My new iMac (21.5" late 2012) runs slow and unresponsive

It's not the 8 gig. Has it always been slow or is this recent?

If this the new thin model iMacs, bring it back to Apple store and have them diagnose the issue!

It's a brand new iMac with AppleCare. Bring it back to Apple where you bought it.

These new 21 inch screen model iMacs are glued-up, sealed up, closed computing appliances, now.

The RAM is NOT upgradeable.

If you even think that you may have not gotten enough RAM to do the things you want to do with this iMac,

You have 14 days to return it for a full refund and order another new iMac with the full 16 GBs of RAM and anything else, you think may need for the future. Maybe faster CPU, more storage,,etc.

Bring it back to Apple.

If they can't pin down what is wrong or you think you may need a faster new iMac, return it for a full refund.

The OS did not come pre installed on your new iMac?

You had to install the OS yourself?

You have a 14 day window in which to return the iMac if you think you'd rather have the 27" model. Also...if you have trouble getting things right with it, you can return it for an exchange.

santosohario wrote:

It happened from the moment I installed the iOS.

What exactly do you mean by that, the OS is pre-installed for you. What (if anything) have you done?

The 27" can have the memory upgraded by you nothing else. The 21" can't be upgraded on anything.

Something in your software or hardware is not right. 8 gig for moutain lion is plenty for almost all tasks. You can open activity monitor from the utilities folder and select the system memory tab, I bet you see plenty of free memory. If you don't, look in the window above and select all processes, then sort it by memory useage (click on the real memory column).

good luck

The only user upgradeable hardware in the 27 inch screen Macs is the RAM and it be upgraded cheaper through third party Mac RAM suppliers.

Everthing else about the 27 inch iMacs is not upgradeable later and you still need to make decisions about, the CPU, GPU and storage options AT THE TIME OF PURCHASE as these components aren't upgradeable at all later, ever, too!

You only have got 183 MB of free memory, and you have 5.61 GB of inactive memory. That's why your Mac is slow.

To turn inactive memory into free memory, I recommend you to download FreeMemory from the App Store. Then, your Mac should work properly again

Your problem is your computer is starved for RAM, forget about you old computer and focus on thsi current machine. Upgrade the RAM and your prerformance will probably return, it's that simple.