Hi Everybody,

I've got a celeron machine (3.06/sse3) on an intel motherboard (gma900 chipset for integrated video) with 1.5gb ddr that's been happily running Tiger for quite some time (10.4.8 JaS).

Forgot my password on the beast, and when i went to find a disc to reset it all I could find was an iAtkos 4.1i disc. Decided... screw it I'm already this far... might as well just blow away Tiger and install Leopard.

Installed with ToS kernel, GMA950 Graphics (which I replaced with modified GMA950 kexts to suit my gma900) and NTFS-3g support.

It was fast before with tiger... Like surprisingly fast. Way faster than XP fast. With Leopard it is running MEGA slow whenever I run an mp3 player program (iTunes or to a lesser extent Toolplayer) and everything seems to crawl when I duplicate/copy files on the hard drive, and extremely so when I copy files over my samba shares from other machines.

I've noticed in top that a process called kernel_tas jumps to between 70-80% when I copy files around or import to itunes.

Is there anything I can do to improve speed? I'm a bit of a mac noob, but not so when it comes to *nix so I don't scare easily from more complicated solutions like kernel modifications/compiles etc.

Perhaps I should just go back to Tiger?

Any suggestions?

EDIT: I've increased system performance a bit by making the top menu bar opaque and making the dock 2d... These aren't optimal solutions though obviously, as CI/QE are working and everything worked great in Tiger...

I wonder if the new voodoo kernel would work better on yours...

Ok, Update:

I've installed Chameleon bootloader and voodoo_beta2 kernel.

It's about the same, maybe even a touch slower. Double clicking an mp3 takes iTunes about 4 minutes to open and I gave up before the pinwheel ever went away.

looking at 'top -o cpu' I see that Kernel_tas is sitting high steadily. Is this expected?

It sits at about 1-2% when idle, then as soon as I start browsing around in finder it jumps to 50-60%. If I open a media player it jumps to as high as 99%.

Am I barking up the right tree here?

Hey guys,

Thanks for anyone who's googled anything about this topic...

I've been donated a Prescott 2.8 and it seems to be doing the job quite nicely now.

I suppose the CPU was the problem... not enough juice I guess.

Cool, what system did you install?

Same installation, just powered off, greased up the new cpu, powered back on.

Here's what I've got going:

iAtkos v4.1i - Voodoo Beta 2 kernel - Chameleon Boot Loader

on a:

Pentium 4E (2.8GHz/512K L2 Cache/800Mhz FSB)
2 GB DDR400
Intel D915GLVG Mobo (Intel 915G/GV/GL Graphics with CI/QE working great using modified 950GMA kexts)
Intel 82562ET Ethernet (worked out of the box)
Intel 82801FB Integrated audio (worked out of the box)

Suppose I should submit that to the HCL eh?

Itunes/Transparencies/File copies have sped up SIGNIFICANTLY after ditching the Celeron. Xbench however drops its overall score big time when it hits the disk checks.

Wonder how I can improve that?

Xbench is a load of crap. Pay no heed to it's numbers.

Well it does seem to drag a lot even still after using it a bit more...

Only when copying and analyzing files. The gui is fast and responsive. Launching applications is great, but it seems when I copy files or import to iTunes it makes the whole rig chug.

Even copying files to my ipod.

Still usable, but really boggy when it's accessing the hard drive for larger files.