Expert: Steve Thompson - 5/3/2007

Question
I have a MAC OS 9 and I am very MAC illiterate. My computer is running very, very, very slow. I am told it is a conflict in my extensions, but that is absolutely Greek to me.
What can I do besides sitting there and unchecking extensions and restarting over again about 50 times.


Answer
Hi,

Restart the Mac and hold down the shift kay as it starts up. Under "Welcome to Macintosh" you should see the words "Extensions disabled".

Try using your Mac like this for a bit. You will notice that some of the functionality has been removed but you'll be able to guage if the machine is still running slowly or if it's improved.

If it has improved then - unfortunately - the only thing you can do is remove and add extensions. There is a piece of software on your Mac called System Profiler. If you launch that and save the report (from under the file menu) I'll give you an email address to send it to and I'll tell you if I can spot anything obvious.

If there's no improvement, please let me know what type of Mac it is and what version of OS you're running. If you look at "About this computer" under the Apple menu, it'll be 9.something.something. From that screen can you also tell me how much memory you have.

It is likely that the extensions could be causing this problem but there are various other problems as well. For example, having over 1024 fonts installed or using Virtual Memory set to more that double the installed RAM.

Please let me know what you find and we'll see if we can get this sorted.

Steve