In the last week or so, this machine has become rather ill. Incredibly slow, locking up basic functions and software apps. I ran Disk Warrior for Jaguar. Nothing changed. I ran Plus Optimizer ( for OS X 10.1, but still…it worked ).
I’m currently running Repair Permissions under First Aid. God this is soooo slow.
Here’s my question. In the Windows platform, I can see what software is running by hitting the much-vaunted Ctrl+Alt+Del keys. Is there an analogous key sequence for Macs? I fear something is running and slowing me down.
I also fear that I may need to re-install Jaguar. This will not break my heart, but I did so about a month ago and it’s been running okay since then. Now, it’s a shambles.
Upgrading to Tiger is not an option, I cannot afford the incessant upgrade costs. I may buy Panther, or may stay with Jaguar. ( A totally stable release, from what I can see ).
Hmmm. Just occurred to me. What if one of the two RAM chips were failing? Would that cause the severe slow-down? How can I see how much RAM I have?
Apple System Profiler (Applications-Utilities) should show you if your memory is working. Under the hardware bar on the left side of the window there’s a line called memory. That will show you what RAM it’s seeing.
Also, you could try either open apple-option-escape or pick Force Quit from the apple menu. That should show you all the programs that are running.
One of your install disks should have a hardware test program. I’d run that and see if anything is broken. To me, it does sound like some of your RAM might have failed. That at least would account for the flakiness, if not the slowness.
What did you mean by this? How is it more expensive to buy Tiger than Panther?
I am in nearly the exact same position as you - I have an 800mhz Tibook running Jaguar. I am planning to leapfrog Panther and go straight to Tiger. My new work computer is running Panther - sadly its install disks won’t upgrade the Tibook as they’re “bundled”. So I will buy Tiger in a couple of weeks.
I was fine with Jaguar, but upgrading became a priority when Skype arrived. Because Tiger was imminent, I decided to wait a bit longer.
I am sure the upgrades are roughly the same price. I meant that buying yet another upgrade every year or so becomes pricey. So, I let Panther slide by cause I heard about Tiger over a year ago.
I just returned from the Apple Store. The fellow at the Genius Bar feels my Hard Drive has started to die. The machine took a physical hit about 5 days ago. A new HD with labor and Jaguar installed into it will run me just shy of $ 300.00.
Find prices for 2.5" hard drives here (40 GB laptop drives are going for less than $80)
(I’m assuming that you have the Jaguar system CDs…)
You should be able to find a how-to guide for swapping the hard drive at this section of xlr8yourmac.com
If you don’t find it at that specific page…you should be able to find a guide somewhere at that site.
If you take your time…you should be able to swap out the drive for less than $100. The only other concern would be backing up important data. You can use the CDR drive to burn to floppy.
On preview…I found another resource for your powerbook
Damn, Dave, you’re good. And I wish to god I’d seen this before I went to the Apple Store and surrendered my machine and paid a deposit of $ 2,500.00… :eek:
I do appreciate the info- how great. I will go to the links and save that info. For the next hard drive that crashes…-deep dramatic sigh-.
PBfixit is a great site! I just replaced my hard drive (iBook G3) using their directions. It was just like I knew what I was doing. The whole thing took me about an hour. Oh yeah, find and print out the screw guide, too if you do it yourself. It’s invaluable for keeping things organized.
Nope. No diagnostics past what I ran. The fellow watched it react, and listened to the Hard Drive as it spun and did it’s incredibly slow task.
Believe it or not, I put a lot of stock in people who listen to machines, instead of just using software to diagnose. They will test the HD before they pull it and put in a new one. No way I can be paying for a new HD when they might be slipping me my old one- they are electronically ID’d. I know what my HD is. If they charge me for a new one, A) I get the dead one back, and B) The ID won’t match.
And, remember, I did drop the shoulder bag holding the laptop. It took a hell of a hit- possibly skating the read head across the platter, or ( and I think this is it ) slightly dislodging the platter on it’s bearings.
