El Capitan running slowly?

Were you updating your machines from Yosemite, or from earlier?

Thinking that my problems might be related to having updated from 10.8.6 (2 OS' back), despite having updated all my programs and plugins for compatibility beforehand.

Just because I have seen none of what you describe does not mean I am condescending, quite the contrary. I am telling you the truth, your Mac would go faster if you installed OS X correctly (i.e.: without useless utilities in the mix) Choose not to believe me if you will, but there is no call for insults as well.

Do as you wish with your problems, I have offered help and been turned down.

Please reread the posts.

No need for that, I have no more advice to offer you.

Kurt Triffet wrote:

Please reread the posts.

There is no need to reread the posts. It has been suggested several times that if you and others here want help stop complaining and start a new thread detailing your specific issues. Someone here will then be happy to help those who follow that advice. There is no sense piling onto a thread that is going nowhere other than providing a place to vent.

Writing an effective Apple Support Communities question

Yikes, no one is reading the posts. A few have outlined specifics here, including me. Let's stay on topic and help each other if we know something.

No need for scolding.

My issue seemed to be the PRAM (NVRAM). Got the suggestion off the forum, worked like a charm, even Office is not as recalcitrant. Did the usual, reindexed spotlight, did the disk first aid, checked my start up items, no dice. Now however, it works like it did when it was new.

The one thing I didn't do! Just performed that a little while ago. Much better so far, but I'll know once I start going deep into all my Adobe apps as I get my work day going.

I just jumped up to a late 2013 MacBook Pro and WOW! I didn't realize how slow my mid 2009 MacBook Pro was.

I was concerned about the memory use of an item named "kernel_task" on my old MBP. It hovers in the 375 to 400 MB range. And on my new MBP that item isn't even listed.

Can anyone explain to me what the "kernel_task" is and why it would be using so much memory?

Well, a day after performing that PRAM task, not really noticing much difference. Large folders still often lag when opening, and performing a file "Open As" takes the usual very long time to "fetch" the list of apps I can open the file in.
Mail appears to have calmed down with just the usual quirks it has always exhibited.
I thought some of this might be because I have one external backup drive attached, that always caused a bit of a lag on some functions as the finder (I assume) tries to search it). Was never a real problem with 10.6.8, but much more so now with El Capitan. I have 4 internal hard drives that never cause any issues. I disconnected the drive all day yesterday, and saw no performance improvement anywhere else.

Okay. I've decided to bite the bullet and put an end to this debate that 'something must be wrong with your computer" or "your Mac is too old."

So I'm buying the latest/fastest Mac Mini and it arrives this week.

So a serious/honest question for those here to provide tech guidance -- do you recommend I get a firewire cable and transfer everything over from my Mac that is being brought to a halt since my update to CAPITAN? I would certainly much rather just bring over everything from my other computer than have to reinstall all from scratch and have to transfer over my Mail account mail boxes.

But is that the right thing to do? The computer arrives Wednesday, so I'm eager to hear what others recommend I do.

Thank you.

John

Would my slow indexing issue have something to do with Spotlight?

Is there something I can disable that might help my computer index faster? Seems to be the only really issue I'm having now.

John Kranz wrote:

Okay. I've decided to bite the bullet and put an end to this debate that 'something must be wrong with your computer" or "your Mac is too old."

... -- do you recommend I get a firewire cable and transfer everything over from my Mac that is being brought to a halt since my update to CAPITAN?

But is that the right thing to do?

No one can possibly answer that question for you John because you, like 99.99% of everyone complaining El Cap ruined their Macs, steadfastly refuses to post their own Discussion containing specific information about their unique installation that might help reveal what's wrong with it. All you have said is that you are "in the same boat as some others" which conveys no actionable information.

Post your own Discussion, and some guidance might be possible. Without that information, it's not.

The new Mini has no FireWire port, but you could use a FireWire to Thunderbolt adapter, or connect the two Macs over your local network.

I don't recommend using Setup Assistant because it's extremely likely that your existing Mac is running software incompatible with El Cap, or is simply ill-conceived garbage that should not be installed on any Mac of any age new or old, but that is complete and total speculation — because you haven't provided any details in a Discussion that you created.

Please read Writing an effective Apple Support Communities question.

Uhm...John...actually I have provided weeks ago a dropbox link in which ONE person responded with recommendation that I took. That did not solve the problem. I then posted a question about how to get rid of a Mail log item, and that never got responded to with clear directions on how to deal with that.

Geez...these forums are incredibly user-unfriendly.At this point, I'll do my own research on the matter rather than give folks here the opportunity to take personal swipes. This is clearly not the place to go for support.

John

As I wrote the reason you have not received competent guidance is that you have not created your own Discussion:

John Galt wrote:

Post your own Discussion, and some guidance might be possible. Without that information, it's not.

The last Discussion you created was fifteen months ago.