I just got a 2009 imac and at first it was fast, but know its running really slow. ive looked up stuff to do on youtube and done almost everything on it but nothing is helping. i have 12gb ram so i dont think that its that. and i have 488gb of free space on my hard drive so i dont think its that either. i dont know what to do. could it be the newer os-x on an older computer? please help.
iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4), 2009 version
Spotlight could be indexing your hard drive?
Check the top upper right in the OS X main menu bar, look for the magnifying glass symbol and see if there is a dot in the middle of the symbol indicating that the Spotlight function is indexing your iMac's hard drive.
Do you run any antivirus software on your Mac? Antivirus software can slow down the normal operation of OS X.
Do you run any "crapware" like Mackeeper or any other type of "crapware" like so called hard drive "cleaning" apps?
How many applications do you run simultaneously in the background while working in another application?
Try and cut down on the number of simultaneously running apps.
The first thing you should do after acquiring a used computer is to erase the internal drive and install a clean copy of OS X. How you do that depends on the model. Look it up on this page to see what version was originally installed.
If the machine shipped with OS X 10.4 or 10.5, you need a boxed and shrink-wrapped retail Snow Leopard installation disc, which you can get from the Apple Store or a reputable reseller — not from eBay or anything of the kind.
If the machine shipped with OS X 10.6, you need the gray installation discs that came with it. If you don't have the discs, order replacements from Apple. A retail disc, or the gray discs from another model, will not work.
To boot from an optical disc, hold down the C key at the chime.
If the machine shipped with OS X 10.7 or later, it should boot into Internet Recovery mode when you hold down the key combination option-command-R at the startup chime.
Once booted from the disc or in Internet Recovery, launch Disk Utility and select the icon of the internal drive — not any of the volume icons nested beneath it. In the Partition tab, select the default options: a GUID partition table with one data volume in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. This operation will permanently remove all existing data on the drive, which is what you should do.
After partitioning, quit Disk Utility and run the OS X Installer. When the installation is done, the system will automatically reboot into the Setup Assistant, which will prompt you to transfer the data from another Mac, its backups, or from a Windows computer. If you have any data to transfer, this is usually the best time to do it.
You should then run Software Update and install all available system updates from Apple. If you want to upgrade to a major version of OS X newer than 10.6, buy it from the Mac App Store. Note that you can't keep an upgraded version that was installed by the previous owner. He or she can't legally transfer it to you, and without the Apple ID you won't be able to update it in Software Update or reinstall, if that becomes necessary. The same goes for any App Store products that the previous owner installed — you have to repurchase them.
Imac 2009 runing slow. Please help.
