Q: My 2007 iMac with OSX 10.7.4 has been slow lately.  Verify permissions gave: Warning: SUID file “System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAg ent” has been modified and will not be repaired".  Could this be the problem?

I think you can rule out the warning as being the problem. Here's a list of Disk Permission messages you can safely ignore:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1448?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Hi Miles,

Though you need to occasionally Repair Permissions, you can ignore any messages, repeated or not, as long as it says Completed at the bottom.

Let's see if we can figure out or fix the slowness.

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?

I hope BDAqua won't mind me commenting - but it could be the problem. How much actual RAM do you have installed - anything less than 4gb and you'll likely see poor performance.

Of course I don't mind Paul, you're a great help here, thanks!

How long has it been since a restart, that is a lot of Pageouts, but is total since last startup.

And Paul has a very good question...

So we know more about it...

At the Apple Icon at top left>About this Mac, then click on More Info, then click on Hardware> and report this upto but not including the Serial#...

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: iMac

Model Identifier: iMac7,1

Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo

Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz

Number Of Processors: 1

Total Number Of Cores: 2

L2 Cache: 4 MB

Memory: 6 GB

Bus Speed: 800 MHz

Boot ROM Version: IM71.007A.B03

SMC Version (system): 1.21f4

Thanks BD, appreciate it - just wish I had half your knowledge on all things Mac

Early or mid?

My 2007 iMac runs the latest OS fine with 6 GB of RAM...

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple/memory/iMac/Intel_Core_2_Duo

I wish I had a quarter of the knowledge I once had!

So we know more about it...

At the Apple Icon at top left>About this Mac, then click on More Info, then click on Hardware> and report this upto but not including the Serial#...

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: iMac

Model Identifier: iMac7,1

Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo

Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz

Number Of Processors: 1

Total Number Of Cores: 2

L2 Cache: 4 MB

Memory: 6 GB

Bus Speed: 800 MHz

Boot ROM Version: IM71.007A.B03

SMC Version (system): 1.21f4

Yeah, I'd consider a newer Mac, your can only use 3GB of RAM, 4GB for a bit more speed, but still can only use 3GB of it...

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple/memory/iMac/Intel_Core_2_Duo_2006