Re: Old Mac Mini - what system to upgrade to?

David Empson wrote:
E Z Peaces <cash@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

For eight months I used this Ethernet interface with my DSL modem with
an external startup disk that didn't spin down, and wake-ups were quick.
That's why I think it involves the change to an enclosure that lets
the startup disk spin down.

The internal drive in all Macs is normally spun down when the computer
wakes from sleep, and I'm not aware of seeing similar issues on any
PowerPC Mac running 10.4 from an internal drive.

I haven't noticed delays when starting from my internal drives. It spins up loud and fast.

I suppose an external startup disk going to sleep might result in a
stalled file system access due to the drive controller not completing an
I/O request until the drive spins up (which could be different to how an
internal drive behaves).

That still doesn't explain a 30 second delay. The drive startup should
be much faster than that (6 to 20 seconds, as you noted).

I checked it electrically and with a stethoscope. It spins up a little faster than typical: 4-5 seconds. That seems to point to the drive controller. I don't know if it's a defect, a feature of the chipset, or something designed into the enclosure.


What do you actually see on the computer during this 30 second delay?
It varies. The display comes up in a second or so. There may be no cursor. If there is a cursor, clicking something has no effect.

I have my clock showing seconds on the menu bar. It may freeze 38 seconds. It may freeze for part of the period or not at all.

Probably relating to a stalled I/O operation, or some critical component
of the user interface stuck waiting for lookupd to be available.

On the last slow wake-up where I checked the log, there was an abnormal lookupd exit one second after waking. It didn't involve reading the disk and didn't stall the computer.


Menu meters shows my CPU usage on the menu bar. Once in a while it will
show a continued 100% during the delay. Otherwise it may show little
CPU activity.

The read light on the external drive will be on.

The diversity of symptoms suggests there are various pieces of information that may be lacking for 38 seconds at wake-up.

What but my external drive could take a consistent 38 seconds to supply
various pieces of info? Maybe mine takes longer than Hitachi says because the enclosure doesn't supply a surge with a full 12 volts at a
full 1.9 amps. Maybe 3.5" disks required less spin-up current when the
enclosure was designed, or maybe the enclosure engineers found that limiting spin-up current would extend the life of a disk.

I suspect there is something going on like a slow retry due to a failed
operation - something fails on the first attempt, and is then retried
about 30 seconds later. During this 30 second delay, lookupd isn't
running and lots of other things are blocked waiting on lookupd.

I doubt that lookupd is specifically the cause - there is something else
going on which is delaying lookupd starting up.

I get what might be the same problem on my MacBook Pro - sometimes it
makes me wait something in the order of 10 to 50 seconds after wakeup
before the screen comes to life. Prior to that point it has no active
network connections either.

I have found that with Safari running, I may have only a sliver of free
memory. I quit Safari before the next time my computer slept. When it
woke an hour later, the process took only three seconds according to the
log.

If that's not coincidence, maybe the problem is that on wake up, the computer may need bits if information that have been paged out, and with
a disk that spins up slowly, that may take a long time to get.

Maybe, but in my case I get no audible disk activity - the computer just
seems to frozen one step into wakeup.

Me too, a normal hum with no head chatter, but the read light is on.


From the day I got my Mini, I noticed slight delays responding to mouse
clicks, compared to my 1996 Mac running Classic. Maybe the slight delay
came from needing information that had been paged out.

So maybe more memory could get me a more pleasing response to mouse clicks.

Perhaps - if the click was on a window for an app which had been paged
out.

It seems more like background processes that a click may trigger and aren't done in Classic. My BIL commented on it with his G4, too. I quickly adapted to it, but when I would use my old computer, I'd notice that responses were more consistently brisk.

I wish I could keep my external disk from spinning down, which saves only four watts, or a penny per 25 hours of sleep. What would be
the harm in keeping my Mini awake and letting only the display sleep?

Even more power consumption.

I checked. My Mini and external drive use about 20 watts less asleep.

Well, as long as the slow wake-ups don't seem to portend disk trouble, I guess I can wait 38 seconds to access the drive after a wake-up.
.

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