My Apps wont open, and the computer (Powerbook G4) starts super slowly.

Question

Every time I boot up, my Powerbook boots very slowly, sometime taking up to five minutes. In addition to that, I can't open any apps, except for Finder, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and the basic functional things like settings. By they won't open, I mean the icons will bounce for a while, then a box pops up that says, for example;
The application Microsoft Office Setup Assistant Quit unexpectedly.
Mac OS X and other applications are not affected.
Click Relaunch to launch the applicationagain. Click Report to see more details, or send a report to Apple.
I really need to be able to use Microsoft word and stuff for school, and I can't afford a new computer. I'm running OS X 10.5.8
I've browsed several sites, and I tried all of the following things:
Restarting in SafeBoot mode,
Making a new admin account to see if it launched quicker/ let me open apps (It didnt),
Pressing Control + Option + P + R (it worked once, but it hasnt worked since)
Used OnyX, (which now won't open either)
I checked to see what login items I had, and there weren't any.
Please help!
Thanks,
Avery
Also, I don't have any disks for this computer on hand, as it used to be a family friends. /:
Message was edited by: Avery.Apple.Green

Answer 1

Hello Avery,
I received an email notification about this topic even though I have this forum set to not send them so I think perhaps you sent it to me deliberately hoping I might have some ideas?
First of all I think we should concentrate on your not being able run your essential apps and the crashes.  The disk repaired buttons being greyed out is usually because the account trying to do it doesn't have admin privileges.  It's a good idea to create a spare account that has admin privileges incase anything should ever go wrong with your default account.  From your post I think you know how to create a spare account via System Prefs.
I'm not sure whether we can fix the problem but we can try to identify it at least.  If you have any irreplacable data on your PowerBook I think you should back it up as a priority and if you don't have a backup drive or can't afford one at the moment then beg or borrow one.
I don't want to alarm you but if it turns out that your PowerBook is finally giving up the ghost your precious data will have at least have been backed up and ready to restore to a replacement machine.  Not long ago and in good condition a 12" aluminium PB G4, which I believe was 1.33GHz, sold on eBay for £45 ($72).  Early white MacBooks still pop up too and are inexpensive and faster and more RAM than PB G4 so all is not lost.  If we end up having to go down that route it might come in useful to make a note of this link:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/index-powerbook-g4.html
Paste it into Stickies or Text Edit as they don't require a lot of system resourses so should be stable when launched.  If it turns out you need to replace any components the site will have links to suppliers.  Using that link you'll also be able to check the detailed specs of any second-hand Mac being sold on eBay before purchasing.
It would be useful to know exactly which PowerBook you have and how much RAM is installed. Click the Apple logo top right of screen\About this Mac\More info.
My first inclination is that it sounds like a possible RAM problem, either faulty or not enough.  You have 10.5.8 installed which might be the most recent OSX that you can upgrade to which we won't know until you let me know the exact model.  That the case was with my PB G4 874GHz on which I had 1Gb of RAM installed (512MB is the official maximum but 1Gb worked fine and has been stable).  I should say at this point that with 1Gb of RAM it was quite spritely running OSX10.4s but started to struggle when I upgraded to 10.5s.  Did you upgrade only to 10.5 only recently I wonder?
Let's try this: go to Applications\Utilities\Activity Monitor\Memory and launch a couple of an app and see how if Activity Monitor is spiking.  Start with light app like Stickies.  While still monitoring open and use another app, perhaps text edit.  Keep them open and playback soundfile perhaps, through a little player rather than iTunes if possible.  Is it overloading?  Once you've checked the memory do the same for the processor and the harddrive.
I've enabled this thread to receive emails so take some notes, set to with the various things I suggested if you think they might help, and get back to me when you have something.  I'm working this afternoon (it's 09.58 here in the UK) but will be around this morning, later this evening and for some of Saturday.  I may of course have already given it my best shot but I'm happy to help if I can.  If we don't make any progress it might be worth compiling your posts from this forum and posting in the MacBook Pro forum as there are plenty of experts in there that might be able to help more than I can.
Good luck,
K