iMac slow after Mavericks Installation

Question

Level 1

4 points

iMac slow after Mavericks Installation

I have just upgraded my Mid 2011 iMac to OSX 10.9 (Mavericks) and the machine became extremely slow, folder items take a long time before being displayed show, apps take a very long time before launching and the machine is remarkably slow.

Machine specs are as follows:

iMac 27-inch, Mid 2011

Processor 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7

Memory 16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3

Graphics AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2048 MB

Serial Number D2*******HJW

Software OS X 10.9 (13A603)

Do I/Can I do any hardware upgrades to solve this as I think the specs are very good and may not be the reason.

I would appreciate any help I could get

iMac (27-inch Mid 2011), OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Dec 11, 2013 2:50 PM

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Answer 1

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Dec 11, 2013 3:49 PM in response to yasserm

How long has it been since you upgraded?

Reply

Answer 2

yasserm Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 11, 2013 8:39 PM in response to Linc Davis

I dont remember the date but it was the same day it was released

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Answer 3

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Dec 11, 2013 9:25 PM in response to yasserm

First, back up all data immediately unless you already have a current backup. If you can't back up, stop here. Do not take any of the steps below.

Step 1

This diagnostic procedure will query the log for messages that may indicate a system issue. It changes nothing, and therefore will not, in itself, solve your problem.

If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.

Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:

syslog -k Sender kernel -k Message CReq 'GPU |hfs: Ru|I/O e|find tok|n Cause: -|NVDA\(|pagin|timed? ?o' | tail | awk '/:/{$4=""; print}' | open -ef

Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.

Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.

Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key.

The command may take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear.

A TextEdit window will open with the output of the command. Normally the command will produce no output, and the window will be empty. If the TextEdit window (not the Terminal window) has anything in it, stop here and post it — the text, please, not a screenshot. The title of the TextEdit window doesn't matter, and you don't need to post that.

Step 2

There are a few other possible causes of generalized slow performance that you can rule out easily.

Disconnect all non-essential wired peripherals and remove aftermarket expansion cards, if any.
Reset the System Management Controller.
Run Software Update. If there's a firmware update, install it.
If you're booting from an aftermarket SSD, see whether there's a firmware update for it.
If you have a portable computer, check the cycle count of the battery. It may be due for replacement.
If you have many image or video files on the Desktop with preview icons, move them to another folder.
If applicable, uncheck all boxes in the iCloud preference pane. See whether there's any change.
Check your keychains in Keychain Access for excessively duplicated items.
Boot into Recovery mode, launch Disk Utility, and run Repair Disk.
If you have a MacBook Pro with dual graphics, disable automatic graphics switching in the Energy Saverpreference pane for better performance at the cost of shorter battery life.

Step 3

When you notice the problem, launch the Activity Monitor application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Activity Monitor in the icon grid.

Select the CPU tab of the Activity Monitor window.

Select All Processes from the View menu or the menu in the toolbar, if not already selected.

Click the heading of the % CPU column in the process table to sort the entries by CPU usage. You may have to click it twice to get the highest value at the top. What is it, and what is the process? Also post the values for User, System, and Idle at the bottom of the window.

Select the Memory tab. What value is shown in the bottom part of the window for Swap used?

Next, select the Disk tab. Post the approximate values shown for Reads in/sec and Writes out/sec (not Reads in andWrites out.)

Step 4

If you have more than one user account, you must be logged in as an administrator to carry out this step.

Launch the Console application in the same way you launched Activity Monitor. Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select

View ▹ Show Log List

from the menu bar.

Select the 50 or so most recent entries in the log. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combinationcommand-C. Paste into a reply to this message (command-V). You're looking for entries at the end of the log, not at the beginning.

When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.

Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.

Important: Some personal information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting. That should be easy to do if your extract is not too long.

Reply

Answer 4

Dec 12, 2013 9:00 AM in response to Linc Davis

Sorry for putting my comments in your discussion but Im having the same issues.

I did the first step and got this:

Dec 11 18:33:16 kernel[0] <Debug>: disk0s2: I/O error.

Dec 12 00:01:32 kernel[0] <Debug>: disk0s2: I/O error.

Dec 12 00:35:42 kernel[0] <Debug>: disk0s2: I/O error.

Dec 12 04:17:04 kernel[0] <Debug>: disk0s2: I/O error.

Dec 12 04:17:37 kernel[0] <Debug>: disk0s2: I/O error.

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Answer 5

yasserm Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 14, 2013 10:29 AM in response to Linc Davis

Dear Linc,

I followed your steps and here's what I got:

Step 1. the textedit window remained blank

Step 2. I did all the steps you mentioned in step 2, non of them seems to have been the problem

Step 3. the %CPU was as follows:

Dashboard

7.8

1:09:04.58

19

47

3098

yassermuzaffar

108.3 MB

245

0 bytes

64 bit

0 bytes

0

-

No

0 bytes

No

0 bytes

kernel_task

3.3

1:23:31.83

99

341

0

root

1,011.9 MB

0

0 bytes

64 bit

0 bytes

0

-

No

0 bytes

No

0 bytes

Safari Web Content

3.0

3.44

14

18

4660

yassermuzaffar

0 bytes

64 bit

0 bytes

0

-

No

0 bytes

No

Yes

0 bytes

µTorrent

2.6

1:04:23.49

18

20

714

yassermuzaffar

122.2 MB

264

0 bytes

32 Bit

0 bytes

0

-

No

0 bytes

No

0 bytes

System Value is 0.80%

User Value is 1.45%

Idle Value is 97.40%

Swap used is 256 Kb

Reads in/sec is 2

Writes out/sec 0

Step 4. last group of error messages is as follows (Irealize this is probably more than you wanted to see but each item is long by itself... sorry for that):

12/14/13 9:19:31.420 PM Mail[4608]: *** Assertion failure in -[MFLocalAccount mailboxForRelativePath:isFilesystemPath:create:], /SourceCache/Mail/Mail-1816/FrameworkTargets/MailFramework/Accounts/MFMailAccou nt.m:4302

Absolute path passed into -[MFLocalAccount mailboxForRelativePath:isFilesystemPath:create:]: /Volumes/C-3PO/Sent Messages 2.mbox

(

0 MailCore 0x00007fff8b80ac8c -[MCAssertionHandler _handleFailureWithPreamble:description:arguments:] + 141

1 MailCore 0x00007fff8b80aafd -[MCAssertionHandler handleFailureInMethod:object:file:lineNumber:description:] + 215

2 Mail 0x00007fff8606c97a -[MFMailAccount mailboxForRelativePath:isFilesystemPath:create:] + 197

3 Mail 0x00007fff8606dc0f +[MFMailAccount mailboxForURL:forceCreation:syncableURL:] + 435

4 Mail 0x00007fff8607f673 __43+[MFMailbox queueUpdateCountsForMailboxes:]_block_invoke822 + 48

5 CoreFoundation 0x00007fff8be3aa1f __65-[__NSDictionaryM enumerateKeysAndObjectsWithOptions:usingBlock:]_block_invoke + 111

6 CoreFoundation 0x00007fff8be3a92e -[__NSDictionaryM enumerateKeysAndObjectsWithOptions:usingBlock:] + 222

7 Mail 0x00007fff8607f560 __43+[MFMailbox queueUpdateCountsForMailboxes:]_block_invoke + 270

8 Foundation 0x00007fff86b25055 -[NSBlockOperation main] + 75

9 Foundation 0x00007fff86b04591 -[__NSOperationInternal _start:] + 631

10 Foundation 0x00007fff86b0423b __NSOQSchedule_f + 64

11 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8a4f72ad _dispatch_client_callout + 8

12 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8a4fb7ff _dispatch_async_redirect_invoke + 154

13 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8a4f72ad _dispatch_client_callout + 8

14 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8a4f909e _dispatch_root_queue_drain + 326

15 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8a4fa193 _dispatch_worker_thread2 + 40

16 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x00007fff84e36ef8 _pthread_wqthread + 314

17 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x00007fff84e39fb9 start_wqthread + 13

)

12/14/13 9:19:31.421 PM Mail[4608]: *** Assertion failure in -[MFLocalAccount mailboxForRelativePath:isFilesystemPath:create:], /SourceCache/Mail/Mail-1816/FrameworkTargets/MailFramework/Accounts/MFMailAccou nt.m:4302

Absolute path passed into -[MFLocalAccount mailboxForRelativePath:isFilesystemPath:create:]: /Volumes/C-3PO/INBOX 2.mbox