Another question on Mac Pro RAM

Mossalses usually means that the Migration Assistant made a mess of the system.

If you have 2GB RAM, 2x512MB in each Riser, that is what I have, but not using Office, but should be fine.

2GB more would cost $600. Apple and Micron/Crucial look to be the same (Apple often but not always will use Micron). There isn't much difference even in price, all of those meet the same specs.

Reinstall the system. Or do an archive & install. And do some deep cleaning of cache and such. Maybe Office wasn't installed properly or needs to be reinstalled.

Most people find the MacPro to compare favorably if not faster, depending on configuration, RAM etc.

If this is a new machine the slowness could simply be due to the fact that Spotlight is indexing the drive. Indexing can take a couple of hours during which time the machine will run slower.

On Intel Macs PowerPC apps such as Word will run slower because they must run through the Rosetta PPC emulator. This is normal and will be the case for all PowerPC apps. You can expect about a 30 percent performance hit compared to running them on a PowerPC.

If you are using all your RAM then you are running a lot of applications at the same time. If this is necessary then you may need more RAM. However, you may simply be misinterpreting the information. Although the system may have allocated most of the RAM you have, it may not be in use - it may be in an inactive status. Use Activity Monitor to check how the RAM is being used. Inactive RAM is simply RAM that has been allocated but is not in use. It is still available if other applications need it. The total available RAM is the sum of free RAM and Inactive RAM. See the following:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20010613140025184
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107918

I never use Word, so I don't know what normal is, and if you didn't use the M.A. utility, at least that isn't it.

I had 1GB and it was always using 800-950MB pretty much no matter what. And when I am scanning and such I need and see 1.4GB used.

OS X is using memory behind your back to cache windows, files, disk I/O. I don't see any page outs now.

Disk drives make a huge difference on performance, responsiveness and perceived zip. A slow drive can hold things back, and most find the OEM drive to be sluggish. I chose the 160GB drive (a dog) and replaced it with WD Raptor and RE 320GB drives. Raptor for boot drive, 2nd drive for home directory and files.

Word runs under Rosetta. There were some updates I think. There was one for Quicken 2006 that helped. Having two PPC programs running did seem to be terrible. The next OS update is suppose to improve on Rosetta.

If I had $500 to try to solve this sluggishness, I would look at one or more of:

150GB Raptor $275
2GB RAM $499
2 x 250-320GB drives $200-270
2 x 74GB Raptor $175 each

$240 for FW800 backups (but I assume you have that).

Did you keep any of your old SATA drives from G5? or are you still using it? That would help, but you need to reformat and repartition to change from the PPC-APL scheme to Intel-GUID.

With PPC I would use "Applejack" to delete the main Library and System Library cache folders with each and every OS update, or after a freeze or cache and let them be rebuilt.

Any or some PPC startup items or background tasks? those can also hog cpu and memory slightly.

Keep your Activity Monitor open (launch on login) and watch memory and cpu in the dock and on screen and see what is happening and where the hold up might be.

I don't think RAM will help unless you are paging out, and are seeing 1.6GB RAM in use regulary. I generally have 1GB free though. That is really using a lot of RAM. Take a look in Activity Monitor, click on "Real Memory" and see who is hogging it.

Spotlight: you know, it just does not faze that 10K Raptor - at all. FW drives, yes, and I turn it off (Privacy) for each. Does not seem to affect WD RE 320GB either.

Shame RAM is going to stay at current prices longer than expected, but you probably need more. And need a disk drive or two.

Glad to help. I have a Mac Pro with the same configuration (2 GBs), a single 250 GB hard drive, and the 7300GT video card. I definitely would not call the machine "slow." However, if you are not careful about installing universal binary software or careful about what you move from your old machine to the Intel Mac, then you can inadvertently contribute to slowness. See the following:

A Basic Guide for Migrating to Intel-Macs

If you are migrating a PowerPC system (G3, G4, or G5) to an Intel-Mac be careful what you migrate. Keep in mind that some items that may get transferred will not work on Intel machines and may end up causing your computer's operating system to malfunction.

Rosetta supports "software that runs on the PowerPC G3 or G4 processor that are built for Mac OS X". This excludes the items that are not universal binaries or simply will not work in Rosetta:

• Classic Environment, and subsequently any Mac OS 9 or earlier applications
  
• Screensavers written for the PowerPC
  
• System Preference add-ons
  
• All Unsanity Haxies
  
• Browser and other plug-ins
  
• Contextual Menu Items
  
• Applications which specifically require the PowerPC G5
  
• Kernel extensions
  
• Java applications with JNI (PowerPC) libraries
• 
  See also What Can Be Translated by Rosetta.
  In addition to the above you could also have problems with migrated cache files and/or cache files containing code that is incompatible.
  If you migrate a user folder that contains any of these items, you may find that your Intel-Mac is malfunctioning. It would be wise to take care when migrating your systems from a PowerPC platform to an Intel-Mac platform to assure that you do not migrate these incompatible items.
  If you have problems with applications not working, then completely uninstall said application and reinstall it from scratch. Take great care with Java applications and Java-based Peer-to-Peer applications. Many Java apps will not work on Intel-Macs as they are currently compiled. As of this time Limewire, Cabos, and Acquisition are available as universal binaries. Do not install browser plug-ins such as Flash or Shockwave from downloaded installers unless they are universal binaries. The version of OS X installed on your Intel-Mac comes with special compatible versions of Flash and Shockwave plug-ins for use with your browser.
  The same problem will exist for any hardware drivers such as mouse software unless the drivers have been compiled as universal binaries. For third-party mice the current choices are USB Overdrive or SteerMouse. Contact the developer or manufacturer of your third-party mouse software to find out when a universal binary version will be available.
  Also be careful with some backup utilities and third-party disk repair utilities. Disk Warrior (does not work), TechTool Pro (pre-4.5.1 versions do not work), SuperDuper (newest release works), and Drive Genius (untested) may not work properly on Intel-Macs. The same caution may apply to the many "maintenance" utilities that have not yet been converted to universal binaries.
  Before migrating or installing software on your Intel-Mac check MacFixit's Rosetta Compatibility Index.
  Additional links that will be helpful to new Intel-Mac users:
  Intel In Macs
  Apple Guide to Universal Applications
  MacInTouch List of Compatible Universal Binaries
  MacInTouch List of Rosetta Compatible Applications
  MacUpdate List of Intel-Compatible Software
  Written by Kappy with additional contributions from a brody.
  Migrating to Intel-Macs.txt
  For maintenance read the following:
  Kappy's Personal Suggestions for OS X Maintenance
  For disk repairs the best third-party utility is Disk Warrior. DW only fixes problems with the disk directory, but most disk problems are caused by directory corruption. However, DW is not yet compatible with Intel Macs. TechTool Pro provides additional repair options including file repair and recovery, system diagnostics, and disk defragmentation. TechTool Pro 4.5.1 is Intel Mac compatible.
  OS X performs certain maintenance functions that are scheduled to occur on a daily, weekly, or monthly period. The maintenance scripts run in the early AM only if the computer is turned on 24/7 (no sleep.) If this isn't the case, then an excellent solution is to download and install a shareware utility called Macaroni that will automate the maintenance activity regardless of whether the computer is turned off or asleep.
  OS X automatically defrags files less than 20 MBs in size, so unless you have a disk full of very large files there's little need for defragmenting the hard drive. As for virus protection there are few if any such animals affecting OS X. You can protect the computer easily using the freeware Open Source virus protection software ClamXAV. Personally I would avoid most commercial anti-virus software because of their potential for causing problems.
  I would also recommend downloading the shareware utility TinkerTool System that you can use for periodic maintenance such as removing old logfiles and archives, clearing caches, etc.
  For emergency repairs install the freeware utility Applejack. If you cannot start up in OS X, you may be able to start in single-user mode from which you can run Applejack to do a whole set of repair and maintenance routines from the commandline.
  When you install any new system software or updates be sure to repair the hard drive and permissions beforehand. I also recommend booting into safe mode before doing system software updates.
  Get an external Firewire drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is significant):
  1. Retrospect Desktop (Commercial - not yet universal binary)
  2. Synchronize! Pro X (Commercial)
  3. Deja Vu (Shareware)
  4. SuperDuper (Commercial)
  5. Carbon Copy Cloner (Freeware - not universal binary.)
  6. LaCie SilverKeeper (Freeware - not universal binary)
  7. RsynchX 2.1 and PsyncX 2.2.1 (Freeware)
  Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance, optimization, virus protection, and backup and restore.
  Additional suggestions will be found in Mac Maintenance Quick Assist.
  Referenced software can be found at www.versiontracker.com and www.macupdate.com.
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You could upgrade to 4GB by trading in your 2GB for $280 with OWC.

Other World Computing is offering a REBATE if you TRADE-IN the factory memory when you purchase your memory upgrade. They've also dropped their prices on Mac Pro memory.

(I really don't think it is necessary to "reward points" or ask for such... )

He didn't use Migration Assistant, and the need to paste a canned FAQ Tutorial on the subject...?

The FAQ is not specific to Migration Assistant, but to migrating in general from PPC machines to Intel.

And, thank you for your polite comments.

I have found that word loads slower than a g5 under rosetta with the mac pro, but during actual usage it is just as fast as before. Did you uninstall the test version of office that came on the macpro before installing office? If not you may need to do a clean reinstall of the system and then uninstall the test version before reinstalling your actual full version. I have 1 gig of ram and as noted, during actual usage, word, even with very large complex docs runs at least as fast, if not faster, than on my first generation 1.8 gig 1 processor g5.

If you clean install and know you are installing a full version of Microsoft Office v.X or 2004 then you should use the customisation options to not install the Test Drive at all.