Dawn ,'Sleeper'
Got a question about technology? Ask it here. Discussion of hardware, software, TiVos, multi-region DVDs, Windows, Macs, LINUX, hand-helds, iPods, anything tech related. Better than any helpdesk!
How fast is the CPU? My guess is it's the lack of RAM, slow CPU or both.
eta: My new MacBook occasionally has problems with video - it'll just freeze up sometimes. I have a system monitor thing that shows it's swapping virtual memory when that happens, which is a clear sign I need more RAM. Currently I have the 512 Meg it came with; soon I'll upgrade to 2 Gig.
The CPU is 500 MHz. I hope it's lack of RAM, because I suspect that's cheaper to replace than the CPU.
ETA: I'll try watching the videos with nothing else going on on my computer and see if that helps. Thanks for the suggestion.
If you don't mind installing a small program, I recommend you install iPulse: [link] It can show you CPU usage and memory swapping while the video is playing (of course it'll take up a small amount of CPU and memory itself). Anyway, this should tell you if your CPU is fast enough. And like I mentioned in my edit above, memory swapping while playing a video means you need more RAM.
iPulse also shows network activity, battery and WiFi strength, and other cool stuff, all in a very compact display.
That sounds nifty, tommyrot. At the moment I'm surfing and *ahem* doing perfectly legal but possibly memory-intensive things involving Torchwood, so I'm thinking it'll be easy to see if I'm just trying to do too much at once in about 12 minutes. But it might be fun to install iPulse just to see what it tells me.
Do you have the most recent version of Flash installed? (YouTube uses Flash video, so I wonder if that might be an issue.)
It may be useful to check out Firefox, which seems to handle some browser-type stuff much better than Safari. It may also be a codec-type of problem...
I just dl'd iPulse. Not entirely sure if it's useful for everyday-stuff, but it sure is pretty!
Firefox 2.0 comes out today. But not just yet - I think in a few hours....
eta: A look at some new features: [link]
I just dl'd iPulse. Not entirely sure if it's useful for everyday-stuff, but it sure is pretty!
I like iPulse and I keep it running all the time on all my Macs. It's great, because if my computer is supposed to do something and it's not, iPulse will tell me at a glance if the CPU is pegged at 100%, if there's no network activity, if it's busy swapping RAM, etc. I wish I had something similar on my work XP machine, as it occasionally seems to freeze up for a bit, and I don't know why. (By the time I can get Performance Monitor open, it's usually all better.)
so true, TR. After three years of using my dell I've more or less figured out what makes it hang, but jeez what a pain it is to wait. Task Manager could be considerably more helpful too.
Improved MacBook Pros have just come out: [link]