[Hidden-tech] Need quick advice on Mac OS 10.2.8, please

[David Haines]

Sorry, but my reply was meant for Shel Horowitz's thread. If I am  
mistaken and the "Need quick advice on Mac OS 0.2.8, please" thread  
was in fact originally yours, then I apologize. If you are one and  
the same, then I apologize.
Otherwise, I was not and - as a matter (truly) of professional  
knowledge - I will not, attempt to apply advice for one situation to  
another situation.

If yours is a different machine (with other potential details), then  
I politely ask that you do not consider my suggestions to apply for you.

One size -truly- does not fill all, and (similar) symptoms do not  
imply (similar) causality.

With any older computer (Mac or otherwise), you need to think about  
the fact that they -do- have a finite life-span, which can (and is)  
greatly variable depending on long-term environmental conditions, the  
quality of electricity in your home or business &/or if a quality UPS  
has been used and its battery replaced regularly, the way(s) in which  
the machine has been used, and more.

Depending on your model of Mac, the Hard Drive is the/one of the main  
moving components. It spins many thousands of times per minute. Just  
like we understand tears wear out with use over time, so does your  
drive. If the drive hasn't been replaced and your computer is 3 years  
old (or more), I hope you are (!) vigilant about backing up your data :)

Stuttering in playback of a video file can be due to fragmentation,  
but can also be due to other hardware issues, including an  
underpowered machine (in relation to the filesize - and I mean  
potentially a really old Mac and video card/system), an old slow  
(5400 RPM) drive, and more.

As a policy, my company recommends against repairs or upgrades for  
very old machines, but everything depends on specifics (machine and  
owner ! :) ). I typically tell people: double the age of your  
computer to get a better sense to you of what its age truly signifies  
- in relation to how quickly computer technology continually  
advances, and how much of what we take for granted now assumes you're  
using the latest & greatest (or close to it).

David Haines,
ACDT, ACPT, ACTC
Core Solution Group
http://www.coresolutiongroup.com


On Apr 6, 2007, at 6:30 PM, Mark & Mary Knox wrote:

> David, I tried both the suggestions, whether my imagination or not,  
> the PRAM (alone) seemed to help a little bit, I could run a 9  
> minute MPG2 fiie via QT, was a little jerky but better. The startup  
> seemed a bit faster as well. I went ahead and did the Power  
> Management reset and it seemed a bit worse, though I believe it  
> also does a PRAM reset as well (?) the MPG2 file was very jerky and  
> finally stopped. I will try cleaning more files off the hard drive  
> and reduce it to about 50% but it doesn't seem like a fragmentation  
> problem and starting up with the MAC utility disk, the board,  
> graphics, & HD passed inspection. Keep wondering if it is a  
> software or operating system problem, since it happened suddenly.
>
> Thanks for the suggestions, Mark
>
> On Apr 6, 2007, at 3:52 PM, David Haines wrote:
>
>>   ** The author of this post was a Good Dobee.
>>   ** You too can help the group
>>   ** Fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
>>   ** If you did, we all thank you.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Apr 6, 2007, at 10:07 AM, Charlton Wilbur wrote:
>>
>>>   ** The author of this post was a Good Dobee.
>>>   ** You too can help the group
>>>   ** Fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
>>>   ** If you did, we all thank you.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Apr 5, 2007, at 5:48 PM, Shel Horowitz wrote:
>>>
>>>> 1. How does one defrag a hard drive in OS 10.2.8? I knew how to  
>>>> do it in OS 1-9 but I don't know how with my current system.  
>>>> Performance has gotten really slow the last couple of weeks, and  
>>>> I suspect fragmentation. (Or is there something else I should be  
>>>> doing to restore performance speed?). It has used 34.65GB out of  
>>>> 55.89.
>>>
>>> Apple's HFS+ doesn't suffer from fragmentation in the same way  
>>> that Microsoft's FAT32 and NTFS file systems do, and OS X takes  
>>> great pains to keep files smaller than a fairly large size  
>>> (20MB?  I don't remember the number precisely) contiguous on disk  
>>> at all times.  Odds are that something else is wrong.
>>>
>>>> 2. Twice this week, I have been unable to wake up this Mac when  
>>>> it's asleep. Both times it was several hours into a massive file  
>>>> upload using YouSendIt (today's was ~680MB, and it got up to 30%  
>>>> within a couple of hours, then just sat there, and then when I  
>>>> came back an hour after I'd last used it, no matter what I did,  
>>>> I got a dark screen with only the power light on). I don't know  
>>>> if a similar problem had occurred the previous time, but I *was*  
>>>> in the middle of an upload.
>>>
>>> If it doesn't happen any other time, I'd suspect YouSendIt.  If  
>>> it happens with other programs too, I'd recommend checking to see  
>>> if there's a firmware upgrade for your machine, and considering  
>>> an upgrade to 10.3 or 10.4 -- power management has improved  
>>> considerably since 10.2.
>>
>> Please keep in mind that the de-fragmentation features of Mac OS X  
>> were introduced as of 10.3 and so this is a moot point for Shel's  
>> machine running 10.2.8.
>>
>> The de-fragmention mentioned (again, true only for 10.3 onward)  
>> involves two mechanisms:
>>
>> 1) "Hot-File-Adaptive-Clustering," in which the most actively used  
>> files are moved to more efficient sectors of the Hard Drive (NTFS  
>> does something similar) over time,
>>
>> and
>>
>> 2) de-fragmentation of files on the fly: when a file is accessed  
>> and is 20MB or smaller, and the file is fragmented.
>>
>>
>> As for the wake-from-sleep issue: it could be an issue with an  
>> attached device (USB). With a symptom like this, "zapping" (or  
>> resetting) the PRAM is probably a good idea. While this step is  
>> really & truly not a panacea, there are times when it can do some  
>> good. If the issue persists, you might be seeing symptoms of a  
>> hardware problem (PMU).
>>
>>
>> David Haines,
>> Core Solution Group
>> ACDT, ACPT, ACTC
>> _______________________________________________
>> Hidden-discuss mailing list - home page: http://www.hidden-tech.net
>> Hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net
>>
>> You are receiving this because you are on the Hidden-Tech  
>> Discussion list.
>> If you would like to change your list preferences, Go to the  
>> Members  page on the Hidden Tech Web site.
>> http://www.hidden-tech.net/members
>>
>>
> "Be the world you want to see." (m.knox)