Grinding away all too often...

Question

I've been really happy with my MBP's performance since I purchased it around 10 months ago but just recently, and I'm sure it's after the 10.5.3 update, it seems to grind away even doing the smallest of tasks. It's something that I've not heard before and it just seems to happen all the time now.
It's like when you have an old computer and you can hear it grind away at every task you ask it to perform. I really notice it a lot when I'm using Safari but it's also apparent in every thing I do.
I've had a look at the Activity Monitor and there doesn't seem to be anything strange going on there - the kernal_task and WindowServer always seem high up in the list but not using a great deal of CP.
Any help with this would be much appreciated. Is there maybe something I can do to optimise it's performance or any other checks I can try - I'm a little lost as to what to try next. I remember ages ago I used to De Frag my drive - is that something I could try?

Answer 1

I'd get directly in touch with Coriolis, Alan. They are usually very responsive to requests for technical help in that sort of situation. email is [email protected]
What were you running it from? an external HD or a CD. Sometimes, if you have just booted up from an external HD, then spotlight indexing or other such processes can cause problems.
see their FAQ at http://www.coriolis-systems.com/iDefrag-faq.php:
+3. Do you recommend running iDefrag from a bootable CD?+
Yes!
+While you can run iDefrag from a hard disk, customers often find that other software is using the disk they are trying to defragment; since this other software is sometimes not immediately obvious (e.g. Spotlight’s indexer, or your anti-virus program), this can cause considerable confusion.+
+We therefore recommend that you use the CDMaker tool to create a bootable disc and run from there. You can get the CDMaker tool from the Downloads page.+
Cheers
Rod