rdf8585 Posted October 23, 2006 Share Posted October 23, 2006 I have a one year old Mini (1.33 g4, 1 gb) but it just seems like it can't keep up with basis tasks anymore. ESPN.com's flash videos are choppy; playback is not smooth. The heavier webpages seem to give it trouble too... it just doesn't seem like it's good for much these days. And that's not good, especially because iBooks sold up to spring 2006 have basically the same hardware inside them. I use Onyx etc frequently, so that's not an issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yudi_lks Posted October 23, 2006 Share Posted October 23, 2006 Do you have enough disk space in your mini? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian M. Veteran Posted October 23, 2006 Veteran Share Posted October 23, 2006 I have one word for you: PC :p on a serious note, try upgrading the ram. That cpu isnt the greatest, so having more than a gb of ram will help alot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdf8585 Posted October 23, 2006 Author Share Posted October 23, 2006 Do you have enough disk space in your mini? It is around 80-85% empty. I removed a lot of stuff like excess languages etc. That hardware, though, just isnt enough anymore is it? I have one word for you:PC :p on a serious note, try upgrading the ram. That cpu isnt the greatest, so having more than a gb of ram will help alot. The max RAM in pre-Intel Mini's was 1 GB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John S. Veteran Posted October 23, 2006 Veteran Share Posted October 23, 2006 I have an 18-month old rev.B iMac 2.0 ghz, 2gb of ram and haven't noticed anything of the sort. I ordered mine with 1 gb of ram but felt it was a bit sluggish loading some sites so I added another gb myself. I'd try Onyx to make sure everythings healthy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giga Veteran Posted October 23, 2006 Veteran Share Posted October 23, 2006 ESPN always gives Safari trouble from what I've tested. Have you tried Camino/Firefox, OmniWeb? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
////////// Posted October 23, 2006 Share Posted October 23, 2006 (edited) One thing you must remember is that the Mini (no matter how good they are), especially the pre-Intel Mini's are low end machines. They are much better quality than low end PCs (but still low on options), but are still only intended for casual users. If you're a "power user", than that machine is not enough and is only going to slow you down. Go bigger....get an iMac or a MacPro and load it up with as much memory as you can afford. Try buying other than Apple memory. Apple memory is ungodly overpriced. However MacPro memory is also unfortunately quite expensive Options... Keep the Mini soley as a media machine in lieu of "iTV", or use it as a server/firewall. A friend of mine tore his mini apart and now uses it as a server. Unfortunately the original Minis were way low on configuration options. It's one reason I sold mine and went bigger after previously having a PowerMac G4 with 2 GB ram. And just as with PCs, the more memory the better. However, a faster processor wouldn't hurt! You might want to clean it out of the crap you don't use, and stop unecessary processes from running. If all else fails, do a fresh install of OS X with the custom option. Edited October 23, 2006 by sduba22 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TruckWEB Posted October 23, 2006 Share Posted October 23, 2006 I feel the same with my Mini. I have enough HD space left, 1Gig of RAM and Tiger 10.4.8 But I see the darn beach ball just too many times during a day. Browsing e-mails in Mail, especialy if they have big attachement is a pain. It's slow. The Mini can feel slow on many website with lots of Flash or video on both Safari or FireFox. Choppy video happens alot. The new iTune takes forever to load now... And I don't have anything "extra" on my Mini, the Control Panel is clean, no plug-in except for DivX and Flip4Mac. It's a clean machine. Even if it's Apple "Low end machine" it became lower than expected alot sooner. :no: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MonkeyClaw Veteran Posted October 24, 2006 Veteran Share Posted October 24, 2006 My PowerBook is a year and a half old and it has no problems doing most things. Aperture is still slow but it has always been slow. For the most part though, it still performs like a champ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LBraasch Posted October 24, 2006 Share Posted October 24, 2006 there are a few things you can do to get a speed boost out of your mini. Boot from an external hdd. I boot mine from a 300gb Maxtor drive which is 7200rpm 16mb cache. The internal drives in minis are pretty crappy, and most are 4200 rpm, although i believe yours is 5400. It'll give a noticeable speed boost, and you'll see a lot less of the "beach ball". I have a 1.42ghz w/ a gig of ram, and although there are faster machines out there, I don't find that mine is slow at all for basic "home" type use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hotdog666al Posted October 24, 2006 Share Posted October 24, 2006 I'm SO glad I didn't get a mini. I was choosing between an X2 3800+ box and a Mac Mini. Guess I chose the right thing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chimera963 Posted October 24, 2006 Share Posted October 24, 2006 know what you mean, i've had my g5 imac about a year and a half and it was like ZOMFG WOW!!!! at first, but now it's not as speedy and slick, just feels out of date. I suppose it's just something you have to deal with when buying apple gear, keeping up to date. Though I won't have the money for a new mac for aaaages, so if I upgrade, i'll be building a new pc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TruckWEB Posted October 25, 2006 Share Posted October 25, 2006 there are a few things you can do to get a speed boost out of your mini. Boot from an external hdd. I boot mine from a 300gb Maxtor drive which is 7200rpm 16mb cache. The internal drives in minis are pretty crappy, and most are 4200 rpm, although i believe yours is 5400. It'll give a noticeable speed boost, and you'll see a lot less of the "beach ball". I have a 1.42ghz w/ a gig of ram, and although there are faster machines out there, I don't find that mine is slow at all for basic "home" type use. I've tried that, it does boot and operate a little bit faster but not enough. And you can't stop that darn spinning beach ball. I wonder if it's OS related or hardware not able to follow.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LBraasch Posted October 25, 2006 Share Posted October 25, 2006 I've tried that, it does boot and operate a little bit faster but not enough. And you can't stop that darn spinning beach ball. I wonder if it's OS related or hardware not able to follow.... Do you have xbench scores before and after? My score went up a good 10-15pts after the 'mod'. Although, mine was definately more noticable b/c it was a 4200rpm internal drive not the revised 5600. also, you can always OC your g4 for more speed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxsquared Posted October 25, 2006 Share Posted October 25, 2006 know what you mean, i've had my g5 imac about a year and a half and it was like ZOMFG WOW!!!! at first, but now it's not as speedy and slick, just feels out of date. I suppose it's just something you have to deal with when buying apple gear, keeping up to date. Though I won't have the money for a new mac for aaaages, so if I upgrade, i'll be building a new pc. That's exactly what I did, however, I am kinda regret didn't upgrade to a Mac. On the other hand, PC is not all that bad. With Mac you have to press two keys to get to spotlight, on vista, you only need to press window key.... But I guess I will get a laptop soon anyway, and I probably get a macbook (when c2d version comes out) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
am_fek Posted November 6, 2006 Share Posted November 6, 2006 (edited) Two keys needed for Spotlight? Really? As for why the Mini is slow, it's running on a G4. The limitation is the CPU. It was okay four years ago, but now it's just out of date. You bought a low end machine and you got one, sucks but that's the way it is :( Personally I didn't see the value of the Mini back then... now perhaps that you can get them with the Core CPUs, but even then, I'd just spring for a Macbook. Edited November 6, 2006 by am_fek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spielo Posted November 6, 2006 Share Posted November 6, 2006 If flash video is choppy, you could try updating flash; I don't think just running Software Update will give you the newest version, go to http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/do...mp;promoid=BIOW It might help, I was having trouble with flash video on my MacBook until I updated it! :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John S. Veteran Posted November 6, 2006 Veteran Share Posted November 6, 2006 Two keys needed for Spotlight? Really? As for why the Mini is slow, it's running on a G4. The limitation is the CPU. It was okay four years ago, but now it's just out of date. You bought a low end machine and you got one, sucks but that's the way it is :( Personally I didn't see the value of the Mini back then... now perhaps that you can get them with the Core CPUs, but even then, I'd just spring for a Macbook. The mini just came out in January 2005...not quite 2 years old yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
am_fek Posted November 6, 2006 Share Posted November 6, 2006 And the G4 processor came out a long time before that. What's your point? It was a low end machine two years ago and it came with a low end CPU. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John S. Veteran Posted November 6, 2006 Veteran Share Posted November 6, 2006 And the G4 processor came out a long time before that. What's your point? It was a low end machine two years ago and it came with a low end CPU. Thought you meant the mini was 4 years old, not the processor...my bad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDreamX Posted November 6, 2006 Share Posted November 6, 2006 Umm, has anyone suggested a fresh format? I still use my 867 MHz G4 and nothing has ever slowed down on the web. Maybe some HD video I have tried, but, other than that, it still runs relatively fast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
am_fek Posted November 6, 2006 Share Posted November 6, 2006 (edited) No problem, it wasn't written very clearly. And it's not as though it's not a bad thing that a machine that's only two years old already struggles with some flashy websites. I have a year 2003 PowerBook G4 which has the same problems, and that was actually supposed to be a 'power' machine so I feel that pain :) The G4s were outdated long before they were withdrawn. Apple probably would have wanted to it sooner but they had to keep the PPC models on sale until the Mactels were in place. Now that Apple is using Intel CPUs, the problem of obsolescence should be less serious - hopefully. (edit) TheDreamX: what will formatting achieve? OS X isn't like Windows, formatting isn't just some voodoo / miracle cure for any time the Mac slows down. When it comes to resource usage, OS X is either running a process or it's not, it's not encumbered with registry this, service that, etc. If the OP has checked things like Activity Monitor and his startup items, a format will not achieve anything more. And please don't suggest removing cache or preference files, like deleting text files ever sped up any computer, Mac or PC. The truth is that a) once you've checked running processes, formatting probably won't help to speed up OS X; and b) that although some people might not feel their machines are slow, low end G4s simply can't handle rich websites today at a speed most would consider acceptable. Edited November 6, 2006 by am_fek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazzyyfool Posted November 7, 2006 Share Posted November 7, 2006 I have one word for you: PC :p Errrm. PC isn't a word. It's an abbreviation. :whistle: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spielo Posted November 7, 2006 Share Posted November 7, 2006 Errrm. PC isn't a word. It's an abbreviation. :whistle: If we're going to be pedantic, it's an acronym. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulCabby Posted November 7, 2006 Share Posted November 7, 2006 If we're going to be pedantic, it's an acronym. Well.. Initialism Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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