I was given an IMac by the inlaws. It is approximately 3 years old. It was working fine for about a month and then got so slow I couldn’t use it. I tried all the basic things to speed it up. Is it worth spending any money on it? Or just get a new one.
That computer is never going to be very fast as it only has 8GB of RAM which is the absolute bare minimum to run Mac OS and it has a glacially slow 5400 RPM HD. That plus you are running professional grade apps which it was never designed for. The only way to make it faster is to buy a good quality external SSD and clone your internal drive to the new SSD and use the SSD as your primary drive and relegate the existing internal HD for additional storage.
Before you do that though you MUST have a form of backup. I don't see any evidence that you back up the computer which (if correct) is a guarantee that you will lose data. At the very very least you should be using Time Machine to back up this machine.
That computer is never going to be very fast as it only has 8GB of RAM which is the absolute bare minimum to run Mac OS and it has a glacially slow 5400 RPM HD. That plus you are running professional grade apps which it was never designed for. The only way to make it faster is to buy a good quality external SSD and clone your internal drive to the new SSD and use the SSD as your primary drive and relegate the existing internal HD for additional storage.
Before you do that though you MUST have a form of backup. I don't see any evidence that you back up the computer which (if correct) is a guarantee that you will lose data. At the very very least you should be using Time Machine to back up this machine.
Please navigate to the Mac App Store or navigate to www.Etrecheck.com and download the free version of EtreCheck. Once you have you downloaded the app and installed it, please run the report and save it. This report will help us get a good idea what has been installed on your system and help us be able to diagnose what may be wrong.
When you have your report, you can attach it when you reply to this message and we can then review it and help you determine what is needed to get your system running well again.
For instructions on how to download your EtreCheck report and attach it to your reply to this message please click https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-250000211
Trend Micro is part of the problem. ANY third-party anti-virus or security software will take a terrible toll on performance as it competes with the sophisticated protection Apple builds into its operating system. Same for any app that clams to "clean, optimize, or tune-up" your Mac. All that gets cleaned is your wallet. Removal instructions:
https://helpcenter.trendmicro.com/en-us/article/TMKA-14475
The elephant in the room is the slow, mechanical hard drive Apple insists on fitting to entry-level iMacs. Yours is slower than normal. possibly due to the massive dose TrendMicro stuff.
Performance:
System Load: 3.60 (1 min ago) 2.97 (5 min ago) 2.46 (15 min ago)
Nominal I/O speed: 5.75 MB/s
File system: 43.44 seconds
Write speed: 39 MB/s
Read speed: 38 MB/s
Those two I bolded should be in the 60-70 MB/sec range. If removing TrendMicro does not move those to the 60MB/se range then the drive is truly failing. There is a workabout for that model that will save you having to gut the computer to replace the old drive.
I have uninstalled trend micro and it has improved but still running slow
Thank you for this. Should I run the report again to get the speed after uninstalling trend micro?
Test first to see if the problem has gone away, if it has not then please post a new report them.
Imac upgrade
