<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">Ralph,<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I would check the logs in Console.app and see if there are any repetitive calls being made related to USB devices. This will usually be in the System.log if I remember correctly. If you DO see that, try disconnecting the offending USB peripheral and see if that fixes the sluggishness problem.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I had a scanner once that went flaky. The symptoms were nearly as you described... sluggish behavior with no apparent reason. Looking in the logs showed connection errors for this device occurring every second, constantly.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Michael</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR><DIV><DIV>On May 7, 2007, at 1:35 PM, Ralph wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">I have a "dome base" iMac that's developed a bad case of beach balls. The cursor appears most often when I choose Print... from almost any application. It also often comes up when I choose File > Open... In addition, the machine seems sluggish generally. Here's the configuration:</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><BR></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">iMac G4 800 MHz</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">768 MB RAM (maxed out)</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">18.24 GB free on 60 GB hard drive</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">OS X 10.4.9 with latest update</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><BR></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Disk Utility sees no problems. Suggestions?</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><BR></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Ralph Jones</FONT></P> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>