Q: Mac OS X El Capitan Slow on Startup?

Try to check it by app called EtreCheck. Every red line is problem you want to fix. (You probably have something old at Launch Agents or Launch Deamons)

booting the the process of getting the computer to start and load the OS

once the OS is loaded any additional extras you have specific to your computer will need to be loaded, in many cases these are programs that did not come with your computer, that you added, that require load time and will effect the boot time of the computer once the OS is loaded. There are generally a small number of Apple provided things that are also part of this equation and can add to the overall delay. In addition; any external device will need to be mounted and any 3rd party utility will need load and become resident in RAM.

For the most part Mac OS does not need any 3rd party assistant to function optimally, in fact many of these products have been found to cause serious problems and when removed they restore much of the functionality that was damaged while they were resident on the system.

Applications that "keep", "clean", "snitch" can cause issues and should be avoided. The findings on these forms also point to a number of users who's system performance was greatly handicapped by commercial and free anti-virus, both titles from reputable corporations and titles from the App Store (just because a program is on the App store does not mean there was any testing to the legitimacy of it's claims or it's functionality by Apple, it simply was identified as an application by a vendor who has been recognized by Apple as who they claim to be)

to test if your system under optimal conditions, shut down, disconnect all external devices (except mouse and keyboards on systems that require them, and if possible use Apple devices) and reboot into safe mode

Try safe mode if your Mac doesn't finish starting up - Apple Support

if problems persist you may wish to check your hardware to determine if the problem lies with the system and not the software.

Using Apple Hardware Test - Apple Support

Etrecheck – System Information

Do you leave your Apps running when you restart/shutdown? They will Resume by default and it seems they must load one-by-one which takes a while.

If that is it, you can disable Resume by unchecking the box in the Restart/Shutdown dialog.

Gandycz wrote:

 

Try to check it by app called EtreCheck. Every red line is problem you want to fix. (You probably have something old at Launch Agents or Launch Deamons)

Thanks for the EtreCheck plug, but red lines are not necessarily anything that needs action. You have to look at the whole report to make some judgement. EtreCheck just reports what it finds, but OS X is a complicated system and random errors are a regular occurrence.

Hello ejetmonorail,

An SSD will boot your machine much faster than a traditional, mechanical hard drive. But that is assuming everything else is running perfectly and the problem you are experiencing is directly related to said hard drive. It could be the hard drive cable. It could be a combination of an old hard drive and inadequate RAM. The best way to use EtreCheck is to paste the whole report. Any individual line might not have much meaning. But taken together, they might tell a story and allow someone to provide a happy ending.

ejetmonorail wrote:

 

Do any of you know if installing a Solid State SSD will fix this?

That would depend on what is causing it.