imac

Hey guys.


I have a Mac (27-inch, Late 2013) 32 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7


I really dont know about specs or parts.


Would kindly recommend some new parts to make this Imac faster, the boot takes too long and goes black after a while.


greetings.

iMac 27″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Sep 6, 2023 11:59 PM

Reply
1 reply
Question marked as Helpful

Sep 7, 2023 11:38 AM in response to FirstImac2023

Was the Mac running acceptfully fast previously? Have you installed and run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus or VPN apps on your Mac?


Before sending money on hardware you should confirm it's not software that's causing the slowness. Therefore, download and run Etrecheck. Be sure to give it Full Disk access before running.



Copy and paste the results into your reply. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here in the ASC and recommended by Apple Support  to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.


Copy the report


and use the Additional Text button to paste the report in your reply.



Then we can evaluate the report to see if we can determine the cause of the problem.


8 replies

Sep 7, 2023 3:09 AM in response to FirstImac2023

The part about the boot "going black after a while" is somewhat concerning.


If you go into About This Mac (in the Apple () menu), then click on the System Report… button, then use the sidebar to check under headings like Storage and SATA, do you see any lines that say


S.M.A.R.T. Status: Failing


Mechanical hard drives will sometimes give advance warning like that when they are about to fail. If you see


S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified


then the drive isn't reporting a problem (it might just be slow).



Question marked as Helpful

Sep 7, 2023 11:38 AM in response to FirstImac2023

Was the Mac running acceptfully fast previously? Have you installed and run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus or VPN apps on your Mac?


Before sending money on hardware you should confirm it's not software that's causing the slowness. Therefore, download and run Etrecheck. Be sure to give it Full Disk access before running.



Copy and paste the results into your reply. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here in the ASC and recommended by Apple Support  to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.


Copy the report


and use the Additional Text button to paste the report in your reply.



Then we can evaluate the report to see if we can determine the cause of the problem.


Sep 7, 2023 12:12 PM in response to FirstImac2023

32 GB is a pretty decent amount of RAM. According to MacTracker, it's also the maximum amount of RAM that a Mac (27-inch, Late 2013) can take.


The only reason to replace the RAM in your machine would be if the RAM in it now was defective, and causing the machine to crash all of the time. That doesn't sound like it's the case.


If you want to do so, you could run Activity Monitor and watch the Memory Pressure graph while you are running your regular workload. Green means your system has plenty of RAM. Yellow means you're getting a bit low. Red means lack of RAM is likely to be dragging down system performance. Activity Monitor can be a useful tool when deciding whether it makes sense to spend money for more RAM, or not. In your case, you can't add more RAM – but you could use Activity Monitor to, say, reassure yourself that 32 GB is enough.

Sep 7, 2023 12:22 PM in response to FirstImac2023

An internal SATA 3 SSD might not run a whole lot faster than an external USB 3 / SATA one. (SATA 3 tops out at 6 Gbps before overhead; USB 3 at 5 Gbps before overhead). Getting inside the case of that iMac, upgrading it, and sealing it up again is pretty major surgery. So I don't know if I'd bother replacing the internal SATA drive unless it was failing, and throwing errors which were crashing or hanging up the system.


Other World Computing sells blade SSDs for the internal PCIe SSD slot, and one of those would be faster than a SATA SSD. The question is whether you would want to spend the extra money for a shop to put the blade SSD in for you.


https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/imac-27-inch/2013-2019

imac

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.