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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Speed up my PowerBook G4 ?
David Griffin, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Concord | NC | USA | Posted: 4:20 PM on 08.17.06 |
->> Is there one particular piece of software or command that I can run to basically pick back up the speed of my MAC laptop that it has 'lost' over the first 18 months of its life?
I clear the cache and repair the permissions once a week. It just does not have that speed like when it was new. Or could it be my impatience? |
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Ron Scheffler, Photographer
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Hamilton (Toronto area) | Ontario | Canada | Posted: 6:43 PM on 08.17.06 |
->> Maybe you've just gotten used to how "fast" it is, which now seems slow?
Anyway, how full is the hard drive and do you ever run a disk repair utility such as Disk Warrior? Where do you notice the slow down the most?
It may be worth partioning the drive to separate the OS from your photo files (will mean a clean wipe and reinstallation of the OS, but it's not as bad as it sounds if you have a spare external drive to clone the OS onto). Meaning, the OS resides on one partition with all its associated small files while your daily photo work is on a separate partition. This may speed up access to files and also makes it easier to clone/back-up the OS critical files (you do keep a cloned back up, don't you?) You could even go so far as to use a dedicated external FW drive as a scratch disk (which will help with Photoshop, Photo Mechanic, etc.) but I'm not sure how much speed it will offer.
Other options are to max out the RAM if you haven't already, upgrade the hard drive to 5400 rpm (if it isn't already - I think 5400 has been standard in the Powerbooks for some time) or 7200 rpm.... or get a MacBook Pro ;-) though the last option won't necessarily be faster with the current version of Photoshop. |
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Ron Scheffler, Photographer
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Hamilton (Toronto area) | Ontario | Canada | Posted: 6:46 PM on 08.17.06 |
->> Oh, I forgot to mention.
Look in the Energy Saver settings found under System Preferences. Click on Options and check the setting for Processor Performance (assuming that's available on the PB). Make sure it hasn't been inadvertently set to Reduced. |
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Matt Barton, Photographer
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Lexington | KY | USA | Posted: 10:00 PM on 08.17.06 |
->> You might consider upgrading the hard drive. Once the drive gets over 60% full, it really slows down. Also, the PBs shipped with 5400rpm drives. So if you're handy, you could put in a 7200rpm 100gb drive for just under $200. And consider maxing the ram of course. Should pep things back up,
Check out Other World Computing for all your mac upgrade needs...
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/2.5-Notebook/ |
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Matt Barton, Photographer
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Lexington | KY | USA | Posted: 10:14 PM on 08.17.06 |
| ->> Or you could just do what Ron said. Minus the partioning part. (Sorry Ron, skipped right over that third paragraph before I posted) |
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Howard Curtis Smith, Photographer
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Easton | PA | USA | Posted: 3:32 PM on 08.19.06 |
->> I would recommend setting your energy savings settings to better performance,
maxing out your RAM will help as both PhotoShop and Photo Mechanic use a lot of RAM,
and, if you feel daring, upgrading your hard drive to a 7200RPM unit. You can do this yourself with very little trouble. iFixIt http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/ has easy to use tutorials on the swap. Get a case for the old drive and use it as a bootable back up. If you use SuperDuper as your backup utility, and then clone back, it will defragment your hard drive, providing another small speed boost. If your stock HD is a 4200RPM unit, you will see a 75%+ improvement in disk intensive tasks.
Run activity monitor and see what programs are hogging your resources. With many web pages being very graphics intense, your web browser may be a major culprit. If you use Photo Mechanic to ftp upload, leaving the little window open after an upload is complete will take up about 3% of your cpu. |
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Jack Kurtz, Photographer
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Phoenix | AZ | United States | Posted: 4:40 PM on 08.19.06 |
->> Which Powerbook do you have? There are processor upgrades available for some of the Aluminum Powerbooks. Here's a link to their web site:
http://www.xlr8.com/Apple_Mac_Products/XLR8_Macintosh_Products/Mac_CPU_G4_U...
None of the processor upgrades are cheap though. Best thing is try the suggestions mentioned earlier and see what that does for you.
jack |
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David Kadlubowski, Photographer
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Phoenix | AZ | USA | Posted: 5:13 PM on 08.19.06 |
->> Another thing that hogs disk space is the additional languages that come with programs especially if you have upgraded to iLife 06. You can manually delete the Japanese, Korean etc. fonts.
Dave |
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Michael Jordan, Photographer
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Howard Curtis Smith, Photographer
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Easton | PA | USA | Posted: 7:24 PM on 08.19.06 |
| ->> I have gotten an upgraded CPU from XLR8 (1.25 to 1.92), and while I am pretty happy with it, I do not recommend it because my computer runs a lot hotter now, sometimes topping out at over 160 degrees when energy savings are not set to reduced processor performance. The computer now generates more heat than the cooling system can handle. I do not know exactly what temperatures Apple computers are designed to tolerate, but from what I have read about other systems, 160 degrees is about the upper limit. |
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Chuck Yadmark, Photographer
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Ann Arbor | MI | United States | Posted: 6:04 PM on 09.01.06 |
| ->> Drag the computer into the trash.. Then go to the honchos at S&S and demand a new MacBook Pro. Tell em to take it out of the freelancers budget |
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Wayne McAtee, Photographer, Assistant
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Hesperia | CA | usa | Posted: 8:50 PM on 09.01.06 |
| ->> or just get a pc. LOL Back off mac boy....put down the keyboard and nobody gets hurt... :) |
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Greg Ferguson, Photographer
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Scottsdale | Az | USA | Posted: 3:23 AM on 09.02.06 |
->> Because Mac OS is a Unix-based OS now, it's important to keep the RAM available - besides maxing out the RAM, some things to do are:
1. Quit out of programs you're not actively using, don't just close the windows. They still affect system response even though Unix is pre-emptively multitasking them all (sharing CPU time (fairly) equally) because they're getting some CPU time that could be dedicated to your foreground (and its background) tasks.
2. Unload those pesky Dashboard gizmos! Because they're out of sight they're out of mind, but they're still affecting the performance and system resources. The System Monitor is your friend here - it'll show you what's lurking around sucking up those cycles.
3. Make sure your system housekeeping jobs are doing their ... uh ... job. There are three tasks that should run automatically on a Unix system, called "daily", "weekly" and "monthly". And, oddly enough, they're supposed to run automatically on daily, weekly and monthly schedules, and, even more oddly enough, they don't usually on PowerBooks, because usually our machines are asleep when the tasks are supposed to run. Daily runs quickly because it just rotates some logs and gathers some stats basically. Weekly takes a lot longer because it rebuilds the "locate" database, which is used by Sherlock to help search the disk. Monthly runs in an in-between time.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107388
I'd hesitate to do any CPU speed-up tricks on a PowerBook. The tolerances are very tight, and airflow is very limited, and faster CPUs generate more heat, so you'd run more risk of having the CPU shut down due to heat. And, when they do that they give no warning - they just quit until they've cooled off, so your machine becomes a toaster or a brick until it chooses to come alive again. It's not as critical on a desktop machine because they're designed to handle extra cards and the associated power demands and resulting heat output.
I'm also very aware of how machines slow down over time. Usually it's because we've become used to their speed - they're never going to be fast enough until they can out sense and out think us and anticipate our wishes, which is also about the point I'll probably declare mine possessed and go after it with a bat. |
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Neal Vaughan, Photographer
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St. Joseph | MI | usa | Posted: 10:00 AM on 09.04.06 |
->> First, upgrade the system HD to a 7200RPM drive. I've just ordered one for my Dell D600 (1.6 Pentium M) that is getting slugglish.
Second, upgrade that RAM! 1GB+ is really a neccessity, preferabbly 1.5-2GB.
If your laptop can handle it, adding a second hard drive for use as a photoshop scratch disk / paging file is also helpful. |
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Andrew Villa, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Dublin | CA | United States | Posted: 12:49 AM on 09.08.06 |
| ->> I have a powerbook 1.5 G4 12" it looks like OWC(other world computing) has some 1gb ram sticks for a pretty good price. Anyone have any experience with these, also since they are 1gb sticks can my computer handle these? |
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