Computer slower and a few other strange problems since upgrading to SL

Question

Hi all,
About a month ago, I upgraded my mid-2009 MBP to SL. I'm now on 10.6.1. Ever since the upgrade, my computer's been somewhat slower than it was when I ran Leopard (although many people I know say their machines are faster). I did restart several times at one point, and that seemed to speed it up, although it still experiences delays I didn't have before. I've also had a bunch of strange issues:
1) Safari is most noticeably slow, especially when using something like Top Sites on Safari 4. I alleviated this problem somewhat by setting new tabs to open a blank window rather than Top Sites, but even so, Safari is generally slower, gives me 'pinwheels' often, and also is less stable.
2) The other day, I restarted to find that all fonts except system fonts had been mysteriously deactivated. As a designer, I rely heavily on my many fonts, which I manage using Linotype FontExplorer.
3) Today, I opened my computer up after having it sleeping in a backpack, and it had turned off. It was not out of battery; it had just turned off for no apparent reason.
4) Judging by Activity Monitor, RAM is being used somewhat more heavily by the system, contrary to the advertisements of a 'lighter' footprint for SL as compared to Leopard. However, according to Activity Monitor (which I check frequently), the processor does not appear to be getting taxed any more heavily than under Leopard, which makes the sluggishness more inexplicable.
5) Yesterday, I could not get my computer to recognize my Time Machine backup disc. After restarting, it worked, but this is a pain.
I appreciate any advice I can get. Does anyone else have similar problems or solutions? Or is the general consensus that these are SL bugs that Apple will work out by about 10.6.4 or so?
Thanks,
Nathan
Message was edited by: nateeanes

Answer 1

I began this thread awhile ago, but the essence of it is that I had a number of strange problems, although mostly my computer was just slower, when upgrading from Leo to SL.
I've now wiped my HD and re-installed SL. It seems faster, although there are still a few issues:
1) iWork (Pages, Numbers) has very weird coloring. All the text looks light blue and/or cyan, and I can't fix it.
2) Although initially Safari worked great, lately it's been going back to its habits of being slow and showing strange things like chopping up the 'Top Sites' view, i.e. rendering it in an off way.
3) Adobe CS3 will not install properly. I get them loaded up, but when I try to launch a program, I get an error that says "licensing for this product has stopped working". I cannot get to the 'activate' page, even though I uninstalled and deactivated CS3.
In the interest of full disclosure, I did restore my home account after clean installing SL-- maybe I should have brought the files over folder by folder rather than bringing back my whole home folder with its settings? I wonder if I accidentally brought over Adobe's FLEXnet folder too.
Also, does anyone know if Adobe CS3 can cause these problems with Safari and other programs? It just seems that the whole machine was slower after installing CS3, even though I wasn't running the programs.
Any help is appreciated.
Nate