Member Avatar for nspireing

Sorry to go UB33R L33T there but trying to stay decent.

Heres what i got. I have a 1gig Emac 512 megs ram. 10.3 and a 40 gig hard drive.

Ive done nothing more drastic then search the web. This is my first mac and though i consider my self knowledgable im more knowledgable about the different macs and the hardware then the software.

anyways. Im running into an issue with this mac that it will run sooooo unbelievably slow, programs will freeze and i will have to force quit or restart daily. Icons will randomly shift and move. Ive lost ability to change certain system settings, mainly display properties. the internet for me is a horrible experience. I was so happy to get a mac and never see spyware again and though i dont think i have any my 1.5 meg DSL runs like dial up more often than not. My PC's are unaffected. I cannot download file larger than 5 megs they will fail, wether in downloading in Safari, firefox or IE they all fail. So i cannot even hope to update the system.

Now at this point i did what im sure most people are thinking. I restored the system and ran the hardware tests for good meassure. system ran fine except i still couldnt download large files. No biggie there i could download on a pce and transfere. a few days maybe a week latter im out again same issue. Ive tried to live with it while i ressearch and try to figure this out but my instant messanger (ichat) disconects every few minutes or freezes without me knowing and i miss conversation. No i dont live on my computer but its a great way to unwind at the end of the day.

for my internet i have SBC yahoo DSL im told this is part if not a major factor in my problems by a few mac guys, they say theve seen this issue on SBC before. I also have a wifi router hooked up to split the internet. now ive played with the settings in the router and looked through the log its not lost IP for weeks. And the PC's are running fine. atleast since i banned IE and installed firefox all around the house.

Well im gonna leave this now to the better minds out there. Please can someone help me!!!

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by yellow

Dani AI

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Given the pattern described (frequent freezes, System Preferences crashes, one-off fixes by removing prefs, and downloads failing above a small size), the most useful approach is to treat this as two parallel problems: (A) local system instability (RAM, corrupted user prefs, or a flaky disk) and (B) a network/MTU issue that breaks larger transfers. The next steps should be about isolating which side is responsible before any hardware replacement or reinstall.

Start with simple isolation on the Mac itself: boot into Safe Mode (it verifies the startup disk and disables third‑party extensions), then check disk health and run First Aid if needed; if the disk looks fine, run a thorough RAM test (memtest/Rember are the common tools for older OS X), and use Activity Monitor + Console to look for heavy swap, runaway processes, or crash reports. (support.apple.com)

Network troubleshooting should be done in parallel: connect the eMac directly to the DSL modem (bypass the router) to see whether large downloads still fail; create a fresh network location or reset the Mac’s network configuration files in /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration if the Mac’s DHCP/route state is corrupted. If the ISP uses PPPoE (SBC/Yahoo often did), MTU/fragmentation can break larger transfers — lowering MTU (for PPPoE the common value is 1492) or adjusting router PPPoE settings often cures partial-download failures. (discussions.apple.com)

Tie‑ins to the thread: ’s suggestion to check the disk and permissions is a good starting point; ’s RAM question is also important — 512MB under Panther with Safari/Firefox + iChat makes swapping likely, so prioritize a long RAM test and consider upgrading to 1GB if tests are clean. If the problem survives Safe Mode, a clean new user account eliminates per‑user prefs as the cause; if both user and network isolation still fail, run Apple Hardware Test or have a shop run a longer diagnostic.

Recommended Answers

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Member Avatar for yellow

Is your hard drive full?

Member Avatar for kc0arf

Hello,

That would be a great place to start... seeing if the HD was full.

Member Avatar for nspireing

My drive is no where near full. im not at it to give you an exact amount but of 40 gigs i have the basic install plus some family pictures and a cds worth of mp3s so basic isntall plus two standard cds worth of data on a 40 gig hd. I just recently restored.

Member Avatar for kc0arf

Hi,

Next thing I would do is run a disk repair, and a permissions repair on the hard disk. Go to the SYSTEM --> Applications --> Utilities, and run Disk Utility.

Let us know what you found.

Christian

Member Avatar for yellow

Repairing is a good next step..

Beyond that, did you install the RAM yourself? Is it after-market 3rd party RAM or did it come from Apple with 512MB?

Member Avatar for nspireing

i believe it came with the 512. Disk repair? is that on the hardware disk?

another issue i keep noticing is when i goto change my back ground i goto system prefrences then desktop and screen savors. then it will crash and give me a do you want to send to apple pop up. ive found that if open the prefrence file under user/library and delete everything in it, the desktop prefrence menu will work until the next time i try to change my background.

Member Avatar for CEDickson

With that many problems all at once, I'd supect a virus problem. Do you have an updated anti-virus program? May not be THE problem but it should be eliminated.

Good Luck

C

Member Avatar for yellow

LOL. Sorry, there are no Mac OS X viruses, so there's a 100% chance that it's not virus related.

Disk Repair is on the Installation CD/DVD. Boot from that, choose Disk Utility from the Installation pull-down menu. Select your boot drive, click on Repair Disk.

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