Slow and unresponsive connections

Make sure you have at least 20% free space in your hard drives. Repair permissions. Get Spring Cleaning or something similar and use the app to clean up any unneeded files. The fuller your hard drive the slower your Mac. Check to make sure your cables are correct - use Firewire 800 when you can instead of FW400, don't expect much from USB connections in the way of speed. Hope this helps.