Re: iBook G4 running really slowly

<jdr.smith@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

(Rowland McDonnell) wrote:
Chris Ridd <chrisr...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
(Rowland McDonnell) said:
Chris Ridd <chrisr...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
(Rowland McDonnell) said:

But we are also told that journalling means that the file system can
self-repair on the fly.

OK, its 'Game Over' on this one folks !

Changed the hard disk, reinstalled Leopard...sorted now works fine
with journaling turned on.

Definitely the hard disk !

Faulty ? I don't think so.. incompatible maybe ? most likely..

Smells like a fault to me. There's no reason I can think of that
`incompatibility' could cause the HDD to be able to only fail to write
journal entries quickly.

It's just writing to the disc, isn't it? <shrug> All standard
interfaces, yes? If the signalling's not working, the drive's not
working; if it's working, it's working.

But what do I know about the details? Clearly something was wrong.

Odd that the disk seemed to report that it was OK.

The tests you have available don't test everything.

Plus I've now put that disk in a PC laptop and it's working just fine.

Okay, that's bloody strange. <chuckle> I know - the drive has an
allergy to journalling.

Still, I wonder if there's something about the region of the drive that
contains the journal - I'm wondering if it's put into a characteristic
place that just happens to be dodgy in this HDD, and that region isn't
written to much in `normal file operations'.

But that really is clutching at straws, that is.

I've replaced it with a Hitachi drive, slightly more noisy, but hey
it's super fast..

Next problem is when I do software updates they all come down just
fine and install OK, 300MB odd.

The I run software updates again and get Leopard graphics update or
something like that.
Upon the reboot I just get a black screen instead of the desktop ! All
I can do is just switch off.

<http://www.tuaw.com/2008/02/20/leopard-graphics-update-does-a-de-rez-on
-external-displays/2>

doesn't report the same symptoms that you see, but it's all about
`problems with Leopard Graphics Update' on laptop Macs:

=====================================================================
Still, one of the reasons I heart MacFixIt is because there's usually an
offbeat (not to say wacky) workaround in the mix when a problem comes on
the radar. In this case, the suggestion that made me go "Wha? Nah!" was
to power on the laptop, immediately close the lid (with external display
still attached) and wait for the machine to boot completely. I tried it;
lo and behold, the external display is now recognized correctly, and
when the machine is slept and awakened or "Detect Displays" is
triggered, everything behaves as expected.

Sometimes, when the weirdest possible fix is the one that works, you
just have to put the laptop down and slowly back away.
=====================================================================

(btw, it's worth reading the article - he refers to zapping the PRAM.
PRAM is the Mac name for the CMOS RAM BIOS settings - resetting the PRAM
to defaults (zapping the PRAM) is a troubleshooting fix worth trying
sometimes.

(except that these days, there's also `NV RAM' (non-volatile RAM) as
well as PRAM and I have no idea what that's about - but have a peek at
these key combos
<http://www.tuaw.com/2006/03/27/tuaw-tip-keyboard-shortcuts-during-mac-o
s-x-startup/>)

Ditto deleting preferences files - he tells you which one's relevant in
this case.)

Have tried this twice now with the same result.

If you meet that sort of thing, it's not a bad idea to wait. Sometimes
waiting for a very long time produces results. Not often, mind - but
still, if I'd installed a Mac update, and saw something like that, I'd
walk away and leave it for an hour just in case.

At the moment I'm resigned to not doing the second update..say what
gives..

It seems like you've got a dodgy updater. Happens sometimes. Other
people have had trouble with it on their laptop Macs, although the
precise symptoms I've read appear different to what you're reporting.
If your Mac is a `more or less current type of Mac' you can expect Apple
to come out with a fixed version of the updater in the not too distant
future. Well, that's what usually happens - not always, but usually.

One problem is that while Apple is normally fairly good at fixing
problems, it's always bloody awful at admitting that they were there in
the first place. Sometimes it's not obvious what's the fix for the
dodgy version, if you see what I mean.

What I do with software updates is wait for a few days after they've
come out and then do a Web search on:

"<name of software update> problem"

just to make sure it's okay. btw, shortly after I'd decided to stop
taking this precaution, I got bitten by a dodgy updater myself (10.4.10
buggered up sound on our G4 iMac) and started doing the check again.

For now, if I were you, I'd try booting off your OS installer DVD, and
after making sure I had a current backup, I'd - well, what I would do
would be to re-format the laptop's HDD and yes that's right, install
everything from scratch again.

But this time, I'd do a backup before starting to apply any updaters,
and then another backup after I'd installed `All the updaters I knew had
worked okay last time'.

It's just a myth that Mac's never go wrong you know ;-)

<crooked grin> uk.comp.sys.mac was founded - by me, as it happens[1] -
because we know damned well that the damned things most certainly do go
wrong...

What's the Mac equivalant of booting up in 'Safe Mode' ? so that I can
uninstall the update or any future updates that don't work out ?

Hold down `shift' on boot (I think). You might find this handy:

<http://davespicks.com/writing/programming/mackeys.html>

But I don't see that it'd help at all in uninstalling the update - the
thing's installed, it's replaced what had been on the HDD, the only way
to avoid using the new code on boot is to boot from a different disc (or
wipe out the OS installation on the MacBook's internal disc and
re-install from scratch - which you might be able to do without much
bother if the thing will start up as a Firewire target disc hooked up to
another Mac. Procedure: connect two Macs via a Firewire lead. Have one
booted. Fire up the other one, holding down `t'. If `this other one'
turns up as a mounted disc on the already booted Mac, that's what's
expected - it'll work just like any other external hard disc drive).

Rowland.

[1] Well, there we were, all of us using Demon's Mac support newsgroup,
and thinking `Hmm - erm, how about a non-ISP-specific UK Mac newsgroup,
eh?' and I suggested tentatively that it might be an idea to go through
the proper formal process to get ucsm created. And because I suggested
the idea, they all said `Off you go' when I asked if anyone wanted to do
the job and I said `Oh, okay' and did it.

--
Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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