Slow FCP on MacPro

I recently got a nice MacPro 8-core computer with 16 Megs of RAM and an NVIDIA video card.
Nice huh?
I though so too, until I opened the Activity Manager and saw that even during Export and rendering from FCP, the 8 processors were barely be taxed. And I looked at the memory usage and it said it had 10 GB free.
*Do I have a machine that will not perform the way I thought?* I called tech support, and the very ill educated person, told me that it should be fine. I then got transferred to a FCP “specialist.” After waiting on hold for over an hour, I was told that he only knew about “installation” and surface level issues. WHAT YOUR DEFINITION OF SPECIALIST?
He gave me a very similar unhelpful answer.
I am a faithful Mac user. And since my severe stroke at the age of only 37, my whole business life now revolves around my Mac.
I feel like the dual-pro G5, which I replaced, may have been doing just fine. FCP doesn’t seem to be running any faster. And I am onlining a national TV show that is graphics-heavy.
We are living on disability, and we took out a special loan just to buy this computer. (10.8M+) The job I have now may bring us up a little, financially, but right now it doesn’t look too promising.
DID I OVER BUY?
Was my $3000 G5 just as good as my $11,000 MacPro?
If there is some way of speeding I up, I would appreciate a call. Soon.
If not, what are my alternatives. I’ve only had the machine for a couple weeks.
Here’s another quandary—I exported a video from FCP and the “info” says it took only 12 minutes. I re-exported it because by first attempt clipped the first few seconds, so I included the video-only seconds. Now the batch monitor is saying that the export will take 90 minutes. HOW COULD THAT BE?
Frustrated,
Dan

Hi dnucks,
It is clear how you feel and the frustration you are in!
We will try to help but in order to do that we need to ask questions, be patient!
An 8-core MacPro with 16GB (not MB) of RAM should definitely be a top configuration.
Do you have an NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT? Are you using only FCP or Motion as well? Are you using FCP6 or earlier versions?
Are you using externl drives or separate internal drives for your media, renders etc.? Which ones , give specs including type of connection!
Did you get your extra RAM from Apple or you added some cheaper ones by yourself?
Also read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAM ( Check out the pararagraph titled +memory wall+ and the relative links).
What format are you editing on?
Your answers will help us to help you!
Best,
Gig

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Hi,
Not sure which section this should go in.. Mac Pro or Leopard so I put it in both areas because I need to find out what is wrong with my computer
I thought my MacPro was running slow so had a look in activity monitor. I saw that the process named aslmanager was using 100% CPU of one of the CPUs and was using a total of 1.5GB of my 2GB of my RAM (More arriving soon) When I force quit this my MacPro was much quicker & more resposive.
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Hi there,
Many thanks for the reply. The few startup items I have I have had for ages and so I don't think it is them.
I am sure that I remember that the launchd was the parent process when I looked at it in Activity Monitor.
Below is what terminal showed me when I did as you said:
ASLMANAGER(8) BSD System Manager's Manual ASLMANAGER(8)
NAME
aslmanager -- Apple System Log data store file manager
SYNOPSIS
aslmanager [-s store_dir] [-a [archive_dir]] [-ttl days] [-size max_size]
DESCRIPTION
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A maximum size may be provided as a value following the -size flag. This
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SEE ALSO
syslogd(8), syslog(1), asl(3), syslog(3),
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emilfromgothenburg wrote:
... and I have also tried not to use external harddrives ....
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http://reels.creativecow.net/film/fcp-splashscreen-slow-startup
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Hi, Dave
David Barrett3 wrote:
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Read this.

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