My Mini is slow and crashes.

[Cagle]

I have a 09 Mac Mini, 2GHz Core 2 Duo, with 3GB of memory, running Mac OSX 10.5. For the past few months it's been running slower and slower, with PS4 crashing (especially moving layer order) and now in the past week Final Cut 6 has started doing the same. Are there some basic tests I can run to see where the problem lies?

As a side note, our wireless network seems decidedly slow(always has really), even though speedtest.net shows above average results for our ISP(see below), skype keeps displaying a low bandwidth warning, just on a voice call.

dl: 18.27 Mb/s
ul: 2.69 Mb/s

....as another side note. browsing time capsule is much slower than browsing folders on the Mac HD, even though it's connected by ethernet.

 

[iVeBeenDrinkin']

Reinstall the OS.

 

[BlindSoul]

Yeah, It sounds like you got some files on your Mac OS X That slow down the whole system, It's not really related to the Mac Mini itself. Just reinstall your Mac OSX.

 

[iGrant]

Before you go that route, try Onyx, and try cleaning up the entire system. Its free app and it works great. Here is the link to their download section:

http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs/english/apps.html

But yeah if that doesn't work, I would say re-install.

-iGrant

 

[emptyCup]

Have you run Disk Utility? What are your Page Outs vs. Page Ins? Free Disk Space vs. Total Disk Capacity?

 

[ADent]

Can you log in as another user and see the same problems?

 

[iGrant]

Can you log in as another user and see the same problems?

Actually that is a really good idea, that will tell you if its a global system issue or an issue related to your specific account!

-iGrant

 

[Cagle]

Have you run Disk Utility? What are your Page Outs vs. Page Ins? Free Disk Space vs. Total Disk Capacity?

Sorry, I reinstalled Leopard before I saw your message, but even after the reinstall it's still choppy, for instance, the playhead in final cut still takes about a second to move after I click along the timeline. Is this normal for a Mac mini?

Currently, with final cut and Photoshop running, my activity monitors shows the following:

Free is 1.21gb, used is 1.51gb, page ins are at 382mb and page outs are at zero.

Strangely, or not, after the reinstall all my files, including the desktop ones, are where I left them; I was under the impression a reinstall and archive moved them off to their own area.

 

[DoFoT9]

Are there some basic tests I can run to see where the problem lies?

most certainly! there are many tests.

however...the following comment leads me to thinking that you are running everything off of the Time Capsule..

....as another side note. browsing time capsule is much slower than browsing folders on the Mac HD, even though it's connected by ethernet.

running files/documents for PS/FCP is NOT recommended on the TC. it spins down a lot and can cause a LOT of lag for the end user - its main purpose is as a backup machine.

i recommend that if you are doing the above, run everything locally first to see how it goes - the fact that its via ethernet doesnt matter as it isnt the bottleneck.

now, as for other tests..

1. HDD - i guess its worth trying geekbench or xbench, post the results here and we can look into it

2. RAM - you should open up Activity Monitor - go to the memory tab and tell us page ins/outs/swap file etc, just take a screen shot. its also worth seeing how much memory each process is using up, you can post a screen shot of the processes sorted by memory

3. CPU - it could be that there is something using cycles, such as antivirus programs or flash websites or something, you can also post these/check these via Activity monitor.

Sorry, I reinstalled Leopard before I saw your message, but even after the reinstall it's still choppy, for instance, the playhead in final cut still takes about a second to move after I click along the timeline. Is this normal for a Mac mini?

what quality of video are you using?

Currently, with final cut and Photoshop running, my activity monitors shows the following:

Free is 1.21gb, used is 1.51gb, page ins are at 382mb and page outs are at zero.

ahh. ok plenty free. its not a memory issue.

Strangely, or not, after the reinstall all my files, including the desktop ones, are where I left them; I was under the impression a reinstall and archive moved them off to their own area.

archive and install does exactly that. it backs up all of your user files, preferences, installed files etc - then reinstalls the OS files only.

 

[iGrant]

I'd say backup everything to an external drive or DVDs and do a format and install, I never liked doing those re-installs that went over the exist OS . . . never set right with me.

I'd be curious to see what the issue is. I saw that you are running 10.5, have you thought about upgrading to 10.6?

-iGrant

 

[DoFoT9]

I'd say backup everything to an external drive or DVDs and do a format and install, I never liked doing those re-installs that went over the exist OS . . . never set right with me.

I'd be curious to see what the issue is. I saw that you are running 10.5, have you thought about upgrading to 10.6?

-iGrant

haha sorry for staling but i have done many archive and reinstalls in my time and my experience has been different

 

[iGrant]

haha sorry for staling but i have done many archive and reinstalls in my time and my experience has been different

I have heard that from several others, just seems I never get it to work well, Granted its rare when I have to re-install OS X, its a beefy OS, however when I try tapping into the UNIX core and start messing with that is when I usually get myself into trouble

-iGrant

 

[DoFoT9]

I have heard that from several others, just seems I never get it to work well, Granted its rare when I have to re-install OS X, its a beefy OS, however when I try tapping into the UNIX core and start messing with that is when I usually get myself into trouble

-iGrant

HAHA! thats a bit silly then my MBP has 10.5 on it, its been on there for about 3 years and still going strong (it would have been longer but i messed up the file permissions when i was younger lol). i dont think i have ever had to reinstall OSX/OS9/OS8 for ANY computer i have owned, always cloned the disk to the newer one etc.

 

[Sun Baked]

By crashing, do you mean the System freezing, where the only thing moving is the mouse?

If so, a HDD check is in order. Please repair the drive using Disk Utility or fsck.

Could be some orphaned nodes or other minor drive error causing problems.

---

For peace of mind for yourself.

Use Techtool Pro check the smart status.

If you don't want to spend a dime, try out SMART Utility.app.

Either of which will show the number of bad sectors and drive errors.

 

[iGrant]

By crashing, do you mean the System freezing, where the only thing moving is the mouse?

If so, a HDD check is in order. Please repair the drive using Disk Utility or fsck.

Could be some orphaned nodes or other minor drive error causing problems.

---

For peace of mind for yourself.

Use Techtool Pro check the smart status.

If you don't want to spend a dime, try out SMART Utility.app.

Either of which will show the number of bad sectors and drive errors.

Its a 2009 Mac Mini, do you really think the hard drive will have already gone bad? Not saying its not possible, just I didn't think it was probable . . .

-iGrant

 

[DoFoT9]

Its a 2009 Mac Mini, do you really think the hard drive will have already gone bad? Not saying its not possible, just I didn't think it was probable . . .

-iGrant

having said that. it is only a Mac Mini - and likely to have a 5400RPM hard drive, and the CPU isnt exactly built for FCP/PS rendering of large/high def files. thats why i asked about the quality of it before ^^

 

[Cagle]

most certainly! there are many tests.

however...the following comment leads me to thinking that you are running everything off of the Time Capsule..

yeah time capsule and video editing would be a nitemare, so no, i'm just editing various types of video stored on my mac hd, mv4 was the last one to crash.

I move around the timeline alot for about 20 seconds to put its thru its paces and then the spinning beachball pops up for a second and FC crashes and closes.

here are those geekbench results, sorry but i didnt know what to edit out so its long:

Platform: Mac OS X x86 (32-bit)
Compiler: GCC 4.0.1 (Apple Inc. build 5493)
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5.6 (Build 9G2030)
Model: Mac mini (Early 2009)
Motherboard: Apple Inc. Mac-F22C86C8
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P7350 @ 2.00GHz
Processor ID: GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 23 Stepping 10
Logical Processors: 2
Physical Processors: 1
Processor Frequency: 2.00 GHz
L1 Instruction Cache: 32.0 KB
L1 Data Cache: 32.0 KB
L2 Cache: 3.00 MB
L3 Cache: 0.00 B
Bus Frequency: 1.06 GHz
Memory: 3.00 GB
Memory Type: 1067 MHz DDR3
SIMD: 1
BIOS: Apple Inc. MM31.88Z.0081.B06.0904271717
Processor Model: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P7350 @ 2.00GHz
Processor Cores: 2

Integer (Score: 2184)
Blowfish single-threaded scalar -- 1362, , 59.8 MB/sec
Blowfish multi-threaded scalar -- 2932, , 120.2 MB/sec
Text Compress single-threaded scalar -- 1496, , 4.79 MB/sec
Text Compress multi-threaded scalar -- 2763, , 9.07 MB/sec
Text Decompress single-threaded scalar -- 1338, , 5.50 MB/sec
Text Decompress multi-threaded scalar -- 2612, , 10.4 MB/sec
Image Compress single-threaded scalar -- 1395, , 11.5 Mpixels/sec
Image Compress multi-threaded scalar -- 2678, , 22.5 Mpixels/sec
Image Decompress single-threaded scalar -- 1138, , 19.1 Mpixels/sec
Image Decompress multi-threaded scalar -- 2237, , 36.5 Mpixels/sec
Lua single-threaded scalar -- 2160, , 831.7 Knodes/sec
Lua multi-threaded scalar -- 4103, , 1.58 Mnodes/sec

Floating Point (Score: 3793)
Mandelbrot single-threaded scalar -- 1442, , 959.3 Mflops
Mandelbrot multi-threaded scalar -- 2708, , 1.77 Gflops
Dot Product single-threaded scalar -- 2620, , 1.27 Gflops
Dot Product multi-threaded scalar -- 5387, , 2.46 Gflops
Dot Product single-threaded vector -- 2093, , 2.51 Gflops
Dot Product multi-threaded vector -- 4528, , 4.71 Gflops
LU Decomposition single-threaded scalar -- 556, , 495.4 Mflops
LU Decomposition multi-threaded scalar -- 1133, , 993.9 Mflops
Primality Test single-threaded scalar -- 2752, , 411.0 Mflops
Primality Test multi-threaded scalar -- 4090, , 759.2 Mflops
Sharpen Image single-threaded scalar -- 3924, , 9.15 Mpixels/sec
Sharpen Image multi-threaded scalar -- 7253, , 16.7 Mpixels/sec
Blur Image single-threaded scalar -- 4991, , 3.95 Mpixels/sec
Blur Image multi-threaded scalar -- 9634, , 7.58 Mpixels/sec

Memory (Score: 2329)
Read Sequential single-threaded scalar -- 2971, , 3.64 GB/sec
Write Sequential single-threaded scalar -- 2330, , 1.59 GB/sec
Stdlib Allocate single-threaded scalar -- 1598, , 5.96 Mallocs/sec
Stdlib Write single-threaded scalar -- 2466, , 5.10 GB/sec
Stdlib Copy single-threaded scalar -- 2281, , 2.35 GB/sec

Stream (Score: 1507)
Stream Copy single-threaded scalar -- 1475, , 2.02 GB/sec
Stream Copy single-threaded vector -- 1561, , 2.02 GB/sec
Stream Scale single-threaded scalar -- 1681, , 2.18 GB/sec
Stream Scale single-threaded vector -- 1583, , 2.14 GB/sec
Stream Add single-threaded scalar -- 1410, , 2.13 GB/sec
Stream Add single-threaded vector -- 1566, , 2.18 GB/sec
Stream Triad single-threaded scalar -- 1495, , 2.07 GB/sec
Stream Triad single-threaded vector -- 1286, , 2.41 GB/sec

and thanks, I am grateful for your help.

 

[Cagle]

having said that. it is only a Mac Mini - and likely to have a 5400RPM hard drive, and the CPU isnt exactly built for FCP/PS rendering of large/high def files. thats why i asked about the quality of it before ^^

I was editing a black and white m4v (499MB), 704x576 H.264.

 

[DoFoT9]

yeah time capsule and video editing would be a nitemare, so no, i'm just editing various types of video stored on my mac hd, mv4 was the last one to crash.

I move around the timeline alot for about 20 seconds to put its thru its paces and then the spinning beachball pops up for a second and FC crashes and closes.

here are those geekbench results, sorry but i didnt know what to edit out so its long:

and thanks, I am grateful for your help.

all fine there. nothing out of the ordinary - what you would expect from the Mini can you also run xbench for disk throughput?

I was editing a black and white m4v (499MB), 704x576 H.264.

ahh ok so nothing MAJORLY big. ive edited those on my 4 year old MBP with no problems. rendering does take a while but it doesnt lag at all.

 

[Cagle]

By crashing, do you mean the System freezing, where the only thing moving is the mouse?

If so, a HDD check is in order. Please repair the drive using Disk Utility or fsck.

If you don't want to spend a dime, try out SMART Utility.app.

I tried Smart and I got a pass rating. the system seems fine, just the apps that crash.

 

[DoFoT9]

I tried Smart and I got a pass rating. the system seems fine, just the apps that crash.

hmm at random times, or are they triggered by an event? are there any updates you can do?

 

[Sun Baked]

Its a 2009 Mac Mini, do you really think the hard drive will have already gone bad? Not saying its not possible, just I didn't think it was probable . . .

-iGrant

Wiping the drive and restoring masks the problem if it is a drive issue, generally a dying drive can last quite a while doing that.

But in general a machine that gets slower, spinning beachballs, and crashes are general warning signs to update your backup immediately -- you'll need it soon.

And they are doing CPU and drive intensive work with a lot of access while it is crashing.

I tried Smart and I got a pass rating. the system seems fine, just the apps that crash.

Not looking for a pass rating, since that is meaningless, you are looking for bad sectors and drive errors. And seeing if the drive file system is fully repaired.

 

[Cagle]

all fine there. nothing out of the ordinary - what you would expect from the Mini can you also run xbench for disk throughput?


ahh ok so nothing MAJORLY big. ive edited those on my 4 year old MBP with no problems. rendering does take a while but it doesnt lag at all.

when u say nothing majorly big there, do you mean the mini isnt really up to FC editing? here are some more results

Results 107.27
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.5.6 (9G2030)
Physical RAM 3072 MB
Model Macmini3,1
Drive Type Hitachi HTS545050KTA300
CPU Test 132.11
GCD Loop 229.12 12.08 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 109.40 2.60 Gflop/sec
vecLib FFT 95.10 3.14 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 159.81 27.83 Mops/sec
Thread Test 259.34
Computation 354.11 7.17 Mops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention 204.59 8.80 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 159.52
System 198.79
Allocate 258.74 950.17 Kalloc/sec
Fill 161.11 7833.38 MB/sec
Copy 199.22 4114.74 MB/sec
Stream 133.21
Copy 129.87 2682.32 MB/sec
Scale 130.71 2700.45 MB/sec
Add 137.79 2935.26 MB/sec
Triad 134.79 2883.59 MB/sec
Quartz Graphics Test 170.00
Line 139.02 9.26 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 175.00 52.25 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 142.77 11.64 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 145.16 3.66 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 383.09 23.96 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 125.06
Spinning Squares 125.06 158.64 frames/sec
User Interface Test 265.21
Elements 265.21 1.22 Krefresh/sec
Disk Test 33.43
Sequential 65.54
Uncached Write 77.96 47.87 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 77.84 44.04 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 41.32 12.09 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 89.68 45.07 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 22.44
Uncached Write 7.31 0.77 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 66.04 21.14 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 62.87 0.45 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 96.95 17.99 MB/sec [256K blocks]

 

[Cagle]

hmm at random times, or are they triggered by an event? are there any updates you can do?

no updates for final cut but im just running some for ps and the rest of the adobe suite.

triggered by layer moving in PS, and timeline jumping-about in final cut pro.

 

[DoFoT9]

when u say nothing majorly big there, do you mean the mini isnt really up to FC editing? here are some more results

i meant those benchmarks look fine

Disk Test 33.43
Sequential 65.54
Uncached Write 77.96 47.87 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 77.84 44.04 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 41.32 12.09 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 89.68 45.07 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 22.44
Uncached Write 7.31 0.77 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 66.04 21.14 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 62.87 0.45 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 96.95 17.99 MB/sec [256K blocks]

that looks a bit slow, im guessing its a 5400RPM drive? a 7200RPM drive certainly would speed it up (the tests that is, the CPU is likely the bottleneck for rendering)

no updates for final cut but im just running some for ps and the rest of the adobe suite.

triggered by layer moving in PS, and timeline jumping-about in final cut pro.

would seem like a bug with 10.5/PS, and FCP then. i wonder if its worth upgrading to 10.6 to see if the problems persist.... you could clone first and go back if you wished..?

EDIT: on a second look at the Mac Mini Benchmarks. i notice that under xbench it SHOULD be hitting about ~150 overall. i see that yours is at 107. that is likely that the benchmark was taken place with a 7200RPM hard drive though. and your memory isnt matched, as the system only detects 3GB total - you said you have 4GB.