Why is my iMac so slow? OSX 10.5.8.

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Why is my iMac so slow? OSX 10.5.8.

Frustrating frequently I get the color wheel when opening simple email, also when scrolling web pages on Firefox. 2008 Computer has 500GB of memory with 150GB available; 2GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM. I try to run with very few programs open, but still quite slow. I've run Repair Disk Permissions successfully to no avail. I've been told that the hard drive might be dying, which I hope is not the case, but I don't know how to confirm one way or the other. Any help would be appreciated.

Posted on Aug 17, 2012 1:16 PM

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Answer 1

Aug 17, 2012 1:27 PM in response to Dottyc

Run Activity Monitor and determine if any application or applications are using high percentages of CPU. You can also us AM to view memory use.

As to your disk drive, there are applications that can run a surface test to check for bad sectors, I have no experience with them so cannot recommend any.

You don't say which version of OS X you use, I found Lion quite slow at times with 2GB ram and upgraded to 4GB.

regards

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Answer 2

Aug 17, 2012 1:30 PM in response to Dottyc

Sorry your OS X version was in the title, I found 10.5 OK with 2GB.

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Answer 3

BDAqua

Level 10

238,829 points

Aug 17, 2012 1:44 PM in response to Dottyc

Hello, see how many of these you can answer...

See if the Disk is issuing any S.M.A.R.T errors in Disk Utility...

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH7029

Open Activity Monitor in Applications>Utilities, select All Processes & sort on CPU%, any indications there?

How much RAM & free space do you have also, click on the Memory & Disk Usage Tabs.

Open Console in Utilities & see if there are any clues or repeating messages when this happens.

In the Memory tab, are there a lot of Pageouts?

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Answer 4

Dottyc Author

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Aug 17, 2012 1:48 PM in response to rack0 tack0

The Activity Monitor shows Firefox to be jumping from around 11% to a spike of 34%; Mail is showing around 0.1. Doesn't seem to be out of line to me, but I didn't even know about AM before today. I must admit I have a lot of emails stored on Mail and I usually keep several windows open on Firefox, but this slowness has really increased tremendously in the last few days with nothing new happening that I'm aware of.

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Answer 5

Aug 17, 2012 1:54 PM in response to Dottyc

The items suggested by BDAqua need to be checked, just one point about AM, did you select 'all processes' as in BDAqua screen shot?

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Answer 6

Dottyc Author

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Aug 17, 2012 2:03 PM in response to BDAqua

Disk Utility says S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified, if that's what you mean.

On System Memory in Activity Monitor, Pageouts is 1.82 GB. On the CPU tab it doesn't look unusual, but I don'w know what it is supposed to look like.

On Disk Usage, it shows Space utilized: 316.24GB and Space free: 149.20, so a fair percentage is free.

Opened Console and am waiting for that blasted wheel to stop! Twice. I'm keeping it open for a while just in case it responds.

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Answer 7

Dottyc Author

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Aug 17, 2012 2:05 PM in response to rack0 tack0

Yes, I put it on All Processes. Still waiting for Console Messages to come through.

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Answer 8

Aug 17, 2012 2:13 PM in response to Dottyc

This may explain the Page Outs that BDAqua suggested you look for, and perhaps a reason for slow running.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1342

Is it OK after a reboot and then slows down with use, just wondering about a memory leak in one of you applications?

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Answer 9

Dottyc Author

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Aug 17, 2012 2:23 PM in response to rack0 tack0

Thanks. That website helps me understand. My Page outs is pretty high and the Free is low: 7-10 MB.

It's not much better after a reboot. Perhaps a little, but not like it should be.

Update on Console Messages: The wheel is still turning but there seem to be quite a few lines being addes, starting with September of '09. I can't move the window to see how far it's going, but I'm guessing hundreds of lines.

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Answer 10

Aug 17, 2012 2:32 PM in response to Dottyc

In the memory fields of AM is there any application that is using lots of RAM?, The more tabs in Firefox or Safari you have open will increase its memory footprint.

Any applications you have updated or installed recently?

The slowness does seem to be retlated to full RAM.

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Answer 11

RRFS

Level 5

4,522 points

Aug 17, 2012 2:38 PM in response to Dottyc

You wrote that you have Repaired Disk Permissions, have you tried to do a Disk Repair? Do you have any "Virus Protection" running? You really don't need that stuff for OSX. That being said Snow Leopard is probably safer than Leopard.

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Answer 12

Dottyc Author

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Aug 17, 2012 2:41 PM in response to rack0 tack0

Right now the main thing that is using memory is the Console Messages @ around 20-35% CPU. Firefox updated recently to 14.0.1, but I think I was having problems before that. In any case it wasn't as bad as it is now.

Regarding keeping open windows in Firefox, does it make any difference if I have, say 6 separate windows open, or if there are 2 windows open with 3 "+" windows used in each?

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Answer 13

Dottyc Author

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Aug 17, 2012 2:43 PM in response to RRFS

I have not done Disk Repair at this point. Also, I was reluctant to upgrade to Snow Leopard while still having a problem and not knowing the cause.

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Answer 14

Dottyc Author

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Aug 17, 2012 2:50 PM in response to RRFS

Oh, sorry I missed the question, I don't have any virus protection running.

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Answer 15

Aug 17, 2012 2:52 PM in response to Dottyc

I don't know about the FF memory usage as you describe but I have seen memory useage go up with more tabs open.

The other item that can slow systems down is disk fragmentation, OS X is very good at keeping this low but it is always possible that this has occured. I don't know of any software provided with OS X to check this out although there are applications available.

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