My imac has suddenly slowed down. I've reparied the permissions numerous times but it doesn't seem to do much. There is a loag time from the time I click on something and it doing the action ( like closing or opening files) any suggetions
iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
Open Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder. Select All Processes from the Processes dropdown menu. Click twice on the CPU% column header to display in descending order. If you find a process using a large amount of CPU time (>=70,) then select the process and click on the Quit icon in the toolbar. Click on the Force Quit button to kill the process. See if that helps. Be sure to note the name of the runaway process so you can track down the cause of the problem.
Check free space on your hard drive. If you have less than 10 GBs start removing files.
Be sure you have adequate RAM installed for the number of concurrent applications you run.
Repairing permissions is a waste of time. Repairing your hard drive may be useful.
Also try clearing the user library caches.
Go to your home folder and clear out
~/Library/Caches (move to trash)
also check system preferences > accounts > login items.. to see whether any unwanted applications are loading during startup.. if so remove them by clicking the item and then the minus button
also if that doesnt work, maybe running in safe mode by holding down shift as the computer boots up... this will disable any third party applications that may be causing it to run slow..
if it runs fine in safemode then i would check out Kappy's post.
if none of the above works, then boot into recovery (command + r during start up) and see how the computer responds in recovery mode also check the SMART status of the Hard Drive in disk utility
if it verified then good
if it is failing then it's hardware
... if you are getting the same slow, laggy behavior in recovery regardless then perhaps its hardware.
If Kappy's advice doesn't do the trick, see:
Mac Maintenance Quick Assist,
Mac OS X speed FAQ,
Speeding up Macs,
How to Speed up Macs,
Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance,
Mac troubleshooting: What to do when your computer is too slow,
Essential Mac Maintenance: Get set up,
Essential Mac Maintenance: Rev up your routines,
Maintaining OS X,
Five Mac maintenance myths and
Myths of required versus not required maintenance for Mac OS X for information.
i think this thread is going to help me with my slowdown and excessive read/write problem. i would like to add a question: my problems seem to occur when i have safari open. does that symptom give you any hints about where i should look?
thanks.
i'm writting to report on my read/write and slowing problems.
i tried several suggestions from several discussions. no luck. i finally broke down and lugged my 27" imac to the apple store in a shopping center. they tested and could find no problems. they did upgrade the operating system to lion from snow leopard.
when i set up the mac the way it had been before the trip to the apple store, the read/writing and bogging down was still there. i took off one device after the other until i was down to a cable for my bose sound system. after i removed the bose system, i have had no read/writing or bogging.
i'll see whether there is new bose software and/or try to switch out a cable. i hope this is the end of my saga instead of a short intermission of symptoms. the bose speakers were so much in the background that i never suspected them.
thank you everyone for your efforts to help me. mea culpa,
jean adkins
my imac has suddenly slowed down considerably. I've already reparied disk permissions?
