iMac Ridiculously Slow
Hi,
I’m hoping someone out there can please help with the speed of my Mac. I have a late 2012 27” iMac with 3.4Ghz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 processor, which until recently had the standard 8GB RAM it came with. It has the SSD Fusion drive plus an internal 3TB SATA drive (1TB still free). I use it primarily for word-processing, so nothing strenuous.
I avoided installing Catalina until a few weeks ago (a lot of my apps were not 64-bit compatible), when I finally caved as I could no longer take how slow it had become, thinking it might fix things. It hardly made a difference, so I then upgraded the RAM from 8GB to 24GB. Slight difference but not much. The activity monitor shows an average 4GB use of the 24GB (same as before). It also shows the CPU has 1.5% system, 2.5% user and 96% idle, suggesting the CPU is not really being taxed either.
And yet, I can’t even type more than a few words without getting the spinning beachball for up to 30sec for it to catch up. Excel – move from one cell to another and expect up to 60sec of beachball. I’ve had to switch back to Safari as Chrome now takes over a minute to open, and around 40+sec to load a page. I don’t believe internet speed is to blame (download 52 Mbps, upload 16 Mbps).
To save time, I can confirm I have already tried the following processes as recommended on this and other forums –
a) Turned it off and on many times.
b) Reset NVRAM
c) Reset System Management Controller
d) Reset startup disk
e) Rebooted in Recovery mode and utilised Disk Utility to perform first aid on all levels of all drives
f) Installed CleanMyMac but that failed to make any real improvement, so cancelled the subscription.
g) Reinstalled Catalina (with the new RAM in place). This had the most effect and apps now open reasonably quickly (except Chrome), but the freezing continues every few words of typing, especially in Word.
I know this is an old machine and I get these things slow down over time, but the big screen still looks so, SO much better than a standard monitor, and I’d like to be sure I’ve tried every avenue before retiring it, especially as the word processing software seems to be barely using any the i7 processor or the 24GB of RAM. Or is this just to be expected of a 11yr-old Mac, even if all I’m looking to do is type sentences?
Please can someone suggest anything else I could try short of throwing it in the bin. Fingers crossed and thank you very much in advance!!
Thank you
Earlier Mac models
