iMac runs slow and beachballs constantly

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Level 1

9 points

iMac runs slow and beachballs constantly

I don't see anything in this report that is cause for alarm. If someone could please review this report and let me know if you see anything I don't.

Thanks!

iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.14

Posted on Jun 5, 2020 9:50 AM

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Answer 1

jcmiii3 Author

Level 1

9 points

Jun 7, 2020 1:51 PM in response to BDAqua

Ran Drive DX and it found no issues. I had symptoms like this about a year after I bought the computer. Apple replaced lots of hardware under warranty. Now it seems like there are hardware problems, again. I bought the Mac to get away from the myriad of performance issues I had with a variety of Windows machines. Not sure what to do next ...

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Answer 2

Allan Jones

Level 9

72,308 points

Jun 7, 2020 6:46 PM in response to jcmiii3

It is also the entry level dual -core processor:

2.3 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5 (i5-7360U) CPU: 2-core

However, most of the answer is right here:

Performance:

System Load: 1.56 (1 min ago) 1.63 (5 min ago) 1.75 (15 min ago)

Nominal I/O speed: 3.93 MB/s

File system: 48.01 seconds

Write speed: 46 MB/s

Read speed: 31 MB/s

Those speeds are below normal for that model. Should be in the 50-70MB/s range, and those would still be painfully slow.

You have the option with that model to get a USB3 external drive enclosure and install in it a 6GBps SATA solid state drive (SSD). You clone your HD to the external SSD and then use System Preferences > Startup Disk to set the external as the boot volume. That will run the read/write speeds up to about 400MB/s and make a real difference in how long things take, like booting and app launch times.

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