Upgrading a Mac Powerbook G4

**Captain_Rightfoot** · 12th October 2008, 06:47 AM

I agree with the RAM suggestion.

Generally Apples don't really slow down like windows machines through their lifetime. You can't really do defrags because the OS does disk management better so it's not really a problem. It can be done but it is dubious as to the result.

However you can do a permissions repair which may help (I'm told). It's never done anything for me but maybe before bed one night it might be worth a try.

Open diskutility. Use spotlight (Apple-space) and type in "disk utility". It should come up as an app. Hit that. Select mac hard disk and then click repair permissions or verify permissions. It might take a while.

EDIT: Also is she starting it and re-starting it every time? If she doesn't remind her to re-boot it every few months. If she does re-start it then tell her not too! Macs have **really** good sleep modes. Just leave the computer when she is done with it and it should pop to sleep in a few minutes (unless someone has tinkered with it). You can also tell it to do it or close the lid. When she wants to use it just tap a key or open the lid. It will be right for action in <5 secs!

**abaddonxi** · 12th October 2008, 08:27 AM

Originally Posted by p38arover

Thanks Simon, I'll give it a go.

Do you drink red wine?

Ron

Not as much as I'd like to.

**p38arover** · 12th October 2008, 09:34 AM

Originally Posted by Captain_Rightfoot

When she wants to use it just tap a key or open the lid. It will be right for action in <5 secs!

That's why she want s new Mac. It takes well over a minute to come up after sleep mode.

**Captain_Rightfoot** · 12th October 2008, 09:50 AM

Originally Posted by p38arover

That's why she want s new Mac. It takes well over a minute to come up after sleep mode.

Is this something that has changed over time or always been that way?

If it's always been that way it's possible someone told it to "safe sleep". That means it writes the memory to disk and shuts down (no battery drain). This mode takes far longer to wake though.

Have a read of this.

Can you start terminal and check the sleep mode? If you want I'm happy to call you and talk you through it.

INC, have you heard of this stuff happening? You've been around apples far longer than me

**p38arover** · 12th October 2008, 10:24 AM

I tried that link and entered

pmset -g | grep hibernatemode

It didn't give any response - just a new line.

So we tried

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

It gave a warning message but allowed us to continue. We did that but there was no response afterward. We tried the first pmset again but, again, no response.

Gahhh! I hate Macs. I'm far more comfortable with Windows and MSDOS.

FYI, before we did this we tried opening the Mac and timed it. 45 Secs to usable. Then we closed it down and tried again after 10 minutes. Almost immediately it was usable.

**disco2hse** · 12th October 2008, 11:02 AM

Originally Posted by p38arover

It didn't give any response - just a new line.

That's cos it worked

Originally Posted by p38arover

So we tried

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

It gave a warning message but allowed us to continue. We did that but there was no response afterward. We tried the first pmset again but, again, no response.

That's cos it failed then when you tried again, it worked

That's difference between Unix and Windows. In Unix usage the assumption is that the user knows what they are doing; in Windows usage the assumption is that the user doesn't.

Alan

**Captain_Rightfoot** · 12th October 2008, 11:07 AM

If you ever run a command and you don't know what has happened try "echo $?" that will give the result of the last command. The standard is 0 for successful and other numbers depend on the command.

Let's hope that works. By the way Ron you've told it do do something that microsoft have never been able to do. Standard on your 4/5 year old mac

**Captain_Rightfoot** · 12th October 2008, 11:08 AM

What is more in safe sleep it writes a 1gb file that you may be able to delete. That link I gave had another link that talked about it. Check the file date was after the last sleep to be sure it's still not using it!

**dmdigital** · 12th October 2008, 11:09 AM

Just as an aside to this if you are looking at replacing the Macbook Apple looks to be launching new ones this week according to macrumors.com and a few other sites.

**Captain_Rightfoot** · 12th October 2008, 11:12 AM

Originally Posted by dm_td5

Just as an aside to this if you are looking at replacing the Macbook Apple looks to be launching new ones this week according to macrumors.com and a few other sites.

Hopefully the first new case in years. They should be swish! There were rumours they were going to be cheaper but given our $$ slide against the US I'm not sure what price we'll se here

Look for it Wednesday morning (our time ) at about 3 am

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