Slow Slow Slow emac: More

Question

There have been some discussions over the past few months that apply to me:
+Slow Slow Slow eMac, Desperately need help with eMac, Can I salvage my e-mac, or is it time to upgrade to an iMac.+
Background: I have an eMac: Purchased in 1984: Panther 10.3.9 It's 1.25 GHz PowerPC G4; 1GB DDR SDRAM; 80GB HD; DVD/CD Superdrive. It came with 2@256 but I upgraded memory to 2@512 (crucial memory) about 12/2006. Of the 80GB about 23GB is left=~57 in use. Of this, a lot is in iPhoto, perhaps 26GB or so. We upgraded the memory as the speed was slow back in 2006, but it didn't markedly increase speed. We also have a 120GB LaCie drive (Firewire) that we put a copy of our eMac Hard Drive onto for back up.
I'm wondering how to get the eMac to be peppier/faster.
Ideas/Questions/Issues:
(1) _General Maintenance:_ The Slow Slow Slow eMac thread mentioned MacJanitor if the maintenance needs help. I did this: OK, but not much change. Perhaps it’s not altogether necessary as the eMac may normally run the appropriate scripts.
(2) _Defragmentation Software_: Again, the Slow Slow eMac thread mentioned two things from the MacUpdate site: (1) a tool, +ShowVolumeFragmentation (0.80)+ that will show the level of fragmentation, & (2) a commercial tool to use to actually do the defragmentation work. (1) This tool didn’t load on my Panther machine & the +HFS Debug-3.10+ (a part of the ShowVolumeFragmentation tool) didn’t install, BUT perhaps it doesn’t matter because it might be good to just use a commercial defragmentation tool anyways. (2) MacUpdate identified a tool +iDefrag 1.6.6+ for (a) Demo which is limited to only 100MB drives & (b) a $35-$36 download version. Questions: (1) has anyone used this tool +(iDefrag 1.6.6)+ & if so does it work well; (2) is there another defrag tool that works well? The MacUpdate site brings up some others for the Defragment search; and (3) based upon my background information above, is defragging a reasonable thing to pursue?
(3) _Tiger O/S:_ Not that anyone has suggested this, but would upgrading to the next—albeit not the most current—O/S be worthwhile?
(4) _Panther O/S reinstall_: (a) +Erase & Install+ (b) +Archive & Install+. The Slow Slow eMac mentioned the +Erase & Install+, but it would erase everything. I understand that this would be effective as it goes back to a clean starting point, but what’s the experience & value in doing this (comment?). Perhaps saving everything on our LaCie drive first, then pulling back what’s needed would keep the process/eMac clean(er). (2) However, would the +Archive & Install+ method be effective? Pros/Cons?
(5) _Other places to house iPhoto_: What’s the process & benefit of housing iPhoto on a separate Hard Drive?
(6) _Other (General)_: Any other ideas &/or comments.
Prior to doing this I did copy my entire Hard Drive to the LaCie so that I had a back up. I then started deleting any old/unused stuff. I freed up some space, but the speed didn’t really change much.
Thanks--gse

Answer 1

Hello, and welcome to Apple Discussions!
First, see if your model falls under this repair extension program:
http://www.apple.com/support/emac/repairextensionprogram/
Your symptoms don't sound like it's haivng the probelms the extension covers, but still worth checking.
Your 1G of RAM should be adequate with Panther. That's enough to reduce virtual memory writes to the hard drive, which is good when free space on the drive gets small. However, your space is OK for now.
I understand that the Mac OS now handles defragging on it own pretty well. More farther down.
Use Activity Monitor ( in HD > Applications > Utilities ) to see if any odd applications you don't know about are eating a lot of processor usage. You want to change the view to "all processes" if it's currently set to "my processes." Post any apps that sound suspicious here before removing one; there are some things that are supposed to be running in the background.
Tiger will not make the computer faster by itself but will open access to newer software versions, especially browsers. The Dashboard Widgets and Spotlight that come with Tiger could reduce performance on a machine that's already acting up. You have a SuperDrive so installing from the Retail DVDs is no problem.
A great place to start is this third-party site hosted by one of our Level 4 members, Dr. Smoke:
http://thexlab.com/faqs/faqs.html
There is info on defragging is in the article titled Maintaining Mac OSX. Focus on articles whose titles have words such as "cleaning," "maintenance," and "troubleshooting." However, all the articles are good and you will come away with a much fully understanding in your Mac.
If the computer has been used for years with little if any maintenance and other maintenance procedures don't seem to help, a full reinstall to a nicely cleaned hard drive can help limber things up. As you have a full backup, this is not so daunting.