Lag Time!!

[scooter]

I have a used Mac Pro I recently bought and it's a 2 x 3 Ghz Dual-Core Intel.
Whenever I click on certain apps or hard drives within the Mac it takes a while for it to respond.
An example would be 40 seconds for Quicktime to come up and the same time for Dictionary.

I'm running 10.6.4.

I'm hoping someone else maybe has run across this problem and maybe knows of a fix for it.

I've tried a lot of things so far. Cleaning out my mac, running diagnostics on it. Nothing has helped.
I thought maybe it was an account problem, or maybe something is shutting down my hard drives when they are not in use.
i don't know.

thanks,

scooter

[mikehalloran]

I am going to assume that you have checked the settings in the Energy Control panel - yes?

[scooter]

I'm guessing you mean "Energy Saver" in System Preferences.
I have: Computer never goes to sleep and Display never goes to sleep.
I don't want to leave any stone unturned, so there very well could be some obvious setting that I've forgotten about.

thanks,

scooter

[DoctorOrbis]

In the "Energy Saver" dialog, is the "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" option checked?

-O-

[hammerman]

I actually have all the defaults for Energy Saver and sometimes it takes 2 to 3 seconds for the hard drive to spin up. I don't think that's the problem. You said you cleaned things out. Have you tried creating a new user account? Have you repaired permissions? Go get Onyx (it's free)- make sure you get the right version for your OS. Run the Automation tab. I would update to 10.6.8 if you can. It's very stable. Good luck!

[scooter]

Yeah i thought it might be an account problem so i created a new one but there wasn't any difference.
I've run Onyx.
I could try the 10.6.8 update I guess, but I've been holding off on that because 10.6.4 has been pretty stable.

I've always been a little suspicious of this message at the bottom of my repair permissions list:

Warning: SUID file "System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAgent" has been modified and will not be repaired.

Buy I really don't have a clue.

scooter

[kgdrum]

Yeah i thought it might be an account problem so i created a new one but there wasn't any difference.
I've run Onyx.
I could try the 10.6.8 update I guess, but I've been holding off on that because 10.6.4 has been pretty stable.

I've always been a little suspicious of this message at the bottom of my repair permissions list:

Warning: SUID file "System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAgent" has been modified and will not be repaired.

Buy I really don't have a clue.

scooter

+1

I am using 10.67,I also always get this message at the end of repairing permissions.Ran DW to see if this would correct but still always get this message.
On my G5(10.58)repairing permissions was generally quicker,less repairs and I never saw all of the messages that I now get every time I do the RP routine..... and if I did the routine 2 or 3 times in a row the repair list would decrease until there were no repairs to be corrected but the G5 sucked.
When I RP on the MacPro I always get many lines of repairs and that SUID file message.
I have wondered about the significance of this message as my system seems OK ,the MacPro runs great and I have no problems.Can anyone here explain the significance of all of this?

[macguy]

It has something to do with the Apple Remote Desktop agent.
If you do not need or do remote management of your macs, then I'd just dump it!
Just follow that path and just delete the file.
I wouldn't have an type of ARD client on my audio machines unless I had a team of editors on a project whereas I could remotely manage anything from one machine (my office for instance) in the building.
Hope this helps.

[mikehalloran]

SUID errors are not errors. They are messages.

[hammerman]

Anything running in the background? Have you checked login items (System Preferences/Accounts)?

[Tritonemusic]

Spotlight?

[scooter]

What is the general feeling about spotlight?
Should it be disconnected somehow?
I really don't use it that much.

Also I will trash Apple Remote Desktop, that sounds like a good idea.

scooter

[hammerman]

I use Spotlight and have no problems with it. Time Machine as well.

[mikehalloran]

If Spotlight is the culprit, it will peg your CPU at 100%. There are many support threads that deal with this, what you need to find and remove to make the issue go away.

I recently bought a MacBook Pro cheap where the issue was that it took 8 minutes to boot up. The guy had all this software on it and had no idea what the problem was. I popped in an old 80G hard drive into it, formatted and installed 10.6.8 and some of my basic apps - it runs perfectly. I now have a larger HD on order. At the price I paid, I could have sold it for parts so I made out.

One thing I would try is a Safe Boot - hold the Shift key down while booting. This will clear and rebuild certain resources. Re-boot again and see if you still have a problem.

You may have to do a ground up re-install to make this go away.

[scooter]

If Spotlight is the culprit, it will peg your CPU at 100%. There are many support threads that deal with this, what you need to find and remove to make the issue go away.

There is no Spotlight in the Activity Monitor, so would that come up as Finder?
Because my finder is hovering around 90% CPU. Does that sound suspicious??

In Safe Boot mode Finder is 0% CPU, until I launch my main hard drive then it spikes to around 80% to 90% CPU with 10 threads. Hmmmmm....... This might be a question for the genius bar.

And like you I bought from a guy who had this Mac Pro full of graphic software stuff I'll never use.

thanks,

scooter