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Older iMac slow and freezing

I have a Late 2014 iMac. It is slow to start up and once it does, the desktop icons are generic previews. Mail takes a very long time to move, delete, or download email. Safari takes a long time to load a web page and if I try to log into a website, it usually times out. Pages and Numbers usually are listed as " not responding" sometimes they finally open. I ran the apple hardware diagnostic, it says everything is fine. I logged into another user account and it had the same issues. I have also run an EtreCheck Report. I've attached it.


Any assistance or suggestions would be much appreciated.



Earlier Mac models

Posted on Jun 24, 2023 10:59 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jun 24, 2023 8:35 PM

Yah... something is clearly wrong. Etrecheck should not require 36 minutes to run and the nominal I/O usage of 0.46 MB/s seems low. I suspect the hard drive component of your fusion drive has deteriorated, but it is possible you simply have system file corruption or that one of your install kernel extensions is causing problems.


Suggestions:

  1. Restart into safe mode. Still slow? (see: How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support)
  2. Create a new user account. Restart and login to the new account. Still slow?
  3. Uninstall the Western Digital software. I've never heard anything good about it, but theoretically tests 1 or 2 should already check if this is the culprit.


If either 1 or 2 works normally then the problem is with something you have installed. If both are equally slow (or slower) then the problem is either system file corruption or a failing HDD. Erasing the fusion drive, reformatting, and reinstalling -might- work but I would suggest instead purchasing an external USB 3.0 SSD and reinstalling macOS onto that.


For using an external SSD as a boot drive see: Use an external SSD as your startup disk … - Apple Community

My one comment on the above guide is that basically any SSD large enough to hold your files will work. You don't have to limit yourself to the one 3rd party brand sold by the Apple Store although that is certainly a safe option.

2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 24, 2023 8:35 PM in response to Cat_Lover

Yah... something is clearly wrong. Etrecheck should not require 36 minutes to run and the nominal I/O usage of 0.46 MB/s seems low. I suspect the hard drive component of your fusion drive has deteriorated, but it is possible you simply have system file corruption or that one of your install kernel extensions is causing problems.


Suggestions:

  1. Restart into safe mode. Still slow? (see: How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support)
  2. Create a new user account. Restart and login to the new account. Still slow?
  3. Uninstall the Western Digital software. I've never heard anything good about it, but theoretically tests 1 or 2 should already check if this is the culprit.


If either 1 or 2 works normally then the problem is with something you have installed. If both are equally slow (or slower) then the problem is either system file corruption or a failing HDD. Erasing the fusion drive, reformatting, and reinstalling -might- work but I would suggest instead purchasing an external USB 3.0 SSD and reinstalling macOS onto that.


For using an external SSD as a boot drive see: Use an external SSD as your startup disk … - Apple Community

My one comment on the above guide is that basically any SSD large enough to hold your files will work. You don't have to limit yourself to the one 3rd party brand sold by the Apple Store although that is certainly a safe option.

Aug 12, 2023 4:01 PM in response to padams35

Thank you for your suggestions. I thought I would follow up with the results. 1,2, and 3 did not work. I purchased an external hard drive and transferred all my data to it for a startup disk. Right now, I cannot get the iMac to select it as the main startup disk. Boot keys are no longer recognized and the "sudo -c" command in terminal returns an error. I'm going to try a USB keyboard one more time for the boot key. I appreciate your help.

Older iMac slow and freezing

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