stuff to check

[gilana]

Thanks! I've ordered more RAM and am clearing some HD space -- I had a few GB free, but let's see if more helps.

I have a bunch of little startup programs, but nothing that should cause this kind of problem. Firefox is definitely being a hog, but I've been experimenting with using Chrome instead and it doesn't seem to help that much.

And I am running 10.6 -- runs ok, but doesn't seem to help any.

[heliopsis.livejournal.com]

I'd offer to help, but you've already got lots of good advice. Heck, I'll offer to help anyway. It's always fun installing memory!

[gilana]

Yay! I've ordered the memory; have to look to see where/how you install it on this machine, but if I need help I'll definitely give you a yell.

[shereminisces.livejournal.com]

Have you repaired disk permissions lately?

[gilana]

Yep, that was one of the first things I tried, but thanks!