Apps sure take a while to fire up in a MBP

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Vito117

n00b
Joined
Jul 17, 2004
Messages
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I've noticed something on a Mac....that apps like Safari, Firefox...Sketchup......etc... take a somewhat long time to start up.
Unlike my windows XP/Vista box that zips them up in seconds.

What or is the cause ,and is this normal in a Mac OSX environ?
 
what are the specs of your MBP, you really need at least 2gb of ram for a good osX experience.

Firefox also takes a long time in general to launch the first time, but after the initial launch it should be instant when you click the icon again.
 
Sorry about that....I knew better.

  • MAC BOOK PRO
    Dual boot Tiger/Leopard
  • 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
  • 2GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM-2x1GB
  • 100GB Serial ATA Drive@7200rpm
  • SuperDrive 8X
  • 17" Glossy Widescreen Display
  • No Modem
  • BkLit Keyboard/Mac OS
 
have you checked activity monitor if there's some broken app or something eating up your CPU?
 
Well you have a very good computer. I would first check to see if anything is running in Rosetta... that may be slowing you down. Maybe some kind of Mod or addon.

If that isnt it, I would say back up everything, and clean install Leopard. That way you can be sure you are starting fresh. - Thats what I would do.
 
Checked my activity monitor and it looked like Spotlight was running at 1.5GB of virtual memory. I did a force quit of it and it seems to speed things up.
Is this amount of virtual memory normal for this app?
 
Well my total system Virtual Memory is 45GB large... Having a large VM isnt really a bad thing.
What are your page outs?
 
Vito117 said:
Checked my activity monitor and it looked like Spotlight was running at 1.5GB of virtual memory. I did a force quit of it and it seems to speed things up.
Is this amount of virtual memory normal for this app?
Click to expand...

mine is at about 900 megs and safari, itunes, etc open almost instantly (one bounce)

same machine, running leopard
 
4b5eN+EE said:
mine is at about 900 megs and safari, itunes, etc open almost instantly (one bounce)

same machine, running leopard
Click to expand...

wow

My apps bounce for about 10-20 seconds before opening.
It's been like this since the MBP was new.
Both Tiger and Leopard OS's
 
on my macbook, when I started getting close to maxxed out hard drive space, everything took forever to do.
 
Vito117 said:
wow

My apps bounce for about 10-20 seconds before opening.
It's been like this since the MBP was new.
Both Tiger and Leopard OS's
Click to expand...

I would save your docs/music/pix and Format your hard drive clean, and reinstall just Leopard.

I dont even have to wait a full bounce for apps to open with my 2.4GHz MBP/4GB Ram.
 
You've got a problem. A clean install fixed me up good, but I used to wait 5-10 bounces after a clean boot for programs to open. Now its 1 or 2.
 
I'll do a format + clean install today.

What is the best way to format the drive clean?
Use my Leopard install disk?

This is a first time Mac format for me and I want to be sure I do it right.
 
Once you've backed up all your files, insert the OS X DVD and reboot the computer. When you select your destination volume, there will be a button underneath that allows you to customize your install. This is where you'd choose what type of install you want to do. Each option is described in plain language.
 
I did a zero erase of both partitions then removed partitions then did a zero erase of the drive itself .
Re-formatted the drive as usual.
Installed a fresh Leopard.

Big difference now.
Applications and windows open mucho faster now!
A couple of bounces on the dock and poof!....application starts up and ready.
 
Nice. I do wonder what the cause was.

In the past I realized that some Dashboard widgets I was running were in Rosetta (baaaaaaaddddd), that helped a bit.

I was going to post that I have a 2 GHz Core Duo and even when I only had 1 GB of RAM things usually opened within 3 bounces.
 
The 2 biggest killers of performance in OSX are unknowinly running PPC apps in the Background and Rosetta is emulating the code, and if you installed some type of Mod/Addon to OSX such as shapeshifter or something that will alter the appearence (GUI) of OSX.

Either way, Glad its fixed for ya. Enjoy Leopard!
 
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