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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Mac OSX Powerbook Spinning Color Wheel
Larry W. Smith, Photographer
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Valley Center | KS | USA | Posted: 10:08 AM on 10.26.04 |
->> I am using a Mac Titanium Powerbook running OS 10.2.8 with a 550 MHz processor, and 512 MB ram. I have three external harddrives hooked up to it, and an external monitor. I know this is a lot, I am starting to get the color spinning wheel all the time now and it won't go away without me doing a manual hard restart. I know I need more Memory but if I am not running but a couple applications I would think this isn't my problem. Any ideas or fixes for this happening?
Larry |
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Byron Hetzler, Photographer
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Granby | CO | USA | Posted: 10:14 AM on 10.26.04 |
->> Larry,
A couple of questions, what are you trying to do when you get the spinning beach ball? And have you tried doing a "repair permissions" in disk utility lately? |
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Larry W. Smith, Photographer
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Valley Center | KS | USA | Posted: 10:32 AM on 10.26.04 |
| ->> Byron I seem to get it anytime I open programs, or click on folders no real one thing it happens doing about anything and everything. I have not used "repair permissions" is that on the CD or is it in the computer? |
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Michael J. Treola, Photographer
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Neptune | NJ | USA | Posted: 10:43 AM on 10.26.04 |
->> Larry,
Besides being really low on ram you are asking to allot from a 500 MHz processor. When my TiBook 500 hit Jaguar it did much of the same you are seeing even with 1 gig of ram and it being properly maintained. Everything became sluggish on the computer and it seemed like over time it just got worse and worse. It was at the point that I was taking down the drive and rebuilding it every 6 months just to get the most efficiency out of it.
What finally happened you ask? A new Powerbook 1.5 GHz was at the door. It's everything by TiBook was but lots faster. It's amazing how much time I wasn't spending on the computer that meant I was concentrating on more of the important stuff in our lives like good photography.
Tree |
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Michael J. Treola, Photographer
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Neptune | NJ | USA | Posted: 10:52 AM on 10.26.04 |
->> Larry,
You repair permission in the disk utility which is in your Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility folder.
Select your main drive from the list at left and click repair permissions. This could take a while it you've never done it. I try to do it once a month, after I install a new piece of software or if "Software Update downloaded a new item from Apple. This is good preventative maintenance to.
This might help you some but OX X is ram and processor intensive. Might be time to upgrade.
Tree |
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Larry W. Smith, Photographer
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Valley Center | KS | USA | Posted: 11:05 AM on 10.26.04 |
->> Thanks Michael I know I need a new computer with a bigger processor just one of those things that cost money. I hope to have a new G5 within the year just hoping to get through until then.
Thanks guys this will help and thanks for taking the time.
Larry |
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Greg Ferguson, Photographer
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Scottsdale | Az | USA | Posted: 2:45 PM on 10.26.04 |
->> 512MB is fine with that system. I have one and typically run Photoshop CS with somewhere between two and five images open, Photo Mechanic, BBEdit or Safari, and maybe Appleworks all at once. It'll be printing orders, and I'll be editing images with no problems. I have two partitions on my internal drive (20GB and 40GB), plus two or three drives mounted from our server (400 GB+).
Consider upgrading to 10.3.5. Make sure all updates have been applied.
How many applications are open at once? You could be running into paging problems. More RAM will help here, but paging could still occur if you habitually manage to load too much/too many apps. (Unix will use all the RAM available and runs faster given more, but there are diminishing returns after a certain point.)
As mentioned, run the disk utility (in your Applications:Utilities folder). Have it check permissions on the startup drive, then let it run against the other drives. Do the first step repeatedly until it doesn't find something to change, then do the same with the second step.
Drop to the command-line using Terminal and run the daily, weekly and monthly scripts to let the OS clean up things.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107388 |
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Larry W. Smith, Photographer
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Valley Center | KS | USA | Posted: 5:13 PM on 10.26.04 |
| ->> Thanks Greg, I followed Michaels Byrons recommondations and it has helped, I'll look over yours as well, and thanks for everyone's help. |
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Andrew Wheeler, Photographer
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Capitola | CA | USA | Posted: 6:02 PM on 10.26.04 |
->> Larry,
You may also want to leave it running over night to allow the built in "chron jobs" (I use that term for anything these days) to do it's magic which OSX is programmed to run during the "early hours".
If you'd rather not do this, then there's a neat little app called MacJanitor that if run in conjunction with the permissions cleaning mentioned above, may help.
Mac Janitor can be found here:
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/5856
Andrew =) |
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Stanley Leary, Photographer
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Roswell | GA | USA | Posted: 7:32 PM on 10.26.04 |
->> Gary Fong told me this and it really helped.
This will improve the speed performance of your MAC. You should do this about once a month.
Two quick tips for Mac OS 10.3.5.
1. For general maintenance...Repair Permissions, run Disk Utilities, Repair Disk Permissions. It should take a few minutes if it's up to date, or it can take a while.
2. For general maintenance and if your HD is not booting...
*restart the mac.
*hold down the Command and "s" keys, wait for white type on black screen.
*at the end of the #prompt, type "sbin/fsck -f" and hit your return button (disregard the quote marks, remember there is a space between k and -).
*wait for about a minute until it stops, look for "OK" or "MODIFIED"
*if Modified, run "sbin/fsck -f" again.
*if it reads "OK", type in "reboot"
the mac should restart and boot up. |
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Michael J. Treola, Photographer
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Neptune | NJ | USA | Posted: 11:48 PM on 10.26.04 |
->> Stanley
What exactly is your second tip doing? As someone who knows nothing about UNIX commands I and I'm sure others here would like to know.
Thanks
Tree |
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Nick Doan, Photographer, Assistant
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Scottsdale | AZ | USA | Posted: 1:11 AM on 10.27.04 |
->> In layman's terms, "fsck" translates to "file systems check" and the "-f" is a switch that says "(-f)ix any problems that might be found, if possible".
(I'm sure the links that Mr. Cox has provided will help anybody who needs to know more...)
Thanks for this information...I'm still a total Mac newbie. (if I could just figure out how to make it work like a PC or a UNIX box...) |
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