Apple iMac Extremely Slow, not HD, not CPU use

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Level 1

14 points

Apple iMac Extremely Slow, not HD, not CPU use

I have an iMac about 5 years old iMac10,1 3.06Ghz Intel Core2 duo, 4 Gb ram, OS 10.6.8

This iMac has been running smoothly for months and last night it started running really slow (10+ minutes to load a single tab in Safari)

It shows the same behavior if booted from the internal HD or from an external mirrowed HD

It does not appear to be b/c of excessive memory use or CPU use as activity monitor shows at least 2/3 of the memory unused and safari for instance which may be the only open application other than activity monitor and about this mac...BUT there is also VERY low use of the cpu during this ativity. like a max of 2.5 % of cpu by safari web content

It also does not appear to be related to internet. I am typing this on a macbook pro which is on the same gateway (a Comcast voice cable modem which runs a phone, cable TV, and wireless which is what this macbook pro is operating off of with multiple windows/tabs open on both Firefox and Safari. the iMac is wired to the modem via an ethernet cable.

I thought maybe it could be ether net on the modem so I disconnect the iMac from ethernet and signed onto the same wifi as the iMac is on an still slow as molasses. speed test of the wifi using speakesy from the imac not an issue as using comcast blast it shows 71 mbps download and 11mbps upload speed.

applications like word are slow to start on the imac (beachball spinning for a minute or two) but at least not getting the beachball when typing or saving a document to the desktop.

Could my wife (primary user of the iMac) downloaded some malware from site website or maybe the CPU/motherboard is dying? any ideas??

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8), iMac 10,1 3Ghz Core2duo, 4Gb ram

Posted on Jun 5, 2015 11:32 AM

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Answer 1

poikkeus1

Level 4

2,474 points

Jun 5, 2015 11:56 AM in response to JohnInShaker

Post an Entrecheck run so I can determine if there are any other issues:

http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck

However, I guarantee that at least part of the problem is insufficient RAM. Your five year old machine has only 4GB RAM. Upgrade to at least 8GB to improve your speed.

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Answer 2

JohnInShaker Author

Level 1

14 points

Jun 5, 2015 5:00 PM in response to poikkeus1

OK the etretech report is below. While I am not a total novice--been using macs since 1989 or so, the two notables I see highlighted in red are an outdated version of flash and issues related to time machine. The rest is too much geek speak to me. Would the flash issue cause a smooth running Mac...no real slow downs----to essentially come to a standstill overnight? this was really sudden. Also I admit more RAM could be useful but again this is something which came on very suddenly. I was able to copy the etrecheck repot to a word document and move it to a shared dropbox folder between the the two computers so not everything is almost stopped. We don't use TimeMachine (we occasionally back up to an external hard drive using SuperDuper) so I can't see how that is an issue. Finally, another thought has occurred to me. We use Comcast as an ISP (really no choice where we live in Virginia) and we recently got a notice from Comcast that they were turning their infamous WiFi hotspot side of our cable modem....I can see Comcast wifi as a wifi network choice under airport network preferences..but even then, why would that affect the iMac and not this macbook pro (again 5 years old--mid2010, OS 10.8.5, 2.4 Ghz Core 2duo, and 4gb of Ram) that I am communicating on now . If anything its specifications are lower/slower than the iMac and as I said in the original post I have multiple windows/tabs open on this machine right now and no beachballs spinning.

Problem description:

iMac was running smoothly one day ago, then started running VERY slowly especially internet issues—taking 10 minutes to even load the apple homepage on Safari

EtreCheck version: 2.2 (132)

Report generated 6/5/15 7:15 PM

Download EtreCheck from http://etresoft.com/etrecheck

Click the [Click for support] links for help with non-Apple products.

Click the [Click for details] links for more information about that line.

Hardware Information: ℹ️

iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2009) (Technical Specifications)

iMac - model: iMac10,1

1 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU: 2-core

4 GB RAM

BANK 0/DIMM0

Empty

BANK 1/DIMM0

Empty

BANK 0/DIMM1

2 GB DDR3 1067 MHz ok

BANK 1/DIMM1

2 GB DDR3 1067 MHz ok

Bluetooth: Old - Handoff/Airdrop2 not supported

Wireless: en1: 802.11 a/b/g/n

Video Information: ℹ️

NVIDIA GeForce 9400 - VRAM: 256 MB

iMac 1920 x 1080

spdisplays_display_connector

System Software: ℹ️

Mac OS X 10.6.8 (10K549) - Time since boot: 0:12:25

Disk Information: ℹ️

Hitachi HDT721050SLA360 disk0 : (465.76 GB)

- (disk0s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB

JNlabMac (disk0s2) /Volumes/JNlabMac : 74.96 GB (31.58 GB free)

Annette (disk0s3) / : 212.40 GB (133.80 GB free)

Future (disk0s4) /Volumes/Future : 212.13 GB (211.83 GB free)

OPTIARC DVD RW AD-5680H

USB Information: ℹ️

Apple Internal Memory Card Reader

Apple, Inc. Keyboard Hub

Mitsumi Electric Apple Optical USB Mouse

Apple, Inc Apple Keyboard

Apple Inc. Built-in iSight

Apple Inc. BRCM2046 Hub

Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver

Problem System Launch Daemons: ℹ️

[not loaded] org.samba.winbindd.plist [Click for support]

Launch Agents: ℹ️

[running] com.brother.LOGINserver.plist [Click for support]

Launch Daemons: ℹ️

[loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist [Click for support]

User Launch Agents: ℹ️

[loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist [Click for support]

User Login Items: ℹ️

AutoSync Application (/Applications/AutoSync.app)

iTunesHelper UNKNOWN (missing value)

Dropbox Application (/Applications/Dropbox.app)

Internet Plug-ins: ℹ️

Flip4Mac WMV Plugin: Version: 2.4.4.2 [Click for support]

FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 17.0.0.169 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]

JavaAppletPlugin: Version: 13.9.8 - SDK 10.6 Check version

Flash Player: Version: 17.0.0.169 - SDK 10.6 Outdated! Update

AdobePDFViewer: Version: 9.5.5 [Click for support]

QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.6.6

iPhotoPhotocast: Version: 7.0

Audio Plug-ins: ℹ️

iSightAudio: Version: 7.6.6

3rd Party Preference Panes: ℹ️

Flash Player [Click for support]

Flip4Mac WMV [Click for support]

Time Machine: ℹ️

Time Machine information requires OS X 10.7 "Lion" or later.

Top Processes by CPU: ℹ️

4% fontd

3% LaunchCFMApp(2)

3% WindowServer

0% Dropbox

0% activitymonitord

Top Processes by Memory: ℹ️

131 MB mds

94 MB WebProcess

94 MB LaunchCFMApp(2)

86 MB Safari

86 MB Dropbox

Virtual Memory Information: ℹ️

1.99 GB Free RAM

2.01 GB Used RAM

0 B Swap Used

Diagnostics Information: ℹ️

Jun 5, 2015, 07:02:35 PM Self test - passed

Jun 5, 2015, 01:53:51 PM /Users/[redacted]/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/fontd_2015-06-05-135351_[redac ted].crash

Jun 5, 2015, 01:53:50 PM /Users/[redacted]/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/fontd_2015-06-05-135350_[redac ted].crash

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Answer 3

notcloudy

Level 4

1,258 points

Jun 5, 2015 5:30 PM in response to JohnInShaker

JohnInShaker wrote:

I have an iMac about 5 years old iMac10,1 3.06Ghz Intel Core2 duo, 4 Gb ram, OS 10.6.8

This iMac has been running smoothly for months and last night it started running really slow (10+ minutes to load a single tab in Safari)

Safari TOP SITES refresh is causing the slow-down - top sites refresh when the site is updated and they also are added automatically.

TOp sites set of boxes in upper left hand corner of the safari screen.

Safari for Snow Leopard does not work well anymore even with top sites clean up --- as many sites are toeing the line to make their sites tablet friendly --

I switched to OPERA about 6th months ago - and very happy with it - including the settings that clear web data and cookies after you end opera session 🙂

For Firefox - are you on the latest version?

And yes I am on Snow Leopard

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Answer 4

JohnInShaker Author

Level 1

14 points

Jun 5, 2015 9:51 PM in response to notcloudy

This helped a lot. It really seems the problem is/was with Safari loading top sites very slowly. Although the most recent version of Opera would not install under 10.6.8, (needs at least 10.7.0) when the iMac's Firefox was upgraded to the most recent version, Yahoo and other pages now load quite fast. Ultimately I think upgrading the OS as well as adding more memory as poikkeus1 suggested will be required in the future I'm reluctant to upgrade all the way to Yosemite (10.10) b/c I've read that older Macs sometimes also are really slow when using Yoesemite. I'm still a bit puzzled as to why Safari went from OK to awful over the course of couple of days, however. Thanks again

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Answer 5

poikkeus1

Level 4

2,474 points

Jun 6, 2015 7:46 AM in response to JohnInShaker

This topic crops up every once in a while. In fact, there are complaints about Safari slowness going back six years. But there's good news: there are pretty good solutions:

1. Disable "Top Sites."

"Top Sites" is cool-looking, and a good way to visually browse your most-visited websites. But more than a few users have complained that using Top Sites as your default startup page can be a big time-waster; this is especially a problem with older computers. If you still like Safari, try using an alternate home page.

http://osxdaily.com/2012/03/26/disable-top-sites-in-safari/

2. Browser Fixes.

You can speed up Safari pretty easily by doing basic housekeeping, like cleaning out deleting unneeded extensions and updating plugins.

http://www.chriswrites.com/safari-running-slow-how-to-speed-it-up/

Or, you can use a more stealthy browser like Firefox or Opera, however.

3. RAM woes.

Standard advice on many Mac help sites is to bump up the RAM to fix slow-downs. Fact is: it's really good advice, especially if you have an older Mac; the RAM is likely inexpensive, and easily upgraded.

http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/apple-memory

Realize, however, that current-day Macs (aside from higher-end machines) don't allow you to swap out RAM. If you're thinking about a computer purchase, get more RAM than you think you'll need - because computers get faster.

4. Get a New Machine.

Many computer owners hang onto their old machines for good reasons. They can last for a long, long time; all of the software still works fine; and Macs are often passed on from one generation of computer users to the next. But eventually, you're going to want to upgrade.

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Answer 6

notcloudy

Level 4

1,258 points

Jun 6, 2015 7:44 AM in response to JohnInShaker

JohnInShaker wrote:

This helped a lot. It really seems the problem is/was with Safari loading top sites very slowly. Although the most recent version of Opera would not install under 10.6.8, (needs at least 10.7.0) when the iMac's Firefox was upgraded to the most recent version, Yahoo and other pages now load quite fast. Ultimately I think upgrading the OS as well as adding more memory as poikkeus1 suggested will be required in the future I'm reluctant to upgrade all the way to Yosemite (10.10) b/c I've read that older Macs sometimes also are really slow when using Yoesemite. I'm still a bit puzzled as to why Safari went from OK to awful over the course of couple of days, however. Thanks again

Safari change to terrible happened for me after safari added my home page and a couple of other pages to tops sites without my knowledge that it was doing that or refreshes 😠 I didn't think to look at top sites because there was a period of time where I think it wasn't working according to spec 🙂 then they "fixed it" without adding an opt out of using flag.😠

Yosemite changes the way both RAM and VM are used. If you are used to having open a certain number of applications on your desk top in earlier releases with no problem - loading the same applications with Yosemite may cause Memory pressure.

Yosemite puts your entire application into RAM - unlike earlier releases where it put some in VM (pages in) if you see pages out swapping is occurring.

In order to keep active applications in RAM (those that have activity) Yosemite may compress parts of memory -- if its still not enough for active processes it Kills processes that have had no activity in a certain amount of time, only as a last resort will it swap active processes to VM.

I see 2 downsides to Yosemite: First Killing processes: Some applications may crash because the caller of a process opens it with initialization of some field then tries to call the same application after it has been killed - but is assuming it is running. Second: Compress of Memory - compression of information has one quick - very rare - the data compresses into an instruction that signifies end of data when it really isn't. Both problems would not occur if you have enough ram to run everything you have open.

I stayed a Snow Leopard because I would lose drivers for my printer - and the Lions Maverick and now Yosemite are geared towards pretty gadgets that I will never own.

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