Imac extremely slow

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Imac extremely slow

I have a 2017 Imac, 8gb RAM, 1TB SSD, 3Ghz Quad-Core Intel Core 5 processor. I bought this machine refurbished by Apple. When I began using it, a component that moves electricity from the power cable to the device failed, and Apple repaired it under warranty. The computer had startup problems from that point, and has gradually become more and more sluggish. Right now it takes about 30 minutes for it to "wake up" fully. The Activity Monitor can show everything fine, and the machine still runs slow.

I have run Disk Utility at least a dozen times, and the report is always good. A techie friend suggested that I remove all traces of Chrome, which I have done. At first, I seemed to note some improvement, but now the sluggishness is worse than ever. From experience, I know that Macs usually work like greased lightning, so this is very frustrating. Any ideas?

iMac 21.5″ 4K, macOS 13.6

Posted on Sep 24, 2024 1:53 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Old Toad

Level 10

216,220 points

Sep 24, 2024 3:02 PM in response to Soo768

Please download and run Etrecheck. The free version is sufficient.

Copy the report as shown in this animated screenshot

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

Then we can examine the report and see if we can determine the cause of the problem.

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Answer 2

den.thed

Level 10

92,542 points

Sep 24, 2024 2:34 PM in response to Soo768

The 2017 21.5" base model iMac has a really slow 5400 rpm internal Hard Drive.

The best way to speed up that 21.5" base model iMac, is to get and run it from an external SSD.

see > Use an external SSD as your startup disk … - Apple Community

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Answer 3

Old Toad

Level 10

216,220 points

Sep 25, 2024 10:01 AM in response to den.thed

Her first sentence was: "I have a 2017 Imac, 8gb RAM, 1TB SSD, 3Ghz Quad-Core Intel Core 5 processor. I bought this machine refurbished by Apple. " Based on MacTracker that model can have one of these: 1 TB (5400-rpm SATA), 1 TB Fusion Drive, or 256, 512 GB, or 1 TB flash storage. That's why I asked for the Etrecheck report.

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