iMac Doesn't Seem All That Fast....

[carfac]

Hey:

Everyone always talks about how fast the Intel iMacs are and such. I do not think so....

My 20" iMac is much slower- side by side- with my 2 year old HP AMD 64 bit laptop. Safari and Firefox are pathetically slow, compared to FF or IE on the HP (and the laptop is wireless- iMac is ethernetted right into the router).

I click on things, and it just does not seem as spunky as my Win machines.

So, when people say the Intels are fast, do they just mean compared to a G4?

Dave

 

[Demon Hunter]

Hey:

Everyone always talks about how fast the Intel iMacs are and such. I do not think so....

My 20" iMac is much slower- side by side- with my 2 year old HP AMD 64 bit laptop. Safari and Firefox are pathetically slow, compared to FF or IE on the HP (and the laptop is wireless- iMac is ethernetted right into the router).

I click on things, and it just does not seem as spunky as my Win machines.

So, when people say the Intels are fast, do they just mean compared to a G4?

Dave

If you actually ran a benchmark, you would find that the Core Duo smokes your old laptop in every aspect. The subjective difference between OS response time is a poor approximation of processor speed.

As for your internet, there are a number of possibilities:

• The Firefox build is more efficient on Windows XP;
• Your router's firewall is preventing network traffic;
• Your laptop has more RAM or idle time, etc.

 

[carfac]

Laptop has less ram, and both are behind the same router. SO maybe the FF build is better on Win. But, as an example, on this site, I wait 20 seconds or more to change pages, any page. Win, they just whip right up.

I would say that appearent speed is more important than actual or measured, just because I sit here and notice the "appearance"- I do not work in benchmarks.

Does anyone else think the mac seems slower than their win machines?

 

[carfac]

I would say, though, that when multi-tasking, Apple shines. I can get a lot of things going, and nothing seems to slow down. Win- everything you add slows things down!

Dave

 

[amin]

... But, as an example, on this site, I wait 20 seconds or more to change pages, any page. Win, they just whip right up.

Something is very wrong there. If your iMac has this issue "out of the box," then I'd say it is defective. Of course there are other explanations related to user error/ignorance, but I am giving you the benefit of the doubt.

 

[QCassidy352]

Something is very wrong there. If your iMac has this issue "out of the box," then I'd say it is defective.

absolutely.

 

[dpaanlka]

I bet a dollar you're having good old DNS trouble.

Try going into the Apple menu, click on "System Preferences", click on "Network", double-click "Built In Ethernet" or "Airport" depending on what you use, and in the box that says "DNS Servers" type the following in exactly:

4.2.2.1
4.2.2.2
4.2.2.3
4.2.2.4
4.2.2.5
4.2.2.6

You can copy and paste that block of IP addresses if you wish. Quit System Preferences, and try loading pages again.

Also remember that on any Macintosh application where you can have more than one window open at a time (basically everything), closing the window does NOT quit the Application as it does in MS Windows. So if you have a ton of programs running all the time because you never quit them, that can cause trouble too.

 

[im_to_hyper]

Laptop has less ram, and both are behind the same router. SO maybe the FF build is better on Win. But, as an example, on this site, I wait 20 seconds or more to change pages, any page. Win, they just whip right up.

Yeah, that happens for me under both FF and Safari on my MacBook: they whip right up. Also, the FF Beta 2 build from their website seems a lot faster. Its probably something with your router.

Did that last guys DNS thing help?

 

[carfac]

dpaanlka:

Thanks- I will give that a try tonight! I am thjinking it must be some weird thing in the networking- the apple site takes me like 25 seconds (I timed it) just to get a rudimentry page- a nother 20 seconds to get the images. My laptop, 2-3 seconds.

That bit about closing but not quiting apps got to me when I first switched- I am not pretty aware of that.

Maybe this might have something to do with it: I have the iMac connected via ethernet, but it also connects via wireless. Should I turn off the wireless? Could THAT be causeing confusion?

Dave

 

[madmaxmedia]

dpaanlka:

Thanks- I will give that a try tonight! I am thjinking it must be some weird thing in the networking- the apple site takes me like 25 seconds (I timed it) just to get a rudimentry page- a nother 20 seconds to get the images. My laptop, 2-3 seconds.

That bit about closing but not quiting apps got to me when I first switched- I am not pretty aware of that.

Maybe this might have something to do with it: I have the iMac connected via ethernet, but it also connects via wireless. Should I turn off the wireless? Could THAT be causeing confusion?

Dave

If you really want to test FF or Safari alone, save a page to your computers (with graphics included), then see how fast they open the page. The pages should open very fast on both, even with more complex pages (that's why I recommended saving the graphics as well as the HTML page.)

You shouldn't have to permanently shut down the wireless to get good response on your wired ethernet. I run a similar setup (wired eMac and wireless PowerBook) and have no problems. There's got to be something going on.

 

[carfac]

Thanks Max- will try tonight!

 

[tomacintosh]

Install Windows on you iMac and then open IE, you'll be pleased. OSX is known to be a bit sluggish compared to XP, it's probably to do with all the cool effects and nice icons etc. The best thing is though, it's the same speed whether you have one app open or whether you have 10 apps open, thats the beauty of OSX, aslong as you have a decent amount of ram it multi-tasks far better than Windows.

 

[amin]

Install Windows on you iMac and then open IE, you'll be pleased. OSX is known to be a bit sluggish compared to XP, it's probably to do with all the cool effects and nice icons etc. The best thing is though, it's the same speed whether you have one app open or whether you have 10 apps open, thats the beauty of OSX, aslong as you have a decent amount of ram it multi-tasks far better than Windows.

I disagree. There is no need to install Windows on a Mac to have a zippy machine. I have Windows on two of my Macs and two non-Mac PCs as well. The Macs perform as well in OS X as they do in Windows. A new 20" iMac in OS X should blow the doors off a 2-year-old HP laptop running XP. Time to open a website isn't a good indicator of system speed.

 

[dpaanlka]

Install Windows on you iMac and then open IE, you'll be pleased. OSX is known to be a bit sluggish compared to XP, it's probably to do with all the cool effects and nice icons etc. The best thing is though, it's the same speed whether you have one app open or whether you have 10 apps open, thats the beauty of OSX, aslong as you have a decent amount of ram it multi-tasks far better than Windows.

That was the worst piece of advice I ever heard.

Where do you people come up with this stuff?

 

[tomacintosh]

He was saying IE opens quicker on his laptop than Safari or Firefox does on his mac wasn't he? Therefore if he wants to compare the raw speeds of both machines using that pathetic test then I'm saying he should install Windows on his mac and see how quick it opens IE. I know when I first got my iMac G5 2.1GHz after moving from an Athlon XP3200 I thought Windows was a much snappier OS. But now I'm used to OSX it doesn't bother me, maybe the new Intel iMacs are quicker, but there we are.

It all depends whether he's saying the progam itself takes a while to open, or the actual pages themselves are taking long to load, in which case it's something to do with the throughput of his internet connection.

Not the worse bit of advice you've ever seen

 

[gloss]

It all depends whether he's saying the progam itself takes a while to open, or the actual pages themselves are taking long to load, in which case it's something to do with the throughput of his internet connection.

Read more carefully. He's saying pages that load very quickly on his laptop over the SAME connection are taking 20-30 seconds on his iMac, which shouldn't be happening. It may be a hardware issue, although he should hope not.

 

[Jimmieboy]

Just a thought. Maybe your laptop is loading the sites from cache while your imac is actually downloading them?

 

[gloss]

Just a thought. Maybe your laptop is loading the sites from cache while your imac is actually downloading them?

Still shouldn't take that long unless he's on small pipe broadband.

 

[Jimmieboy]

Still shouldn't take that long unless he's on small pipe broadband.

Thats true. It could be a number of problems. If it was displaying any other strange activity I'd take it to an apple store.

 

[tomacintosh]

"I click on things, and it just does not seem as spunky as my Win machines."

Sorry I read that bit and got a bit mixed up with what he was trying to say.

Ok, so carfac, have you tried your Laptop using the ethernet cable or connecting your iMac through the wireless? That's the first thing I would do to eliminate any possible problems with the router itself

 

[gloss]

"I click on things, and it just does not seem as spunky as my Win machines."

Sorry I read that bit and got a bit mixed up with what he was trying to say.

Ok, so carfac, have you tried your Laptop using the ethernet cable or connecting your iMac through the wireless? That's the first thing I would do to eliminate any possible problems with the router itself

Yeah, sorry, I sounded snapper than I intended.

 

[Nutter]

dpaanlka:

Maybe this might have something to do with it: I have the iMac connected via ethernet, but it also connects via wireless. Should I turn off the wireless? Could THAT be causeing confusion?

Dave

It might. Try turning off AirPort using the little menu in the top right of the screen.

Alternatively, you can change the order in which Mac OS X uses network connections by opening System Preferences and clicking on "Network". In the "show" popup menu, select "Network Port Configurations". You can then drag and drop items in the list to change the order. It makes sense to put Built-in Ethernet at the top and AirPort underneath.

 

[carfac]

Hi:

First off, let me thank all of you for your help. I got a little busy last night (explained a bit later), so I was not able to run all the tests yet- will continue to do stuff today. But, I have switched the Mac to Wireless, and did a quick test of another computer wired- no appreciable difference.

I have two surprises for you. One is I have made a video so you can see what I mean. The first is a WIRELESS computer in my system going from MacRumors to Apple.com- takes all of 3 seconds. Then you can watch the mac take 15 seconds to go to the store on tghe apple site. That is my daughter asking for more milk. Here is a link- this is the first time I have tried this, sio I hope it works. Bad camerawork, I know- I just wanted to get it up. Link here for a 800K MOV file:

http://www.cartoon-factory.com/win_vs_mac.mov

I HOPE that works!

Surprise 2- I was busy last night switching from an Intel Core Duo to a C2D. Again, no appreciable change from the two iMacs- both seem equally "unspunky." Itunes and stuff seem fine, but go to the iTunes music store and I wait at least a minute- so I am guessing this is an Internet set up problem. Maybe my router has it in for Macs? It has secret programs to throttle Macs???? (It is an actiontec BTW)

Thanks!

Dave

 

[carfac]

Hi:

First off, let me thank all of you for your help. I got a little busy last night (explained a bit later), so I was not able to run all the tests yet- will continue to do stuff today. But, I have switched the Mac to Wireless, and did a quick test of another computer wired- no appreciable difference.

I have two surprises for you. One is I have made a video so you can see what I mean. The first is a WIRELESS computer in my system going from MacRumors to Apple.com- takes all of 3 seconds. Then you can watch the mac take 15 seconds to go to the store on tghe apple site. That is my daughter asking for more milk. Here is a link- this is the first time I have tried this, sio I hope it works. Bad camerawork, I know- I just wanted to get it up. Link here for a 800K MOV file:

http://www.cartoon-factory.com/win_vs_mac.mov

I HOPE that works!

Surprise 2- I was busy last night switching from an Intel Core Duo to a C2D. Again, no appreciable change from the two iMacs- both seem equally "unspunky." Itunes and stuff seem fine, but go to the iTunes music store and I wait at least a minute- so I am guessing this is an Internet set up problem. Maybe my router has it in for Macs? It has secret programs to throttle Macs???? (It is an actiontec BTW)

Thanks!

Dave

 

[SeVeN]

wow. that is slow. but my iMac opens pages faster then that laptop, and its a G3 .

maybe you just got a defective Mac.