# How to speed up my G4 eMac??



## Sneblot (Nov 18, 2008)

Ok so I have had this eMac since about 2004 I know its getting old but its starting to really slow down I was wondering if there was any way to speed up the thing again with out having to re-install the OS x which is 10.3.9. 

Heres the specs:-
1GHz PPC G4
768 MB SDRAM
80 GB HDD

Is there any software out there which can at least improve it alittle??


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

Software, nope. As the harrd drive gets more full, it will start to slow down. I'd make sure you have at least 10 GB free on the drive at all times. Less than that, time for a bigger drive, or to clean house. The only other thing you can do to help it is to install the max RAM it can have. Also, going ahead and upgrading to 10.5 will help a little. I had an iBook with the same speed CPU in it, and it ran 10.5 just fine with 1.25 GB RAM.


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## Sneblot (Nov 18, 2008)

sinclair_tm said:


> Software, nope. As the harrd drive gets more full, it will start to slow down. I'd make sure you have at least 10 GB free on the drive at all times. Less than that, time for a bigger drive, or to clean house. The only other thing you can do to help it is to install the max RAM it can have. Also, going ahead and upgrading to 10.5 will help a little. I had an iBook with the same speed CPU in it, and it ran 10.5 just fine with 1.25 GB RAM.


Sadly I have around 36GB free on the HDD (although it has had less the 5 MB on it in the past) and also I was told when I brought the machine that it will only take up to 1GB of ram :sigh:. I cant afford to upgrade the ram to 1GB or buy the latest OS x. So I suppose slowness is something I will have to get used to with this thing :sigh:


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## fluxfold (Apr 20, 2009)

I suggest you max out the memory if you want programs to run faster. Also make sure the RAM is the fastest available for your machine. i suggest you look for RAM at macsales.com or on the Low End mac swap list by joining at http://lowendmac.com. there are a number of lists there that will help you. Which was 10.3 ? Panther? There is a list for Panther.

Also when was the last time you defragged the hard drive? This should be a regular ritual. Also you can look on versiontracker.com for software to weed out old files and repair files.


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## Sneblot (Nov 18, 2008)

I had been told you couldn't defrag a mac HDD cause there was no utility for that purpose.

If you can how would I go about it??


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

Defragging a hard drive on the Mac is not necessary. And in fact it can be bad. When you install software, the installer automatically finishes with "optimizing system performance". What it is doing is arranging the programs in such a way that they run the best. If you defrag the drive it may move those programs to a place on the drive that would slow it down. When it comes to just plain old files, it doesn't matter how they are on the drive.


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## fluxfold (Apr 20, 2009)

No defrag? No optimisation?
Sorry I am old school and say " sheesh ! ". Mac OS like other OSes writes files all over the disk breaking them off and mapping them. the more breaks the more the read/write head has to change directions to find where to continue. If you drive to the store and keep changing direction more times than a direct route how much distance and time will you add to the trip?

Apple's own site says optimisation is unnecessary. BUT as always their site is aimed at selling the latest and greatest. Newer drives are bigger and faster sure. but does that mean you cannot speed read/ write times? One of their arguments is that while optimizing the disk the power may go off! I think the author of that tidbit had a blackout from too much sugar. 

A long time standard for disk defragging, optimization, repair, and recovery is Disk Warrior. There are others out there.

http://www.alsoft.com/index.html

And despite Apple's denial remember we are talking here about a G4 eMac.
Yet Disk Warrior will deal with Intel Macs as well.

You might save money getting an older version to match your machine from eBay or the lowendmac.com swap list.

Adrian :smile:


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## fluxfold (Apr 20, 2009)

You say you have 36 GB available as free space. But what would a graphic analysis of it's distribution show? I am guessing there would be a lot of fragmentation. Especially if you have ignored this operation in the past.

Here is a low cost disk utility you may like;

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Intech USA/SPEEDCD/

Upgrading to Tiger may give some relief. However you may find Leopard taxing your system to the limit for hardware resources.

Adrian


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