Sorry Ronni, I hope you didn't misunderstand, I am doing all your valid suggestions to get it running a little better then it is, so your advice has not gone astray. It has made it easy because your instructions are very concise to follow. I hope you haven't taken offence because your advice is always valued. Rick. On 24/11/2012, at 12:57 PM, Ronni Brown wrote:
> Hi Rick, > > What iMac are you talking about? > > Won't help much if you don't do all the suggestions. > If I knew you were not prepared to try suggestions, I would not have wasted > my time typing them. > > I agree with Daniel, give the Mac mini G4 the flick, and purchase a new Mac > mini Intel or pay a bit more and get an iMac! > > Cheers, > Ronni > > On 24/11/2012, at 12:40 PM, Rick Armstrong <a...@iinet.net.au> wrote: > >> Thanks Ronni, >> all points considered, I think that item 4 and 6 may be the most >> beneficial, I was a bit worried when disk utility was struggling and >> had to turn the iMac off but started up OK and have run disk utility >> now again to repair permissions. >> >> On 24/11/2012, at 12:27 PM, Ronni Brown wrote: >> >>> Hi Rick, >>> >>> You don't mention what steps you have taken to try to speed up the >>> Mac mini G4 >>> Only 10GB free space on the Hard Drive is not good for a start. If >>> your hard drive is nearly full, your Mac will run more slowly. >>> >>> A few suggestions for you to try: >>> 1. I would first try to slim down the contents of the Hard Drive: >>> Archive or trash old files that are no longer needed. >>> >>> 2. Keep the Desktop Clean: If you have a lot of files on the >>> desktop your Mac will slow down. >>> Tidy up those files by placing them in folders until you can file >>> them in the correct locations, and the Finder will be snappier. >>> >>> 3. Check login items: Background applications and processes can >>> slow down your Mac. >>> Go to System Preferences > Users & Groups, select your Account, >>> and click the Login Items button to take a look at what’s selected >>> to run at startup. Look for items you don’t need to run when you >>> log in. >>> When you find one, select it and click the minus [-] button. >>> >>> 4. Check Activity Monitor: >>> Launch Activity Monitor (found in /Applications/Utilities), choose >>> All Processes from the pop-up menu at the top of the window, and >>> click the %CPU heading. Look at the top several items. >>> This tells you what’s drawing most of your Mac’s attention. >>> Are there items there that you can do without? >>> >>> 5. Quit applications: >>> Per the last suggestion, it’s very easy to run multiple >>> applications on your Mac. But with only 2GB memory you don't want >>> to run more than you need. Look in the Dock. If you see more than 1 >>> or 2 applications with little dots beneath their icons (indicating >>> that they’re active), quit those you aren’t planning to use in the >>> near future. >>> >>> 6. Free up System Memory by killing Dashboard widgets: >>> Dashboard can be an awful memory hog even when it’s not being used. >>> Once you hit F12, the widgets are loaded and don’t quit >>> automatically which makes accessing them later faster, but it also >>> wastes system resources. It’s not uncommon for each widget to take >>> up 15mb of real ram and over 300mb in virtual memory. Having a >>> bunch of widgets open aimlessly in the background can lead to >>> system slowdowns. >>> >>> The easiest way to kill all the Dashboard widgets is by "killing >>> the Dock" (Dock is the parent process to Dashboard), don’t worry, >>> the Dock will automatically reload in the Finder. Open up the >>> Terminal and type the following: >>> $ killall Dock >>> You’ll notice your Dock will disappear and reappear, and if you >>> check Activity Monitor there will no longer be any Dashboard >>> widgets eating up system memory. >>> >>> If you’d prefer to avoid the command line, you can kill the Dock >>> via the Activity Monitor as well. Simply sort by Process Name, >>> select Dock, and hit the big red “Quit Process” button. Once again, >>> the Dock will disappear and reappear, and with it the Dashboard >>> widgets are no longer loaded. >>> >>> Cheers, >>> Ronni >>> >>> 17" MacBook Pro 2.3GHz Quad-Core i7 “Thunderbolt" >>> 2.3GHz / 8GB / 750GB @ 7200rpm HD >>> >>> OS X 10.8.2 Mountain Lion >>> Windows 7 Ultimate (under sufferance) >>> >>> >>> On 24/11/2012, at 11:35 AM, Rick Armstrong <a...@iinet.net.au> wrote: >>> >>>> Hi Everyone, >>>> My wifes Mac Mini G4 is very slow, long over due or an upgrade but in >>>> the meantime >>>> Mac Mini G4 10.4.11 >>>> 1.42 GHz >>>> 1 Gb Ram >>>> 75 GB with 10 GB available >>>> (I don't remember it being this slow when we got it some time back >>>> and I have not been on it for a while but she must have been >>>> struggling with it for a while). >>>> Thanks, Rick. >>>> > > -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- > Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> > Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> > Settings & Unsubscribe - > <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug> -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Settings & Unsubscribe - <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug>
