houdini and os x slow after...

[itriix]

hello all,

problem: houdini is SUPER slow when starting up and rendering....

my comp specs:

8-core early 2008 mac pro, 10 gigs ram, nvidia geforce 8800 gt, leopard 10.5.6

when the problem began:

houdini used to be snappy, i would open it, it'd open right away, i'd render, and it would take off with lightning speed. and then, one day, i gave my computer a name... i always had it at default, but now i've actually named it. for example purposes, say it's called jonathan. so now i have a jonathan as computer name and jonathan.local as the local hostname. this required reliscencing for houdini to work, so i did, and from this point on, now all it does is take FOREVER... example: loading up houdini takes about 2-3 minutes. every time now it also needs to "rebuild ui cache" on every open of houdini. lastly the worst is: if i create a new scene, create a sphere, a light, a camera, and a mantra node, then hit render for 30 frames, *something that used to take me about 30 seconds for the whole thing*, it now is taking 6-7 MINUTES! so this is a big problem for me. i read every post on the subject i could find, consulted with some of my software engineer friends and many others with no resolution. this was posted also on the SESI forum the other day but no response yet, *i'm figuring because it's the weekend*

so here are things i've tried:

delete EVERY preference file, folder, anything i can find with houdini... i go through the UNINSTALLER, restart computer. repaired permissions from within my usual boot drive, REPAIRED PERMISSIONS by doing a BOOT off of my os x disk. and none of this has helped.

there was a suggestion to do APPRENTICE licensing during install, this didn't help.

disconnected the internet from the wall, i've turned off all virus software, firewalls, etc. and once again, none helped.

and of course - i tried out my other programs to see if they had this issue now, and they are fine... maya still renders 30 frames of a sphere in about 15 seconds

please if anyone has any ideas about this, it would be highly appreciated

thank you all so much

Jonathan