August 22, 2006

Curious George. A video quagmire on an iBook.

I have two Apple G3 iBooks. The older one is a Graphite SE Model with a 466Mhz Processor with 192MBs RAM running Mac OS X 10.3.9 Panther and a white G3 dual USB model with a 500Mhz processor and 640Mbs of Ram running Mac OS 10.4.7 Tiger, now logic would predict that the latter of the two would be the fastest... However, it is not, well the video CRAWLS on the newer one. Whenever I play an .avi or quicktime file on the older one it plays fine but when I try to play the same file on the newer model it's choppy or will not play at all. I wonder if I should roll back the faster iBook's operating system to Mac OS X 10.3.9, do YOU think it would help much? Please keep in mind I know they are both old, and that I should buy insert newer computer model here but as of right now it's not in the budget. :-( Oh, BTW it has this same problem with flash youtube video as well.

posted by gorgeousjunkie 18 years ago
  • Are you looking at these videos online? If yes are you using the same browser and version on both? I'm not sure I would recommend taking a step back in OS versions.
  • I am using firefox when it comes to flash on both and VLC for the .avi files. Also, dashboard IS disabled...
  • In System Preferences > Energy Saver > Options, check the Processor Performance setting. If it's running in the low-power mode (whose name I forget), that will adversely affect performance.
  • checked that too...
  • Have a look and see what other processes are running while you're looking at a video. There's got to be something and I'm guessing it's another process. The most likely culprit is anti-virus software. You can either start a terminal session and type "top -u" or use the Activity Monitor (in the utilities directory).
  • OT: anyone know where I can get a used iBook? Fanks. /kitflushto
  • How full is the hard drive on the computer in question? That actually can affect performance on your Mac. (If you've got a external firewire - nor USB - drive, or know someone who has one, plug it in and see if the computer works better. You might be surprised.)
  • Also - if you're running an encrypted user directory (file vault) on the machine that will cause hiccups in your video performance, especially on a comparatively slow machine. If you run top -u you'll see the diskimages process grabbing a lot of the cpu (it handles the encryption). The only solution there is probably to turn off file vault.
  • A video quagmire on an iBook Giggity giggity!
  • teh difference may be the operating system. the newer makes assumptions that the hardware is more capable, whereas the older is more tuned to the iBooks' needs. i'd reccomend trying to roll back the OS and then see how different the speeds between the two machines are.
  • I'd be surprised es el Queso since 10.4 has a great reputation on marginal hardware. I'm still convinced there's a background process of some sort running, but there are other possible issues as well. Perhaps we'll hear back from georgeousjunkie this evening and get a better idea if that's correct. However if nothing else worked an OS reinstall may be in order. I would try a clean install of 10.4 first since that's much easier than rolling back to an older OS. If that didn't work, then I'd give 10.3.9 a try. (Many years ago, when OS X was brand new and I was trying to get it going on a lombard powerbook, I used to spend a lot of time on the macaddict forums. Haven't visited there in years, but they were always helpful to me.)
  • I have 15 gigs free on a 20 gig hard drive. No Anti-virus software. I have Installed 10.4 Tiger two times, once before I upped the ram and once after. I think I am gonna see what 10.3.9 can do for me.
  • What do you have running in the background?
  • Cat on a wheel.
  • nothing odd. As I said it's a fresh load. Gonna load 10.3.9 tonight
  • Cool. Let us know how it works out.
  • If the OS reinstall doesn't work. You should run the Apple Hardware Test. It could be that the LB is failing, and the AHT will test your VRAM to make sure everything is running ok. Another thing you can try is to put in known good RAM in the iBook.
  • system is maxed out in ram. 640is all it will take. Bought the ram new two months ago from crucial. Haven't reloaded yet, still searching for 10.3 cds
  • Update: I couldn't find any 10.3 media so I installed 10.2, it runs marginally better however the video is still sucking. I think it has something to do with the encoding on the .avi files. I think I am just gonna buy me a new macbook, I was holding out for 64 bit...