Power Mac G5 Has Slow Internet

HarrisonMG wrote:

Also, I found a great deal for 4GB of ram for the Power Mac G5 on eBay. Would that help?

More memory is always better. We do not know enough about the problem to say whether or not memory is the stumbling block. But about a gig of memory is about the minimum amount of memory to run a web browser like TenFourFox these days. You should be running TenFourFox on a g5. Anyway, memory is so inexpensive on these older machines that you should max out the memory.

I found out that the ethernet card is too outdated to process all of the information that is coming in.

In short, this is a bunch of rubbish. The ethernet hardware isn't slowing things down. Doesn't slowdown or change with age. An eithernet port is still faster than almost any broadband you will get in the home. There is always a small chance you have a hardware fault with the card, but ethernet ports rarely fail.

You should try the memory download speed on both machines. For the test, I recommend a cable connection on both machines. Since you are complaining about speed a cable connection will give you the fastest speed without question. You should run the test again with wifi to compare to the cable connection. You should be able to approach 30 to 50 percent of the rated speed without question.

You should run activity monitor to see what is going on.

Some semi-random thoughts on addressing performance problems.

Activity Monitor
Look at what is happening with your Mac when you run Activity Monitor.

Macintosh-HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Activity Monitor

Look at my activity monitor image below.

Make sure you are looking at all processes.

Make sure that you have clicked on the cpu tab. make sure the triangle is down.

You can gain some understanding of Activity Monitor by looking at it every once in a while. Look at the small graph below to see the total cpu time used. See what processes are listed on top.

Here is how I have my cpu display set up:

AppleJack
"AppleJack is a user friendly troubleshooting assistant for Mac OS X. With AppleJack you can troubleshoot a computer even if you can't load the GUI, or don't have a startup CD handy. AppleJack runs in Single User Mode and is menu-based for ease of use."
http://applejack.sourceforge.net/

Console
You can use the console application to examine Mac OS log files. The logs will contain information on various system processes.

Macintosh-HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Console

File > open console log
this will display the startup messages

and
file > open system log
once the system is started, messages will go into the system log

Other folks
bdaqua advises running disk utility from install disk ( or recover partition ) and performing a safe boot:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2256611
Using the Recovery partition

Hold down command+r at boot.
http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT4718
http://osxdaily.com/2012/02/03/how-to-boot-into-os-x-lions-recovery-hd-partition /

K Shaffer advises checking for available RAM

Is this your complaint? "Has Slow Internet"

What is slow about the internet. Please describe a scenario that is slow. Provide a link to the slow page.

However, when I start a video on YouTube, the CPU spikes to pretty much the top.

This isn't a problem. It's how it is. This is an eleven your old machine. The internet has advanced a lot in this time. You may be asking too much of your machine.

You need to use Activity Monitor and see how your machine is running. Run it when the internet is slow. Check:

-- cpu usage

-- memory usage

-- i/o

-- network usage.

You are trying to find out what the problem is. Once the problem is identified, perhaps you can devise a fix.

Robert

The CPU & especially the GPU are going to have problems with today's bloated Internet, a single page may be loading thousands of things,but 300 MB of free RAM isn't enough.

As a test, since my site loads in a second or 2 even on Dial-up,try that & report the perceived speed...

My Site...

http://x704.net/bbs/

Could try this speed test...

Here is a web site that will rate your connection. It will work on your ios device and your Mac. It uses HTML5.
speedof.me

Use speedof.me it's easier. You will need a modern web browser.

click on Start Test. I wouldn't worry much about other apps. Just make sure other apps are not making heavy use of the internet, like mail, downloads, etc.

You will see something like. I'm on a 750kbs dsl line.