beach ball

S

SusanHoule

Registered
why is the beach ball appearing frequently on my iBook G4?
OS X 10.4.11 is fully updated. I have run disk utility. Is there a disk defrag somewhere or do I have to take it to a shop? I still have 33 gig memory free, I have 1 gig ram and the speed is 1.42.
Thx in advance
 
Have you run maintenance scripts?

Do a search on that--there are programs like Onyx that can do it for you for free, some nice shareware like Cocktail, and instructions on how to do it from Terminal.

--J.D.
 
I'd certainly go along with Doctor X. Onyx is free.

DiskWarrior is not free, but is well worth its cost. It doesn't defrag (in a PC sense), but it can be used to create a new HD directory, which can make the Mac run more efficiently.

Another tip (maybe not a favoured by other Mac aficionados) is to - let's say twice a year - back up all important personal files and completely reinstall the operating system (then update as required).

I do this and I think it speeds up my Mac (yes Fryke, I accept - a perceptual thing ;)).
 
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i second the clean install idea if you're looking for the (oddly) easiest way to get the best speed possible out of your machine. otherwise sell and get an intel mac. head and shoulders above anything ibm could ever fathom.
 
Rhisiart: I'm not against backing up and reinstalling. :) Have I changed my mind here in the past? I thought I always said that for many (big) problems, it's often better to reinstall and bring back only the really required stuff from a backup. Like a good spring cleaning for the computer. Of course you _do_ learn more if you actually find and solve the problem.

For example, if the problem is a single, corrupted font in your system: Reinstalling will "solve" the problem, but only until you bring back that font from your backup or from whatever source you've got that corrupted font from in the first place. When you're back in that place, you (quite probably) still won't know what hit your computer and have to reinstall again, only to walk into the same wall again a couple of days, weeks or months later.

But on the perception of a freshly installed system running smoother: It's not perceptual. It _does_ run smoother. Because you don't have an uptime of 42 days, you don't have all your apps open at the same time for days or weeks and you haven't installed weird updates for weird little utilities yet. ;)
 
I have Onyxed and am reluctant to re install. My beach ball still spins but for a shorter amount of time.
You guys are really SMART!
I appreciate you!
 
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