Too Much Fan / Too much spinning Beach ball

Question

Hi: My 10.4 iMac Desktop (with max 2 Gg SDRAM, and 50 Gig HD space still available) seems to be overworking, or something.
I get a lot of Spinning Beach ball , and quite a bit of fan work. My most common applications: Addres Book, Mail, Safari, Appleworks 6 (which seems to really stink now).
One perpetual problem (which I posted elsewhere): I can't BACK UP my ADDRESS BOOK. When I do, it leaves me with spinning ball of death for hours until Force Quit. Yuk.
I "Repair Disc permissions" monthly, and just checked/ Verified the HD from the original 10.4 Discs. All is aok.--no repairs needed.
Computer is 3 years old. Want to stay on 10.4 (I need to use Classic 9). But, are there some general or specific things I can do to keep my computer happy?
Thanks.

Answer 1

Hello,
You might want to check the drive for errors... you will need your system restore disk.
Testing and repairing a disk or volume
When you have problems with a disk or volume, use Disk Utility to test and repair it. Disk Utility also reports the S.M.A.R.T. status, which tells you whether your disk has hardware problems that will cause it to fail.
To repair a disk, you need an administrator's password. If you don't have one, ask an administrator to repair the disk with Disk Utility for you.
You can verify your startup disk with Disk Utility, but to repair it, you must start up your computer using another disk. For example, you can use your Mac OS X Install disk.
In addition, you cannot test or repair write-protected disks, nonrecordable CDs or DVDs, or disks with open files.
Close the files and quit the applications on the disk that you want to repair.
Open Disk Utility, and select the disk in the list on the left.
Click First Aid.
Check the S.M.A.R.T. Status at the bottom of the window. If you can't see the S.M.A.R.T. Status, be sure you selected the hard disk your volume is on, and not the volume itself.
If the S.M.A.R.T. Status is "About to Fail," back up your files on the disk as soon as possible and replace the disk.
If the S.M.A.R.T. Status is "Verified" or "Not supported," click Repair Disk to repair the disk.
If Disk Utility cannot unmount the disk, be sure you have quit any open applications and click Repair Disk again. If it still cannot unmount the disk, repair it just like you would repair a startup disk, by starting your computer from another disk, such as your Mac OS X Install disk.
If Disk Utility tells you to look for links to corrupt files in the DamagedFiles directory, some of those files are overlapping on your hard disk and are likely to be corrupt. Examine the affected files, each of which is listed in Disk Utility's output on a line that begins "Overlapped extent allocation". Most of these files have aliases in the DamagedFiles folder at the top level of the affected disk. If you can replace the file or recreate it, delete it. If it contains necessary information, open it and examine its data to make sure it has not been corrupted.
If Disk Utility cannot repair your disk or reports "The underlying task reported failure," try to repair the disk again. If that doesn't work, back up as much of your data as possible, reformat your disk, reinstall Mac OS X, and restore your backed up data. If you continue to have problems with your disk, it may be physically damaged and need to be replaced. See an authorized Apple dealer for more information.
Carolyn