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Is Mavericks making your machine run slow?

I downloaded Mavericks this afternoon and installed it on my iMac i7 24GB RAM Everything seems to be slow in transitions from one app to another and many apps stall for severeal minutes as if the processor is playing catch-up. Thoughts? Should I just reinstall the update?

Posted on Oct 22, 2013 5:12 PM

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324 replies

Apr 25, 2014 9:04 PM in response to Brian Campbell3

I've been fighting this for a while too, but think I just resolved it. Someone earlier (lost the link, sorry) about checking the Console, so I brought up the Console and saw hundreds (at least) of messages from iCalendar struggling to sync with my Google account.


I don't really use Icalendar all that much, so I followed the prompts to bring up Internet Accounts and removed my Google account entirely from the machine. I didn't even need to reboot, the machine sped up right away. I'm a bit astonished, but happy that my macbook is usable again.


I hope this helps someone else.


tl;dr - Bring up Console, and look for clues in the error messages there.

May 3, 2014 7:25 AM in response to LDO42

Know what? I have a mid-2011 21.5 Imac w/ 4GB of RAM, 2.5 Core i5, 500gig HD, OSX 9 Mavericks, AMD Radeon HD 6750M. I bought it second hand, and didn't even do a clean install. I was intending to use ML, but I needed to use the Pro Apps, etc, and therefore, I had to upgrade to Mavericks. The Machine was working perfectly, with WIN8,WIN7, and ubuntu 64-bit in Parellels Desktop 9, and Motion and FCPX. but i DO see THE SPINNING PINWHEEL OF DEATH sometimes. I am a programmer and a video editor, you see, so I need tons of Apps, including Apps that require a high-end computer. But 10.9 works fine!

May 24, 2014 5:20 PM in response to greenmind

IMHO, it's a mistake to monitor the Console's "All Messages" display. By far the majority of the items listed are informational and of little interest to most users. Better to narrow your focus to the "system.log" and items found in Diagnostic Reports (crashes, hangs, panics) to get an idea of what has gone wrong. When you see an app that's crashing a lot, it's time to figure out why. The system.log is the default for all error messages, so when you see the same app spewing out hundreds of error message, it's time to find out why.


As far as resource usage is concerned, I have never used the Console to give me that kind of information. That's what Activity Monitor is for.

May 30, 2014 10:47 AM in response to Brian Campbell3

I own a MBP late 2011 13 inch (MD-313), and recently upgraded to OSX Mavericks 10.9.3, from Lion 10.7, all Apps are working fine, (iWork, Ilife, and Pro Apps included) though experiencing a little bit Slower in speed when I turned on my machine, it takes more time to start


Rest seems fine, in-fact a Secondary Display has a seprate MENU BAR, which is definately a convinience.

Overall, the upgraded OS leaves a positive impact 🙂

Jun 10, 2014 11:28 AM in response to Brian Campbell3

Hi, finally I have install OSX Maverick, and as I supposed my Mac was terrific slow down after the update 😟

I have this system configuration:

Hardware Information:

MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2.53GHz, Mid 2009)

MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro5,4

1 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU: 2 cores

4 GB RAM

Video Information:

NVIDIA GeForce 9400M - VRAM: 256 MB

System Software:

OS X 10.9.3 (13D65) - Uptime: 0 days 2:39:41


Note: the slow performances was not detected with the previous OSX 10.7 version.

Now to work with XCode5.1.1 and the iPhone simulator is simply terrific!

Dozens of minutes in wait with the spinner running... very frustrating!

Well... I've read in this thread that a workaround can be done using the 'Repair Disk Permissions' in Disk Utility.

Is this true? Can the slow system issue be fixed running this utility?


Thanks in advance for any suggestions and tips.

Ale

Aug 24, 2014 3:06 AM in response to moishyb

moishyb wrote:


Macbook Aluminium 4gb ram, 250gb hhd


Even after clean install of mavericks, computer still seems a bit sluggish.

Then I guess you are one of those users that require 8GB RAM and an SSD drive. I know I'm much happier on my iMac with 20GB RAM and Mavericks is the fastest Mac OS I've ever used, once it get's all it's databases updated (which take the better part of a day, for me).

Aug 24, 2014 9:58 AM in response to MadMacs0

My iMac isn't brand new, 2009,but it's also not super old. Once it's running it works okay, but takes forever to start up using Mavericks, once it's logged out. I was using the recommended power saver settings, but waiting 5 minutes (yes thats how long it takes) to just open an application, when my mac goes to sleep, was completely unacceptable. I changed those settings so that my computer never sleeps, and the monitor sleeps after 3 hours. Every morning, or after 3 hours of inactivity, it still takes me 5 minutes to login. I'm glad that your happy wt your iMac, wish I could say the same ):

Is Mavericks making your machine run slow?

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