Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Computer slowed to crawl

Have recently updated iTunes to 7.6.2 on Powerbook G4 running Leopard 10.5.2. After I have played music for a couple of hours, the entire system runs at a crawl if I try to run other programs like Excel. The music continues to play fine. When I try to quit iTunes, it takes forever for the computer to respond. Even opening Forced Quit from the Apple Menu is extremely slow. When I force quit iTunes, it takes way too long to quit. Once I restart my computer, all appears to function normally but the symptoms reappear after I play music for awhile.

My iTunes library is on an external firewire drive attached to my Powerbook. I have reinstalled iTunes, created a new library and reimported my 4000+ songs. At this point I have no plans to update my MacBook Pro.

Macbook Pro 17" C2D 2.6GHz 200Gb @7200rpm - 2Gb Ram - 1920x1600, Mac OS X (10.5.2), Powerbook G4 17" 1.3GHz 80Gb ( (10.5.2)

Posted on Apr 11, 2008 11:23 AM

Reply
5 replies

Apr 11, 2008 7:37 PM in response to Betty R. Beckham

Betty,

I'd recommend using Disk Utility to repair disk permissions. Force quitting can wreak havoc, and should only be used as a last resort. I've seen apps suddenly come to life after (seemingly) doing nothing for over five minutes, which feels like five hours when you're sitting looking at an unresponsive screen.

But second, how much memory does your PowerBook have?

Apr 12, 2008 8:56 PM in response to Brenton Bills

I have run Dick Utility several times in the past two days and I have no errors. I have 1Gb of Ram. I'm no longer sure it is related solely to iTunes. Rebooted this AM. Came back to the computer after several hours. The display should have been asleep but the screen saver was running. When I tried to wake the computer, everything was extremely slow to respond. Finally was able to restart the computer and ran Disk Utility (again). Something is amuck but I'm at a loss to know what to try next other than boot to an external firewire drive and see if the symptoms persist.

Message was edited by: Betty R. Beckham

Message was edited by: Betty R. Beckham

Apr 12, 2008 9:18 PM in response to Betty R. Beckham

Betty,

Two more questions: how much free space do you have left on your 80GB hard drive? Second, have you also updated QuickTime to 7.4.5? There have been many, many people experiencing problems with iTunes 7.6.2 if they don't also have QT 7.4.5 installed.

I'd also recommend going to System Preferences>Accounts and creating a new user. Then log in as the new user and see if the problem manifests itself. This will tell us whether the problem is system-wide, or connected only to your account.

Another thing you could do would be to restart the PowerBook, and when it's back up, to open Activity Monitor before doing anything else. Then start using your computer as you normally would. When it starts to slow down, switch to Activity Monitor and look to see if there are any processes that are using close to 100% of the processor, or that are using up an unusually large amount of memory.

Apr 14, 2008 6:47 AM in response to Brenton Bills

I installed the update for QT at the same time I did the iTunes update. Have 20% free on my hard drive.

Your suggestions about the Activity Monitor and creating a new user have been most helpful. I noticed that my hard drive available space dropped from 15.3 GB to 12.63 GB after the computer had been running for awhile. Activity Monitor revealed that System Memory dropped from 467 MB free to zero with a swap file growing from zero to 2.26 GB. This last was where the available HD space was going. The Activity Monitor showed that the program LogMeIn was grapping 1.36 GB at start up.

I exited LogMeIn at startup under a new user and computer ran like a champ for half a day with iTunes running the entire time. Restarted with LogMeIn available and within hours had a slow computer, hugh swap file and no free System Memory. Only thing running was an Apple screen saver.

I have uninstalled LogMeIn and will see if my former user keeps performing well. I had formerly had Tiger on my laptop's internal drive and was running Leopard from an external 320 GB firewire drive while I evaluated Leopard. Within the past week had moved Leopard & updated programs to my internal drive. This larger drive may have masked the swap file issue since it has so much free space. I will test the operation with the computer booted to that drive.

At this point I think that LogMeIn is the cause of my problem not iTunes.

Thank you again for your problem solving suggestions.

Computer slowed to crawl

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.