Powerbook G4 17 1.67 2GB ram leopard... huge performance and latency issues

Hardware:
17" Powerbook G4 1.67GHz with 2GB ram
System:
10.5.4 Leopard
*Ever since i upgraded to Leopard, i have noticed tremendous latency / pinwheel issues in many areas such as:*
1. Switching between running applications hangs up sometimes as long as 15 seconds
2. Video playback in quicktime is choppy
3. Various programs take a tremendous amount of time to open
4. Opening relatively small illustrator and or photoshop files pinwheels for unusually long time
5. Opening finder windows unusually slow
One of the MOST frustrating of all issues:
6. *Powerbook heats up* rather quickly... gets very hot and the fans have NEVER come on... VERY frustrating, since i would have no problem with noise if it meant better performance...
*Overall, the entire computer feels VERY sluggish*
i have tried clean installs, as well as regular maintenance... and upgraded my RAM to the max of 2GB
Is there anything else i can do? Anyone else having similar problems and or know the best way to repair?
DESPERATE for a solution here... while i realize the G4 can only handle so much, i just feel like it cant possibly be this slow under leopard... or can it?!
ANY HELP AT ALL greatly appreciated...
Best,
Mike
+Mac user since 1989+

6. *Powerbook heats up* rather quickly... gets very hot and the fans have NEVER come on... VERY frustrating, since i would have no problem with noise if it meant better performance...
Have you run the Apple hardware test? One of the tests is to specifically test the fans.
*Overall, the entire computer feels VERY sluggish*
How much free disk space do you have? You need 10% to 15% free for systems usage. Less than that an performance can really slow down.
If you bring up the activity monitor, under system memory, what does it say for page ins and outs?

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Aluminum Macbook 2.4ghz 2GB Ram Extremely HOT, Slow and Freezing constantly

I bought my computer in February. I have 40GB free and suddenly it's started getting so hot, I can't even touch it. Even on a hard surface it gets so hot that it freezes. Additionally, even after restarting it when it's completely cool, it is extreeeeeeeeemely slow. I'm amazed I'm even able to post anything on this website. Multi-tasking is unthinkable at this point. If I have one application open, I most definitely can not have another open with the computer functioning. Any ideas as to what is going on? It's very frustrating as I work on the computer and I'm not ok with a $1500+ investment quitting on me in only 10 months. Running OSX 10.5.8 Leopard. Thanks everyone!

Hi, Jennn
there might be different reasons, but most likely is that there is a process running in the background which takes your CPU time, which then heats the processor.
Please, quit all applications, then start "Activity Monitor" (in Applications->Utilities). You get a table with all processes. Make sure that you have in the selection window just above the table "All Processes". Then click on the column header "CPU" such that the highest CPU-users are at the top. This should show you if there is a process taking too much cpu time.
(it is quite probable that this is a printer process. do you have a wireless printer connected to you Macbook ??)
You can then "force-quit" the process in question.
Another possible candidate for slow-downs is memory swapping: when the RAM is insufficient, the system uses the disk as additional memory. You can see this as "Virtual Memory" in the same table of the Activity Monitor. Which applications use the most VM??
In any case, i am 100 % confident that your nice little MB is worth the 1500 $, and will work wonderfully over a few hours when we have spotted the problem...
Please, report back!
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PROBLEM 1
A little back story on the situation, earlier today i adjusted my green power genie to max power cooling - it down clocked the voltage for the ram and cpu. after i installed some security updates for windows 7 i powered off the PC. I turned my computer back on 30 minutes later, i noticed a weird bios error message "previous overclock has failed, please reset your setting to default". I then reset the CMOS on the motherboard to undo the previous settings. I booted the PC up for a second time, then noticed the post screen with my system specs, had my ram at 8GB when i had 12GB installed. I then went into the bios(1.b)and pressed F5 to view my Ram total. It showed four slots posting 2gb per dimm except A0, A1.
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I remove all ram except one 2gb stick. i reinstalled the 2gb stick in the black dimm a0 slot and booted the system. it will power on, stays on for a minute and half then power cycle(reboot over and over). i then tired 1GB stick in the A0 slot, same problem. The system with boot in the other two black slots (B0, C0). the same problem is with the blue A1 slot as well.
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I have four cards that i want to use on my system, Two HD5770's in crossfire, my sound blaster XFI Fatl1ty Champion in the first (PCI-E x1 slot) and my TV tuner in the first PCI x8 slot. the problem is getting them all to work at the same time. if i install all of them together the system will not get past the black windows screen(it freezes). if i use a combination of the three, the system will boot up with no problem.
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Could i have a bad motherboard?
What is RMA? is it a replacement or repair?
I NEED HELP!!!!
My specs are
Windows 7 HP 64bit
Intel I7-920 Quad Core
(12GB) 6 x 2GB OCZ 1600/12800 XMP Triple Channel RAM
MSI Eclipse LGA 1366 X58 Intel Motherboard
Cooler Master -V8 heatsink
Thermalright IH-05 IFX
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Antec TPQ 1000W 80PLUS
Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-FI Titanium Fatal1ty Champion
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Samsung -22X Lightscribe DL DVD Burner/ Sony - 16X DL DVD Burner
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Quote from: HU16E on 12-March-10, 15:03:22
Have you tested each of them individually? What are you setting the RAM speed & timings at? Unless your running Photoshop or similar heavy apps., 12G RAM is a negative IMHO.
nothing really heavy, but i do multi-task and have a lot of apps/ games/ benchmarking going on at once. firefox uses a lot of ram on its own. i have around five sets of 3 (2 sets 6gb and 3 sets of 3gb) and none of them work in the a1, a0 dimm slots. the memory controller probably burned out. i dont see how that can happen as i dont overclock regularly.
Quote
Other thoughts. What is the current bios version?
- i updated to 1.11(1.b)
Quote
Does the board support 1.5G TB HDD's?
Yes - i believe so, the bio's recognize all 4.5tb
Quote
More voltage is needed more than likely to the CPU, QPI, RAM, IOH, & ICH or a combination thereof rather than using a utility that is trying to reduce it. You have a lot of stuff to power up.
it only down clocked the cpu to core 0.00v/qpi 0.00v, PPL voltage 1.6v and memory to 1.65v , IOH to 1.02, ICH 1.35v
Quote
If this is a brand spanky new build, it may be best to establish a stable system in a bare bones configuration, & then add components making any note of any areas that may need a power boost or settings adjustment. To sum it up, CPU has developed a problem, RAM is faulty, board DIMM slots have become faulty, bent socket pins, voltage distribution is faulty or needs tweaking.
i have done most of your suggestions, but all of my test is pointing to a faulty motherboard. i mean the board has 7 pci slots of which 3 work when in crossfire. the x-fi sound card that came with the board came doa, so i should have been more cautious from the beginning and returned it to newegg then. now i am going to have to RMA the board and be without it for close to a month. its frustrating

Powerbook G4 1.67GHz 2GB ram ... HUGE performance issues

Hardware:
17" Powerbook G4 1.67GHz with 2GB ram
System:
10.5.4 Leopard
*Ever since i upgraded to Leopard, i have noticed tremendous latency / pinwheel issues in many areas such as:*
1. Switching between running applications hangs up sometimes as long as 15 seconds
2. Video playback in quicktime is choppy
3. Various programs take a tremendous amount of time to open
4. Opening relatively small illustrator and or photoshop files pinwheels for unusually long time
5. Opening finder windows unusually slow
One of the MOST frustrating of all issues:
6. Powerbook heats up rather quickly... gets very hot and the fans have NEVER come on... VERY frustrating, since i would have no problem with noise if it meant better performance...
_*Overall, the entire computer feels VERY sluggish*_
i have tried clean installs, as well as regular maintenance... and upgraded my RAM to the max of 2GB
Is there anything else i can do? Anyone else having similar problems and or know the best way to repair?
DESPERATE for a solution here... while i realize the G4 can only handle so much, i just feel like it cant possibly be this slow under leopard... or can it?!
*ANY HELP AT ALL greatly appreciated...*
Best,
Mike
+Mac user since 1989+

Hi,
Just to chime in, I am running a PB G4 1.67, and I am running Leopard (10.5.4) on it just fine. In fact, I am *more than* pleased with the fantastic performance. I am a very very heavy user (enterprise software developer permanently running 101 things simultaneously on his machine) and I have no problems.
First of all, try to figure out what is chomping performance. Is it CPU? Fire up activity monitor, go to the CPU tab, list "all processes" and order by CPU usage. See if a process is swamping your CPU. Until I let it run overnight to index my 250Gb drive, the Spotlight indexing engine (mds) was eating all my CPU. Thereafter, it's fine. Or you can disable it.
So yeah - let's first figure out what is causing your CPU to over-work (and hence, your machine in general to heat up, they do get hot, especially in hot climates) and work from there. No reason to suspect hardware failure yet...

Is a PowerBook G4 still good for what I need it for? 17" 1.67 Ghz CPU, 2GB RAM. Need for word processing, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, Sculptris, other programming software., Internet browsing, and light video editing.

Powerbook G4 1.67 ghz, 2Gb ram, OS X 10.5 Leopard. Is it good enough for word processing, Dreamweaver, flash, sculptris, some programming software, Internet browsing, and some basic video editing? It also includes iLife and iWork, what is actually included in these packages?

This is the fastest of the G4 Powerbooks which was a good performer when it was new. Graphics intense programs will not perform well by todays standard. In addition the up to date software programs need an Intel processor and more RAM. iLife includes iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand. iWork includes Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.
http://www.apple.com/hk/en/iwork/
http://www.apple.com/lae/ilife/

Satellite A110-103 - 2GB RAM - gaming performance tuning - SOLUTION

Hello,
For those of you who have 2Gb RAM installed on laptop and want to play games like FEAR2-PROJECT ORIGIN this is a performance tuning that I tested on my Toshiba Satellite A110-103!
If you want to add 2Gb of RAM or more to your laptop please read [this post and my experience with RAM upgrades|http://forums.computers.toshiba-europe.com/forums/message.jspa?messageID=153005#153005]! It might help you save money!
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Test this and if you get good results please post them here! I
Best regards,
Marius Gigi

Hi Marius
Thanks for this message
Usually the paging file should help you to increase the RAM performance
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More detail:
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Message was edited by: Søren

Will leopard work with the current 2.16ghz mac book with 2gb ram?

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"Speculations or rumors about unannounced products."
I would take that to mean questions and speculation about products which have been announced would be okay. Stuff like "Do you think Leopard will be able to do this or that" would seem to be okay.
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In order to speed up my G4 17" 1 Ghz Powerbook, especially for Photoshop Elements, I upgraded to 2GB RAM. The Crucial Memory Scanner said that was the max allowable (although I ended up buying Samsung memory from an eBay dealer). My computer seems to be actually working slower now, though it is basically working ok. On looking at the tech spec for my Powerbook from Apple Support I then found this: "two SO-DIMM slots support up to 1GB".
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Application Compatibility
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Powerbook G4 17 1.67 2GB ram leopard... huge performance and latency issues

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