12" Powerbook Problem - Won't Run (1 Viewer)

[tripoli]

Hi there, need some help please!!

My 12" Powerbook is making lots of noise but not doing very much at all. It takes30 seconds to a minute to perform a single action for example, save a document or quit an application. It's basically slowed right down to the point were rasonable patience would not allow one to use it anymore.

It's about two years old but well look after. Anyone know if i can boot it up in diagnostics mode? All help appreciated.

 

[Wilbert]

Hi there, need some help please!!

My 12" Powerbook is making lots of noise but not doing very much at all. It takes30 seconds to a minute to perform a single action for example, save a document or quit an application. It's basically slowed right down to the point were rasonable patience would not allow one to use it anymore.

It's about two years old but well look after. Anyone know if i can boot it up in diagnostics mode? All help appreciated.

You don't have any third-party anti-virus stuff on it, do you?
Can slow it down unbelievably.

 

[tripoli]

You don't have any third-party anti-virus stuff on it, do you?
Can slow it down unbelievably.

No i don't have anything like that. Just ran the 'Hardware Test' on the Apple Install DVD's and everything came back ok - no faults. I've since deleted about 5Gb off my iTunes library as the Harddrive space was giving me a read of 8.53Gb free. Maybe the hard-drive was just sitting on it's knees. Would this be a credible explanation?

Must get myself an external hard-drive and share the load.

 

[ernesto]

careful now!

hope your pb is ok dude

 

[Wilbert]

No i don't have anything like that. Just ran the 'Hardware Test' on the Apple Install DVD's and everything came back ok - no faults. I've since deleted about 5Gb off my iTunes library as the Harddrive space was giving me a read of 8.53Gb free. Maybe the hard-drive was just sitting on it's knees. Would this be a credible explanation?

Must get myself an external hard-drive and share the load.

8.35Gb free should be plenty of free space.

 

[HMD]

What font management software are you using? it could be dodgy fonts

 

[Goodbye]

Yeah, was going to say to turn off all unnessissary fonts, you could have accedentally turned them all on.
I did that once and it was like my mac was swimming in glue...

If not, backup your apps and do an erese install of your OS and start from scratch...
Its a scary thing, but it like having a new mac again...

 

[tripoli]

What font management software are you using? it could be dodgy fonts

Shit, how can I check this? Cheers.

8.35Gb free should be plenty of free space.

I remember reading somewhere that 10Gb was always a healthy amount to have free.

If not, backup your apps and do an erese install of your OS and start from scratch...
Its a scary thing, but it like having a new mac again...

Quick question on backups... If i wanted to backup all settings and basically have the machine back to the way it is now do i need to run a full system backup onto say a external hard-drive or do i backup each individual parts for example?

Like i could live with re-loading my iTunes but not my iPhotos or system prefs and safari bookmarks etc.

Cheers.

 

[Anthony]

duplicate your "home" folder on an external HD.

 

[tripoli]

anto, is it that simple. just a copy and a paste?

cheers

duplicate your "home" folder on an external HD.

 

[Anthony]

That's where all your settings are. So presumably if you do that and you put it back on after a reload you should be fine. I've sort of half-done this. I wiped my mac before going Tiger.

It was a bit confusing for a while, external HD with the same files on it and I got lost a few times but it all seemed to work out. Except photoshop keeps looking for the OSX tune-up every time I open it.

Just be as careful as you can.

 

[tripoli]

cheers for that.

That's where all your settings are. So presumably if you do that and you put it back on after a reload you should be fine. I've sort of half-done this. I wiped my mac before going Tiger.

It was a bit confusing for a while, external HD with the same files on it and I got lost a few times but it all seemed to work out. Except photoshop keeps looking for the OSX tune-up every time I open it.

Just be as careful as you can.

 

[Goodbye]

If you got a second mac, or a friend with a mac and a firewire cable, use migration assistant in your utilities folder

 

[ernesto]

Hi there, need some help please!!

My 12" Powerbook is making lots of noise but not doing very much at all. It takes30 seconds to a minute to perform a single action for example, save a document or quit an application. It's basically slowed right down to the point were rasonable patience would not allow one to use it anymore.

It's about two years old but well look after. Anyone know if i can boot it up in diagnostics mode? All help appreciated.

shit. mine is doing this too. FUCK. recently since installing Macromedia Studio 8 its slowed right down while booting up. now it takes about 8 minutes and i cant use it. deleted macromedia amd everything. still stupidly slow.
suggestions? doin a clean install (AGAIN!) is not really an option right now.
disk utility wont even launch so i cant check the HD

 

[Wilbert]

shit. mine is doing this too. FUCK. recently since installing Macromedia Studio 8 its slowed right down while booting up. now it takes about 8 minutes and i cant use it. deleted macromedia amd everything. still stupidly slow.
suggestions? doin a clean install (AGAIN!) is not really an option right now.
disk utility wont even launch so i cant check the HD

Do an Archive and Install instead of a clean install. You won't lose files or applications and it reinstalls the OS for you.

 

[ernesto]

Do an Archive and Install instead of a clean install. You won't lose files or applications and it reinstalls the OS for you.

will i still be able to run the original applications?

i finally did a disk utility thing after waiting forever for it to load and it said there was a problem. something about the wrong number of blocks. i did a verify permissions repair thingy and restarted and everything is running a bit faster. i ran the verify yoke thing and it still told me there was a problem. it wont let me click the repair disk, only the verify permissions button. it says i need to boot up from my tiger dvd and go to utilities and click repair disk. tried that from my tiger dvd (ahem, not original) and there was no utilities folder. maybe my copy doesnt have that or what?
is it a sign of my hard drive kaputting?

will your arhive and install option fix stuff taking the above into account?

that took me ages

 

[Wilbert]

will i still be able to run the original applications?

i finally did a disk utility thing after waiting forever for it to load and it said there was a problem. something about the wrong number of blocks. i did a verify permissions repair thingy and restarted and everything is running a bit faster. i ran the verify yoke thing and it still told me there was a problem. it wont let me click the repair disk, only the verify permissions button. it says i need to boot up from my tiger dvd and go to utilities and click repair disk. tried that from my tiger dvd (ahem, not original) and there was no utilities folder. maybe my copy doesnt have that or what?
is it a sign of my hard drive kaputting?

will your arhive and install option fix stuff taking the above into account?

that took me ages

I did an archive and install for a friend of mine the other day and all their files and applications were still there. The only difference was a brand new operating system that worked perfectly.

Having said this, I take no responsibility for anything that may happen to your machine! Just telling you what happened when I did it.

 

[ernesto]

I did an archive and install for a friend of mine the other day and all their files and applications were still there. The only difference was a brand new operating system that worked perfectly.

Having said this, I take no responsibility for anything that may happen to your machine! Just telling you what happened when I did it.

archive and install worked a treat. thanks Wil