IBook is operating slower than normal all the time now...why?

Question

My ibook G4 has been a great cpu for over 2 years now, but lately it seems as if it is always opening programs very slowly, and generally taking a long time to do anything. I have done nothing to the laptop lately and it was sort of all of a sudden. I noticed it operating slowly most of the time a month ago, and it just continually seems to do almost every function slowly. My specs are 1.43ghz processor, 512mb of RAM, and a 55.7gb hard drive (with only 27gb's used). I usually shut it down a few times a month and restart it, but that does not seem to help it much or at all. I usually only have a few small programs open at once. I am not the most cpu inclined person, but I do know the basics and more than the average person, but I'm at a loss here. The only thing I can think of is to upgrade to more RAM, but then again, I haven't added any programs (other than the occasional software updates that apple requires for my system) or done anything different lately, so why would my RAM be a factor? I have no idea, and know that this is kind of a broad open ended question, but any help would be better than none at all. Thanks

Answer 1

Hello,
" I then also ran Disk Utility and verified the disk permission and disk. Though when I ran check disk, it came up with the following info included at the bottom of post (this was the ONLY thing that came up bad or in need of repair). But I tried to click the repair disk button, but it won't let me, the repair disk button shows up as sort transparent and will not work. What to do now? "
Are you booting from your restore disk and using the Disk Utility application that disk or the Disk Utility application that resides in your Applications/Utilities folder?
You can Repair Disk Permissions from the Disk Utility app on the drive, you can even Verify whether or not there are errors on the drive such as you are seeing... but you can't fix the hard disk without booting from your restore disk. Here is how to do that.
Shut down your Mac. Now, press the power button, hold down the C key, and press the power button all at the same time, keep holding down the C key until you see the Apple logo. You will see an Installer window at this point, select English. Do not proceed with the Installer window, instead from the Menu Bar, click Utilities/Disk Utility. With DU open, select MacintoshHD 10.x.x in the panel on the left, select the FirstAid button and click Verify. If it still reports that error, click Repair. When DU is finished, from the Menu Bar, click Utilities/Startup Disk. When that window opens, select MacintoshHD 10.x.x and click Restart. That will boot your Mac back up from the hard disk. If you need more help with this, just post back. It's a good idea to boot from your restore disk at least once a month to check for errors on the drive just in case. The error that DU reported is why your Mac was slowing down.
" I really appreciate you taking your time to help newer/intermediate users like myself " You are so welcome. I can't tell you how many people helped me when I first started learning the Mac OS... many many many!
Carolyn