Maxed out Mac Pro (nearly new) DEAD SLOW - why???

Your post (in bold no less?) suggests it wasn't setup or configured properly but there is nothing in it to let us know.

Maxed out might mean different things and it might be good idea to strip it down to basics and start to troubleshoot and test.

For all we know the RAM isn't configured or installed properly. Or the operating system.

Hi George,

My computer is and always has been very fast. It is faster then my windows computer. Can you list out what specs you have? Did you max it out through Apple? What applications are you using with this mac? Are you using dual monitors?

Thanks,
Jerimy

It is almost never a good idea to buy memory from a vendor. You could buy Crucial or various others for less.

Some disk drives are better than others, and a few are darn right bad. And again, never ever buy your disk drives direct or as BTO (it has to come with one drive obviously).

What is it used for? there are different ways of thinking about how to do things and configure slightly depending on video editing, graphics, etc.

A couple people work their system so hard, it took a while, but finally got it setup. Very very large files, and a lot of batch jobs in Adobe, and they needed to set it up with top of the line disk drives in stripped RAID before it was working smooth.

Only install software that is needed. One can install something that sounds useful, only to find it slows things down. Just learned that from an NTFS (Windows driver) so I could write to NTFS format volumes.

Latest versions of all software obviously.

Hardware wise a 16GB 3GHz (8 cores) with 4 x 750GB WD RE2 drives comes in under $7500. Of course software could double that.

The OS is good. The hardware is mostly plug and play though take that with grain of salt and realize it gets more complex the more you try throw at a system.

And you or your system and work probably use or need to use external storage RAID for editing, storage, backup, rendering, etc. Which can add thousands.

Of course asking questions is the only way to learn or try out ideas, and doing the 'research' or getting educated before plunking down $$$$ the better - or finding a trustworthy VAR or friend or such.

The Mac Pro is also an excellent Vista workhorse, though Apple's latest OS (10.5.1) walks away with a good 15% lead.
http://www.barefeats.com/york.html - OS X vs Vista / Woodcrest (current cpu vs Penryn (Intel's 2008 chipset)

DITTO!

I have a new (<6 Months) Mac Pro that is so slow I just want to back over it with my car sometimes. What should take me 20 minutes or so in Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, etc. ends up taking me hours because of constantly waiting on the spinning colorwheel from ****. Personally, this is my first mac that I have owned and I know that it can work better and faster than it does. . .I just don't know what to do to make it do so.

Here are my specs and what I'm running:

2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon Processor
2 Processors
4 Cores
4 MB L2 Cache (Per Processor)
2 GB Memory
1.33 GHz Bus Speed

OS 10.4.10
Running Adobe CS2 Web Bundle Professional, Pro Tools M-Powered 7.4, Director MX 2004, Office: Mac 2004 Professional, Final Cut Studio 2

I am very frustrated.

HELP!

upgrade to CS3 and add more RAM

That is a great point. You can be running the fastest computer in the world but if you are using old software that wasn't built for the computer (an example being CS2 running under rosetta versus CS3 running natively on intel) then you will see performance decreases. If production is in your interests I would:

1) Get rid of any excess applications and add them back in slowly over time. Do not add in applications that you don't have the latest versions of those software packages or do so knowing there will be performance hits.

2) I would start with a fresh install of the OS so that you can clean out any applications or possible setting issues.

3) I would recommend running windows on boot camp rather then under any other application. Also note that you should dedicate one of the hard drives to windows (for optimum performance) with the differences in drive formatting required (FAT32) etc.

4) Hatter had some points on making your main boot drive just of the applications and OS and your user is stored on another drive. That is supposed to speed things up. You can search the forums for more information.

5) I would take the computer into the Apple store (schedule an appointment) and see if they can analyze what is going on. It is more difficult for them to do so if you have some antiquated software you are running.

But I think the summation of our points is to keep it as simple as you can. I wouldn't add lots of 3rd party stuff to a production machine and I never add not common 3rd party software. Infact with a machine like that I would assume that you are going to use this as a video editing production machine so I would load only the latest versions of the pro apps and the necessary tools you need. That way you don't let other apps get in the way of the performance.

Saying that, my mac is my personal and work horse. It has performed exceptionally well compared to other macs I have had in the past. This is a human built machine so you will see flaws but there is not as many flaws as I have ever had with a windows machine. I have also found that as you own your mac longer the more stable it is. It sounds weird but I think as newbies we have a tendency to try every setting and try all the questionable apps trying to find the really quality apps. After you get your set of applications you'll find that stability and speed will be the part you will enjoy the most. BTW sorry you are having the problems you are having.

no, no, no, something is not normal here.
georgezilla and JAGaroutte,
your machines aren't healthy, somethings wrong.

a good first step, you came to this forum. But troubleshooting can be hard from a distance. So i might suggest;

seek out your nearest Users Group. Georgezilla, you're in St Louis? I bet theres a big one there.

My local users group has almost 4000 members, and has set up a schedule where volunteers make themselves available over the phone to help the others out. We have monthly meetings with usually over a hundred in attendance.

Most universities have groups like this or clubs.

Then theres always the nearest apple genious bar...


If i'm not mistaken, CS2 is emulated, in any case, it doesn't run natively.
But thats not the problem, your machines have something wrong with them.
Especially when EVERYTHING is affected.

Georgezilla, when did you buy yours?

JAGaroutte, you really should put much more RAM in. especially with the programs you're running.
I often have the activity monitor open on mine, and i'm ALWAYS, over 3,5 gb used, and thats doing practically nothing. its real easy for me to make my machine use all 8gb.
The good news is, those FB-DIMMS are way cheaper now than they were just a few months ago. I'm gonna buy another 8gb in a couple of months.
And make sure they're correctly installed.

JAGaroutte, you might try to upgrade your OS to 10.4.11.

Finally, theres is something that i would do, before bringing the machine in to the shop; reinstall the OS (clean install)

oh yeah, almost forgot, you guys could try running the apple hardware test (AHT) that should have come with the machines, either on a seperate DVD or on the intallation discs.

Plus, you could try testing your RAM by running a diagnostic tool called Rember.
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/15837/rember

Several things come to mind. First of all try to repair permissions on all of the discs. The next thing that you should do is let the system run all night without touching it. This will allow the system to do some maintenance. Another thing that may help speed things along is to restart the machine and hold down the command-option-P-R keys on restart. This clears out the PRAM settings. Another thing that will help is to make sure that your software is up to date. What system are you running? 10.4.10 has been stable for many folks, however, I have found that 10.5.1 works fairly well, and in particular, is much speedier with older legacy software under the Rosetta emulation.

Are your running Adobe Creative Suite 3? This is native to the Intel Mac Pro. Other versions run under emulation and will be slower.

You should make sure that your start up drive stays healthy and free of extraneous software and data files. You may want to assess your RAM. There is a hardware test on the system disc

Good luck!

Just a test I did on my mac, it took Photoshop CS3 9 seconds to load. It is so much quicker then the 30-50 seconds it took on my old powermac.

CS2 was way too much trouble, buggy, lots of crashes and conflicts.

Also, just running anything that is not what Apple calls "Universal Binary" (runs native on Intel Macs as well as PowerPC Macs) can be trouble.

Importing PowerPC applications into a Mac Pro will cause system to run like MOLASSES. Usually only happens when someone comes from a G4 or G5 Mac, not starting fresh. And I do mean molasses.

Photoshop Guide to Performance and Acceleration - there is a pdf guide worth reading, including a benchmarking test script to time your machine, with the files you work with.

Boot from a dedicated drive might even be RAID.
One or two drive RAID stripped to use for scratch only.
Data or media drive.

There were lots of threads when the Mac Pro was new, with problems related to CS2, and a lot of users waited for CS3 to be out before buying a Mac Pro.

Lean and mean equals fast and stable and ideal performance. That means only install what is needed, no extras or 'gadgets' or widgets.

And disable SPOTLIGHT on drives used by Photoshop for editing and scratch is a must, too. Which is why the pdf Guide is a good place to start.
http://www.macgurus.com

George, I feel your pain. I too have a maxed out Mac Pro;

Mac Pro - 8 Core (Dual Quad-Core 3GHz)
16GB RAM (Crucial Memory)
4x 750GB Drives
ATI 1900x Vid Card
2x 30" Cinema Displays
etc etc etc .... I even have a 2-port eSATA cables installed (OWC) with a 1.5TB external drive (Iomega, and fast as the dickens!)

My machine has been in the Apple repair facilities THREE times so far (I am working with an executive relations person for 3 months now) and we are about to swap it out for a new machine because the term "ghosts in the machine" apply to many Mac Pros. In fact, the last time Apple fixed this machine was yesterday, replacing a bluetooth module, and as soon as I booted the machine it started having kernel panics (for the first time), we thought it was the RAM Riser cards being seated wrong... after making sure everything was seated properly, and doing a complete OS reinstall, it is still kernel panic-ing every hour (if I let the machine sit quietly)...so, there is a ghost in this machine that does not want to go away.

To get your situation though, MY machine has ALWAYS been much slower than the dual-G5 I replaced last April. You are not alone here. This is an 8-Core machine, ran Tiger slow and is now running Leopard only about 20% faster, which is still slower than the G5. Makes me want to cry sometimes because I paid, what, $1300 for the processor upgrade alone?

Something is wrong with your machine. I suppose you have already tried to reinstall, reformat your drives, correct permissions, etc and still found your machine wanting in the ways of speed, right? What you need to do is to contact Apple Executive Relations and tell them what is going on. Once they see that you ordered such an expensive machine (no one buys extra RAM from Apple so they will sympathize right there!) they WILL contact you and work with you until your problem is solved. The only reason they have not replaced MY machine yet (they will usually do so after the 2nd or 3rd repair attempt) is because in my case I cannot afford the downtime. Now, however, I think we have to because no one can figure out why this machine is having panics after sitting still for an hour.

Anyway, be assured this is NOT representative of Apple or the Mac Pro speed. Mac Pro's are plenty fast, and unbelievably fast with newer, Intel-based software (CS3), and even though Leopard has many many bugs it is faster than Tiger. My partner has the same machine as I do and it is so fast I think it does most of his work before he even arrives in the morning.

Work with Apple, let them fix your machine or replace it. They will.

A way of finding out what on earth your Mac is doing is through "Activity Monitor".

Start your Mac to a clean desktop and run Activity Monitor (its in Applications - Utilities) and check your disk and CPU to make sure nothing is already pegging it at a high level.

Once you have made sure that the system is truely "idle", make sure you resize the columns so you can see the type of Binary that is running - the far right column will show "PPC" or "Intel".

Start the application that is slow and check how much CPU it is consuming and whether its a PPC or Intel binary. If its PPC then it is being emulated on Intel and is likely going to be REALLY slow.

I am no expert - this is just something I say from experience.

I got mine with minimum everything so I could afford the higher processor, the 2.66Ghz. Only 1 GB of RAM and everything.. and it still exceeded my expectations with speed - much faster than what you guys are describing. Something is wrong!

I dont think it was meant to be funny, but i cant stop lol.

John Manzione
My partner has the same machine as I do and it is so fast I think it does most of his work before he even arrives in the morning.