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Level 1

8 points

2012 Mac Mini becoming very slow when using finder

Hi!

I've had my 2012 Mac Mini (10.9 Mavericks, Dual Booted W/ Windows) since February 2014 (Late to the party, I know) and, up until about a week ago, it was fine.

Then, all of a sudden, it starts being unusabley slow the moment I try to do anything in finder. Relaunching finder makes it a bit more bareable, and rebooting fixes it completely until I next open finder. I thought this may have been one of those rare times when a Mac gets a virus, however, AVG found nothing. The next thing I found was that it was to do with the fact that my hard drive was full (it was quite full) and that if I was using all of my 4GB of RAM that my Mac would use virtual memory, and that this would effect the speed if I didn't have a lot of HDD space. However, despite removing nearly 1/2 of the things on my HDD, the problem still persists. I have basically ruled out visiting "the local" apple store, as I'm in the middle of nowhere. the nearest one is around 3 hours away.

Thanks,

Dan

Mac mini, OS X Mavericks (10.9.2), 2.5 GHz Intel i5, 4GB Ram

Posted on May 7, 2014 9:42 AM

Best reply

dwb

Level 7

32,938 points

Posted on May 7, 2014 10:42 AM

dstf199 wrote:

The next thing I found was that it was to do with the fact that my hard drive was full (it was quite full) and that if I was using all of my 4GB of RAM that my Mac would use virtual memory, and that this would effect the speed if I didn't have a lot of HDD space.

In the snippet I quoted above you may be overascribing the problem to a full drive. True, if your drive is overly full it can slow the computer down but so will virtual RAM, especially on a computer with a 5400 RPM hard drive.

Restart the computer, launch Activity Monitor and use it as you normally do for an hour. In Activity Monitor select the Memory tab and keep an eye on the graph in the middle of the display. If it turns red it means your computer is under high memory pressure. In english that means you need more RAM 🙂. After about an hour also check out the Swap Used data at the bottom left of the AM screen. Even though you may never see a red memory pressure graph your computer may begin using virtual memory which is going to slow it down. If either of these are true your need to upgrade your RAM.

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21 replies

dstf199 Author

Level 1

8 points

May 16, 2014 1:46 PM in response to Linc Davis

Yeah... y'know how I thought uninstalling AVG had fixed the problem....

It hasn't! Just came back today. Virtual Memory usage massive again! Any other ideas?

May 21, 2014 7:37 AM in response to dstf199

dstf199,

I use ClamXav without any issues for at least 5 years.

Other good helper Application(s) that I use, I don't use any others, are the ones Marcel Bresink Software puts out. He has some paid/some free. I feel his software is very safe; it hasn't done anything harmful to my Macs. I researched and it came up positive.

His main product page is: http://www.bresink.com/products.html

I have been using his Tinker Tool System and Tinker Tool for at least 5 years. I'm not a tech, so I try really hard to keep everything simple. Some options he has I have never used/changed. He has plenty of documentation that is very helpful and recommended.

It might help.

Oh, and I wouldn't use anything Google either. Try using: https://startpage.com/eng/aboutstartpage/ as your search engine.

dstf199 Author

Level 1

8 points

May 25, 2014 12:43 PM in response to linda2009

Hi. I'm slightly confused as to what you mean. What does ClamXav do? Is this an antivirus tool? If it is, as linc stated, apparently, virus software isn't *that* necessary on macs. I (i have no idea why) appear to have fixed the problem by using a different display. Nearly all lag has completely gone. (for now)

I'll try it like this for a few days and then get back to you. 🙂

MadMacs0

Level 5

5,221 points

May 25, 2014 3:21 PM in response to dstf199

dstf199 wrote:

What does ClamXav do? Is this an antivirus tool? If it is, as linc stated, apparently, virus software isn't *that* necessary on macs.

Yes, it is a Mac anti-malware tool that is often recommended because by default it does not run any background processes to interfer with your computing experience. It only does what you tell it to do, when you tell it to. As Linc mentioned:

It's free and it won't handicap the system.

The ClamXav developer won't try to "upsell" you to a paid version of the product.

Full disclosure: I participate in uncompensated tech support for the ClamXav Forum.

dstf199 Author

Level 1

8 points

May 26, 2014 1:39 AM in response to MadMacs0

Ah, ok. Thanks for that. I'll install that and see if it affects the speed in any way. Swapping the monitor seems to have fixed it a bit, but I think a clean install of OSX may be in order. It looks like I'm gonna be spending a lot of time backing up my hard drive :-(

MadMacs0

Level 5

5,221 points

May 26, 2014 1:48 AM in response to dstf199

dstf199 wrote:

I'll install that and see if it affects the speed in any way.

Since it doesn't run any background processes at all out of the box, it won't. You can schedule a daily definitions update and / or daily scan if you want to. All other scans with the app are manual.

With the web site version, there is a real-time process called Sentry you can setup to watch selected folders if you feel you need that.

I think a clean install of OSX may be in order.

That certainly worked well for me when my Finder suddenly slowed down a couple of weeks after upgrading to original Mavericks. Quick and easy. Didn't touch any of my user files or third party software. I was back to good-as-new in a couple of hours or less. But yes, you do want to have a backup, just in case.

2012 Mac Mini becoming very slow when using finder