10.4.3 -- Slow PowerBook

Just got a new PowerBook high-rez 15" and it's great! However, I've downloaded the 10.4.3 update and it now boots up really really slow and also takes a long time to shut down. This is frustrating considering the PowerBook was previously really fast to boot up and shut down.
Thanks in advance for any help.

I'm having the same problem and will try it. Also, my wife has a 12" PB and is experiencing the same problem. But, note, that you cannot really run a thorough repair permissions from the disk you are trying to repair. It'd be best to do it while booting from the system disk.

Similar Messages

Another slow Powerbook

Hello all,
I have done searching for tips to see if I can fix the slowness myself but I need some more advice because I've tried all I can think.
I have a 12 inch G4 Powerbook 1.33 processor.
Lately is has been really slow. It has gotten progressively worse overtime. It is now to the point where I really can't use my mac effectively at all. I'm actually posting this from a different computer because the Discussion Board kept timing out. I click on something and it could take a couple minutes to react or may time out all together.
My PB is especially slow with a browser window open and another any other app. I turn off the airport card and close the browser and it suddenly runs faster. I'm using Firefox
Other system details:
I have base RAM installed. I just ordered 1GB to upgrade.
My hard drive is somewhat full but not maxed out.
I run MacJanitor regularly to clean house
I'm running 10.4.8
I've installed no new software
Any suggestions are appreciated.
Thanks for reading my post, I know it is a long one.
Powerbook 12in Mac OS X (10.4) Very slow

Welcome to the Apple discussions.
First, running OS X Tiger on 256mb is a prescription for slowness. The additional 1GB memory should make a difference and be noticeable.
You probably know you should keep 10% of your hard drive free for system usage.
MacJanitor is fine to keep your system logs trimmed. However, there is other disk housekeeping that can be done. I periodically use OnyX for disk cleaning and maintenance functions. You can also use it to check your preference files to ensure none are corrupt. OnyX can be found at http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs/english.html
Some have found that backing their system up to an external hard drive, then erasing their internal drive and loading the external drive back to the hard drive can speed things up.

Extremely SLOW Powerbook G4

Hi,
I have a 15" Powerbook G4 1.67 with 1.5gb of ram which is about 2 years old. Its been great but I've formatted it about 3 times since buying it for various reasons. Lately I noticed it was getting very slow boot times and certain apps like firefox etc were taking forever to load. After a while i formated it again to get a clean slate. All good so far until a week ago, one day, it took ages to boot after i shut it down. I only had cs2 installed and about 5gb of music (very empty in comparison to my usual load). It started taking so long that i had to force shut it down even before the login screen ever appeared. Once i finally managed to load it up i decided, to format once again to clear whatever it was that was making it so sluggish having already tired pram reset, disk utility permission repairing, disk repairing. While i was installing it restarted as usual only it wasnt getting past the grey screen with apple logo...force shut down (i had to!) a couple of times later still not working...when i timed it, it was over an hour still on that grey screen. It still hadn't finished installing the second disk! Finally managed to get it running and finally get my os to work...SLOWLY!
I really don't know what's wrong. I'm beginning to feel that it's the beginnings of my hard drive failing with the use and old age (and i know that doing all these things to it puts extra strain to it but still!!). I use a work computer most of the time so this one has been limited to after work hours and weekends for a while...so it doesn't seem to justify this behaviour...
I'm running out of ideas to cure this ailment of mine... anyone have similar problems or can think of a solution? I have everythign backed up so its not so urgent/important/life or death in that aspect but i just really want it run smoothly again...
Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions!
*my drive is a toshiba one by the way...saw some post regarding these hard drives once...

Cloning goes hand-in-hand with backing up:
Thanks to that Tuttle guy for:
Start by formatting your external drive. Select the drive in Disk Utility (the uppermost icon related to the drive), then click the Erase button in the upper middle of the DU window. In the new pane, next to Volume Format, choose to format the drive as Mac OS Extended. You don't need to choose the option to journal the volume at this time.
When creating an initial clone, it's always safe practice to write zeros to the target drive. Click on the Security Options button, choose to write zeros to the drive and click Okay. Then click Erase. Writing zeros may take a couple of hours to do on a 300GB drive, but you just need to do it this once. Afterward, just clicking the Erase button will be sufficient unless bad blocks or similar problems develop in the future. Give the new volume a name that is distinct from the name of your PB's volume (i.e. not Macintosh HD1).
Once the drive is erased and formatted, repair permissions on the source drive, launch SuperDuper! or CCC, set the Source and Target volumes and clone.
One note: In CCC, make sure that the only option you select in CCC's preferences is "Make Bootable." If you use SuperDuper!, you don't have to worry about that (though it will ask you if you are sure that you want to erase the target volume. Choose Yes.)
When the clone is finished, select the new volume in System Preferences > Startup Disk and click Restart. When you've booted into the clone, immediately open System Preferences > Desktop & Screensaver and change the desktop picture so you know which volume you're booted from just by looking. Next, open Disk Utility and repair permissions on the cloned volume. After this, you can click on the Enable Journaling button in the Disk Utility toolbar at the top of the window.
After this, shut down your computer. After two minutes, start up your computer, pressing the Option key immediately after the startup chime. This will take you to the Startup Manager screen where you will choose the cloned volume to start from in order to test whether or not it is truly bootable. If it boots fine, go through it and test some apps to see if everything is in order. If all is well, choose the PB's drive in System Preferences > Startup Disk and restart. When you restart, remember to reselect the PB as the startup volume in System Pref's > Startup Disk as well.
Joe

Slow Powerbook - should I wipe and reinstall?

My Powerbook G4 aluminium (1Gb) is exactly one year old. It's now become quite slow, annoying me. I can only think/hope that it's due to sheer weight of software running, disk space used etc.
As a general rule, will wiping the drive clean and performing a factory OS reinstall, as per Apple setup disc, result in quicker performance, maybe back to original factory settings (before I start adding software again)?
What are the factors here?
I really want my Mac to perform like it used to. So is this a good option for me?
I'd need to buy a backup drive to perform the operation and would need further advice on what kind of backup to make (ie. wipe the drive and start over, or only reinstall the OS, how to retain things like iTunes/iPhoto library).
Many thanks for your advice.

if your problem is software related, then yes, a reinstall would make the machine run properly again if you do a complete reinstall. have you done any disk maitenance http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214 or created a test user to see if your problems are user specific?? the problem might be easily remedied without a reinstall. if you do a clean install of the operating system and there are still problems with the computer, and you haven't reintroduced any third party software, then you have a hardware problem. if you have a backup of info, it's a good way to determine if something is hardware or software related.

Help: A very slow Powerbook

All of a sudden my PowerBook G4 has become very slow. I get lots of beachballs while it is thinking what to do. It takes 5 minutes to restart and sometimes 5-10 seconds just to open a folder (with a beachball while I wait). All apps are running slow. I have a 60 GB Hard drive with 6.5 GB free space. I just run repair permissions (nothing needed to be repaired) and I veriified the drive with HD utility and it said it is OK. Here is the info on my system: Machine Name:PowerBook G4 12"Machine Model:PowerBook6,4 CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (1.1) Number Of CPUs:1 CPU Speed:1.33 GHz L2 Cache (per CPU):512 KB Memory:768 MB Bus Speed:167 MHz
Message was edited by: Esteban Celis1

I am getting ready to through this computer out the window. I cleaned my drive, I ran Onyx, Clean Sweep, Apple Hardware Test (how good is this, anyway? it said the memory and the drive were fine), Disk Utility repair permissions, repair disk and everybody said the computer is fine, but remained slow, slow, slow. I ordered DiskWarrior update about 1 week ago, but it has not even shipped out. I reinstalled (with achieve) my OSX 10.4 (did not bother to update to 10.4.10). It takes the computer 5 minutes to startup (time to get me to login window) and another 5 minutes to load my desktop (I only have the drive image and 3 files there). Takes 3 minutes to shutdown. Just trying to open a folder gives me a beachball and 5-10 seconds to open. Beachballs, beachballs, beachballs all the time. I guess my last resort is to completely reformat my disk. Does anybody have any final suggestions, before this goes out to the dump?

MacBook wireless slow; PowerBook not...

My wife's MacBook is having some weird wireless slowdown issues that I can't isolate. Her MB sits on a desk next to my PowerBook (G4 1Ghz 17inch). We're both connected to the AirPort Extreme (Base Station with no modem - model M8930LL - which is connected to the cable modem) and have the same signal strength. However, my PB loads webpages as fast as it ever has but her MB loads pages incredibly slowly. We're both running 10.4.10 with all the latest relevant patches.
Anyone got any ideas?

The problem is with the 10.4.10 update - look around the forum here.
I have sitting on my desk in front of me two Macbooks.. Both have 2 gigs of RAM, and both are connected to the same linksys access point. The only difference is that the black Macbook is running 10.4.10 and the white one is running 10.4.9.
Pinging the same machine on the local network, the black Macbook is getting ping rates as slow as 1500-2000ms where the white one is getting 1-2ms.
Something is definitely wrong here.

Slow PowerBooks with 10.4.2

we have two power Books one 17" and one 15" both with 1 gig of RAM. The 17" has the 7200 drive and special graphic card. The problem is that they are both slower than Christmas with 10.4.2 and all the other updates. We have used and taken care of Macs for about 10 years now with great results till now. As an idea our old Mac-8600 with a g3 chip now runs faster on OS 9.2.2 than our newer PowerBooks. ( No joke we actually timed Photoshop filters on the same files). I have tried all the utilities (tech Tool 4.0.4 and Disk Warrior 3.0.3 along with cocktail and a mess of others) all for OS 10.4. We have big graphics files but that said they never took this long to open or save. Both computers also have developed the naughty habit of going off into spins when the timer disk just spins and spins for no reason at all. Tried reinstalling, wiping the disks and new installing but no luck. I always reset permissions after installing any new software and have reset the NVRAM and PRAM till I'm blue from holding down the keys. Hay, Macs are great tools but these are failing us big time any ideas will be very welcome.

Well nothing seems to be giving a lasting answer but thanks to many hours reading the threads here and to the great little software mentioned above there does seem to be light at the end of the tunnel. first, I am limiting all the hard disks to no more than 55% capacity being used at any time by using external HD's for storage and the main Disks only for active files and programs. 2ndly I have reformatted the disks with two partitions one the main and a small one of only 5 gb that holds another system and all utilities such as Disk Warrior, TechTool Pro, Mac-Janitor, Onyx, and a lot of smaller ones. That way I can easily restart in the maintenance Disk ( I call it Crash Truck) and run all utilities from there. So far this system seems to be giving some satisfaction and a bit more speed. Any other ideas would be appreciated.

Super slow PowerBook G4

Hi, so I have a PowerBook G4 that I got from my brother and it's slower then a snail no exaggeration. I have been trying to load iTunes for the past twenty minutes so I can update iTunes and download the photos off of my phone to my computer. It's a pretty old computer and I honestly know nothing about it really. All I know is its battery is completely dead and has to be plugged into the wall if I want it to work. Can anyone give me any tips please??

The advice Allen suggested for an upgrade of the hardware (RAM and replacement battery) in the device is the best route; since another layer of applications that run randomly in the background of an otherwise limited hardware machine can't do it any good. And cleanmymac, mackeeper, etc have successfully been proven to be worse than worthless to any version of Mac OS X no matter the vintage.
Your expectation of the vintage PowerPC G4 architecture is well beyond its ability.
If you get and use programs that hamper the efficiency of the OS X and how it works, then it would be even slower; and the best action would be to add correct quality RAM from a reputable vendor who has experience testing and will guaranty the products they sell will work in your computer. And try to get a replacement new battery so the CPU won't default to a lower processor speed.
https://www.google.com/#q=Mac+OS+X+10.5+PPC+runs+slow
Read up on the correct care of the Mac OS X and keep in mind the current support for secondary product lines such as iPhone, iPad, iPod, and others will not happen with a vintage or obsolete product. Look for a later Intel-based MacBook (a MB/Pro or Air, if new) since they were built to run OS X after Leopard 10.5.8. To use a modern iPhone or iPad, or access the App Store, you'd need at least Snow Leopard 10.6.8. Not a vintage PowerPC G4 notebook. If you had the OS X install DVD for 10.5, and other application install discs, then maybe a fresh total re-install may be helpful. But be sure you can actually go forward with it. (Ideally, you may need to make it run as good as it can, then buy a last model basic MacBook (2006-2010 vintage, see mid-2010 for recent OS X compatibility.)
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/index-powerbook-g4.html
To clean up a computer, look to the myths, legends, and methods of maintaining the system(s) involved. An active participant usually researches the interrelationship between cause and effect. The user slows down the computer from its original state; it may have seemed fast in its day, and likely was, to a degree.
http://www.thesafemac.com/tech-guides/
I'm sure some of us who've been using computers for more than 20 years, do some reading and have repaired a few dozen computers, and have a life outside of trolling the forums, have some ideas.
PS: there is no upgrade for iTunes in the PowerPC Mac or for Leopard 10.5.8.
Good luck & happy computing!

Slow Powerbook - failing hard drive, or worse?

Hi folks,
I've been scouring the net for solutions to this for the past couple of days now, and now I'm fed up enough to ask for help if anyone could care to offer it.
I've had my PB G4 (running 10.3.9) for two wonderful and (up until this week) problem-free years - not a single hiccup or crash since taking it out of the box!
About five days ago, it gradually started to slow down out of the blue. At first I thought it was something hogging CPU cycles, but looking through Activity Monitor didn't show anything out of the ordinary. As the days passed, I noticed that it has been starting up slower and slower, and even lags considerably when running the most pedestrian of tasks. On some occasions, it will appear fine for about an hour or two; sometimes, the whole thing will lock up or I will get the "pinwheel" cursor for so long that the whole OS becomes unusable.
My search for answers seem to indicate that my hard drive is failing; a subsequent run of Disk Utility hasn't shown anything out of the ordinary, but I went ahead and (slowly) repaired permissions, cleaned out logs/caches myself, ran OnyX, etc, but none of these seem to have done any good. (I've also tried resetting the PMU, but to similar results)
It doesn't seem to be rooted with anything in terms of RAM installation issues (it's stayed at the built-in 256mb this whole time), but I wouldn't rule that out, either.
Two peculiar details that I should probably mention: I inadvertently discovered that, occasionally, tilting the computer back for a moment will speed things up just a bit. This is where I'm beginning to think that there is a physical problem with the drive itself. (As a footnote to this, the computer has never been dropped and stays on a desk all day)
Secondly, I've started to hear a very faint beep or two come from the machine. It doesn't seem to be coming from the speakers; I've experimented with it to see if it's something I'm doing that's causing it, but I haven't been able to pin it down.
So, to cut this short, fearing the worst, I've gone ahead and backed up all of my data onto an external drive. I'm considering doing a clean re-installation of Panther to see what that does, but any information or suggestions beyond this that someone could offer me would be greatly appreciated.
Powerbook G4 (12 inch) Mac OS X (10.3.9)
Powerbook G4 (12 inch) Mac OS X (10.3.9)

fukei:
Welcome to Apple Discussions.
Your computer may or may not have HDD problems. Indeed there could a number of things causing the symptoms you (your PBook) is/are experiencing.
You have made a good start backing up your data. I am not sure how or what you did, but one of the best ways is to clone the entire volume to an external Firewire HDD using a utility like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper. Be sure you make a bootable clone so that it can be used as an emergency boot drive, or to run tests on your computer without having to boot from disks.
Next, OS X maintenance. I don't know what kind of regular maintenance you do, but if you have not been doing Unix maintenance (CRON cleaning) that could be partly what is slowing you up. Gulliver's ariticle Mac OS X System Maintenance has excellent tips of the kind of maintenace that will help your mac. He also has links to resources, most of them free, that can make a difference for you. In addition you should check out Dr. Smoke's FAQ Tuning Mac OS X Performance for helpful hints on tuning up your mac.
O, yes, your HDD. Boot from your install disk and launch Disk Utility as when you run Repair Disk. With your HDD (manufacturer's ID) selected in the left panel look down at the bottom right at the S.M.A.R.T Status. If it says Verified your HDD is ok for now. If it says Failing update your backup and start searching for a replacement HDD. Be sure to buy the largest capacity one you can afford, as these things have a way of filling up.
Re-install? That is always an option, but should be considered an avenue of last resort. Try the other things first and see how it goes. And do post back and let me know how it's going, and especially if you have further questions, comments or concerns.
Good luck.
cornelius
Message was edited by: cornelius

Tiger and Titanium

I have a 550MHz TiBook that I recently upgraded to 768MB RAM. It has a 20GB HD. I've run Tiger on my desktop (G5) since it came out, but have always been a bit nervous about installing it on the TiBook.
Anyone had any good (or bad) experiences running Tiger on a TiBook of this spec?

I run Tiger on a slower powerbook and it runs great. Tibook 400 with 768 mb ram. You'll definitely see a difference between your powerbook and the G5. The G5 gets to take advantage of Quartz Extreme and Core image capabilities. But either way, Tiger is a very useable OS on the tibook.

Plugins in intel macs

anyone know, when fc for intel macs comes, will plugins for the old fc still work?

One of the stated reasons (and I buy most of it) is that IBM has not been able to provide a PPC version of the G5 chip for powerbooks. The Mac portable market is very large and the inability to keep pace with the wintel portables is a serious issue. Note that the MacBook Pro had the biggest splash at MacWorld.
In todays market, that a slow powerbook will burn the legs of the user from the heat and the battery still die after only an hour of use is just not acceptable. The move to the Intel chip for the Powerbook crowd just makes sense.

Flash Player OS X 10.5

Ok, so I get my son a PowerBook G4 for his birthday, upgrade software, the thing runs very well and quite quick. EXCEPT...
He loves to watch "Lost" with me in the evenings on ABC website (uses flash). Typically we will either use the "family" eMac (1.25ghz, 1gb ram) or my "work" laptop Lenovo (Intel Pentium something processor and 2gb ram). Both the eMac and Lenovo will play the flash movies perfectly. His PowerBook is all jerky. Not sure what the problem is. He is running Flash Player 10 (most up to date version), Firefox 3.5.3 (most up to date version), and OS 10.5.8 (most up to date version supporting his machine)...
I did notice that the family eMac is running OS 10.5.8 and Flash Player 9... Is that it? Should I revert to FP9???

Comments from a fellow Maccer (and Mac consultant) who’s wandering through the forum.
You may want to have a closer look at the System Requirements, which for the Mac appear to be identical for both Flash 9 and Flash 10:
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/productinfo/systemreqs/flashplayer9/
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/systemreqs/
It is true that the minimum is listed as “PowerPC® G3 500MHz or faster processor”, yet reading further down we see that the recommended minimum hardware for video is “PowerPC G5 1.8GHz or faster processor” for “an optimal playback experience”. I missed this the first one or two times i looked at the system requirements.
Now, the fastest Mac in our house is the last 15" PowerBook G4, 1.67 GHz. We’re using that to run Comedy Central videos via Flash, at something like 1024 x 768 or 1280 x 1024 (i’ve forgotten which; that Mac is not available as i type). It is running OS 10.4.11 with the current updates, and Safari 4.0.3. We’ve been having consistent crashing issues, which i have been troubleshooting. After watching 2+ Daily Show and/or Colbert Report full videos in sequence, Safari crashes consistently. The log shows a Flash security privilege issue being the problem (also not something i can easily post now, or i would gladly do so).
When the videos run, they run decently, though they tend to freeze up (both sound and video together) within the first minute or so of a new show video block (following a commercial block… there is switching between different video files, with each show segment seemingly a separate file). That’s been going on for many months now, related to a change Comedy Central made.
In the process of troubleshooting the crash, i installed a squeaky clean OS 10.4.11 with current updates, and fresh new Flash 9.0r246 for PPC (the drag-install, not one of the installers… this is to troubleshoot a client’s issue of no Flash at all, which is why i’m on the forum today). I started with the last Safari 3: crash. Went to Safari 4.0.3: crash. Went to the new Safari 4.0.4: No Crash. So, that problem seems taken care of. I also tested the latest Camino and iCab, neither of which crashed where Safari did. The point of all this is that all these browsers exhibit the same freeze up, to the same degree, indicating it is not a browser issue. We have a reasonably high-speed Internet connection (i don’t recall what it is… they’ve bumped it up a couple of times… at least 1.5 Mbps and probably more like double that). We used to use Wi-Fi (AirPort, “G” speed) and are more recently using a hardwired 100 Mbps Ethernet connection: no change in the freeze up between these, though the segment switches happen a whole lot faster with the hardwired line, and Flash or whatever is in control switches the feed to higher audio quality more often.
The points of all this for this thread:
* I tested the last Flash Player 9 and the current Flash Player 10 with this clean OS and all these different browsers, and find the performance about the same, other than there were a lot more bugs with Player 9. I don’t see any reason to downgrade to 9 (nothing was faster/better), and you may want to take that eMac up to Player 10.
* The new-to-your-son PowerBook G4 may not be able to run Flash videos decently. If it is an AlBook of 1.5 GHz or faster, there is hope, if you have maxxed out the RAM, have sufficient free hard drive space, and the usual good system optimization stuff in place. If it is an older, slower PowerBook, especially getting back to something like the TiBooks, that’s probably not enough hardware horsepower for the demands of Flash video.
My data points for the latter:
* This 450 MHz G4 AGP desktop upon which i am typing this. Same OS and browser. So far, the same Flash 9 (9.0r246). Flash videos are unwatchable: video cannot possibly keep up with the audio… not even close. This machine has its stock video card; i plan to someday find out what happens when a high-end video card is used, when one next passes my way. I also hope to see if the dual processor version of this same Mac model is any better.
* A good friend’s TiBook 667 MHz. He can watch some Flash videos, yet not others. I don’t know which Flash Player is on his system.
Both these systems play many other video formats just fine. Flash videos (and games) seem to eat resources to beat the band. I’ll assume Adobe is doing what they can in this regard. Certainly, some of the issues seem to be site implementations, beyond what Adobe can do much/anything about.
Best Flash Wishes,
))Sonic((

DISK TOO SLOW on a POWERBOOK G4!

Hi can someone pleeeeaasse help me quick!!! I have just spend loadsa dosh buying a midi keyboard, mic and a fast track audio device for my powerbook! I have 34gb free on the hard drive, 256mb of memory, and a 1.33ghz powerPC G4 processor. The operating system is mac OS X 10.3.9! However, when i try to record guitar (and this is the first track in so who knows when i'm on the 10th what would happen) it just says 'disk too slow' about a minute to a minute and a half into the recording! I've read the solutions saying buying a external hard-drive is the way to go - but i can't afford to buy one if it won't help. Basically I want to be able to record quite a few tracks comfortably can you tell me what i need to buy (ie firewire harddrive) or what i need to do (ie install garage bands 2) to increase my performance and stop these problems.Thanks!!!!

You should not be seeing "Too Slow" errors with a single track, even my stock 800Mc iBook with only 256MB of RAM could record 8-9 tracks on the internal drive.
You're going to need to see what else might be causing that.
Other Apps running? Checked Activity Monitor to see if anything is hogging resources?
Have you tried logging out and back in, launching only GB? Logged in as another user?
--HangTime [Will COmpute for Food] %-|>

Powerbook painfully slow performance

Recently my powerbook has been running unusably slow. Here's a timeline:
- Noticed slow opening of applications, saving, switching from application to application, browsing folders through finder.
- Computer kept freezing after 1-10 minutes of use.
- Checked RAM in system profiler - 1GB RAM showing 512 MB.
- Removed RAM and restarted (new RAM being sent to me at present).
- Freezing problem stopped. Slow performance improved for 2-5 minutes after startup but after 10 minutes, back to same old slow usage.
- Checked hard drive, repaired permissions, did macjanitor cleanup.
- Hardware check from startup DVD showed no problems. SMART check OK'd hard drive.
- Archive and re-install tiger and updated to 10.4.9.
- Activity monitor shows %CPU usage as fairly normal. Kernel_task is using about 720MB of virtual memory under very light/no user usage.
- Created a new user and performance normal in new user, leading me to believe that the problem is related to user library and possibly preferences.
- Put preferences folder on desktop and started putting my preferences back into user library folder bit by bit, restarting and testing. The performance would be better each time but hard to test as I have to wait at least 10 mins to test each time - time consuming business.
Is there any way to narrow down which preference file is causing the problem without painstakingly re-adding preference files one by one to the user library folder, waiting 10 mins and testing?
Otherwise, could the diagnosis above be due to something else all together. Been through the discussions and can't get anything to work so far. The RAM was the cause of the freezing problem, but seems to have brought on the slowness problem.
Any help would be much appreciated, thanks Graeme.

Graeme:
If you have not done so recently run Unix Maintenance (CRON cleaning). Download and install MacJanitor and run all tests.
Dr. Smoke's FAQ Tuning Mac OS X Performance has some hints you may find helpful.
Regualar maintenance also helps performance. Take a look at the following articles:
Mac OS X 10.3/10.4: System maintenance
Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
Maintaining OS X
Good luck.
cornelius

Powerbook making clicking sound and running slow

I have had my powerbook for 3 years. Just recently it started running very slow and spinning beach ball comes up alot. There is a clicking sound coming from the top left corner of the keyboard by the speaker. When the clicking starts is when the beach ball comes up. It doesn't happen all the time. This occurs about every couple of minutes and then goes away. Once the clicking noise goes away the computer runs fine. I have ran disk utility, onyx and techtools (no errors have come up). Nothing has seemed to fix the problem. Can anyone give me some advice on what might be the problem. Thanks for your help.

Welcome to the Apple discussions.
That sounds like a hard drive possibly beginning to fail. However, it's located on the left side under the palm rest. In the upper left corner of the keyboard, the only moving part is a fan, however, if that were doing something odd it shouldn't cause the beachball to come up, which leads me to think it's a hard drive issue. Next time you hear the ticking, see if it could be coming from under the left palm rest area.
So, ensure that your important data is backed up, and do it regularly, if not doing that already. Assuming it is your hard drive, you can either live with it, or replace the hard drive. (Don't know if you have Applecare, since you said your system is 3 years old). You may have a 4200rpm drive in there today, with 5400rpm being mainstream today, and 7200rpm the faster option. Sizes go up to 160GB in 5400rpm and 100GB in 7200rpm. Seagates come with a 5 year warranty versus 3 year for most other drives.
If you're handy, you can do the replacment yourself or an Apple Authorized Service Provider or Apple can do it. If Apple or AASP does the replacement, make sure they write on the service order that you want your old hard drive returned to you. Recently, there was a person who was surprised to find that Apple may retain the drive as a trade in on the replacement drive. Also, if it were me, I would specify I want a new drive and not a refurbished drive.

10.4.3 -- Slow PowerBook

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