Is anyone else having the issue of your Mac running wicked slow after the new El Capitan update? Word, Safari, Preview, and iTunes wouldn't open- they froze and I had to force quit them. Even typing this there is a major lag and the pinwheel appears. What's up with that? So far I hate how slow it's making my mac.
I had the same problem with my mid-2010 IMac, but then I upgraded from El Capitan to Sierra. Huge improvement! Problem solved.
Since I figured it was also a RAM issue, I ordered 16MB of it (from 4MB), but I never installed it. Now I'm wondering whether I even need to.
Huge relief as I was almost ready to order a replacement computer.
Hi Kenylady,
I did a little research and I discovered that the method you describe in your post is called resetting the SMC https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295. I thought about doing this also since my MacBook Air seems slower since the El Capitan install, but I'm wondering if I'd be better off to just wait for the next update. Has anyone else been able to speed up their Mac after El Capitan by resetting SMC?
IT takes just a couple of minutes to teset the SMC or parameter RAM, why wait for a patch when you can do it now?
YES! I agree. Same issues. Have a feeling in something to do with Mail, as its a glitchy as **** lately, increasing RAM use, not remembering passwords!!! Please fix Apple.
I managed to solve my problem at least, and it was definitely related to the Mail app!
Started out by disabling all accounts in preferences, and then slowly enable one at a time. When I enabled the first account, I restarted, the opened Mail, and everything froze. But I waited for several hours, and suddenly noticed it started loading mails slowly. It took almost 4 hours to settle in, but suddenly it seemed like everything was in order. My mail worked perfectly, and no running beachball or anything.
Then I enabled my second email account, and it all started over - my machine went completely dead and unresponsive, but again I realised it was just 'loading' new mail. It was a considerable larger mail account, so took almost 6 hours to finish, but as of now - everything is running perfectly!!
I concluded that the issue is related to A) Mail accounts with a lot of mails, which El Capitan for some reason takes extraordinary long time to download completely, and B) Spotlight trying to index same all these mails as quickly as possible, even as they're still synchronising - leading to a bottleneck with the mails app.
My suggestion - from personal experience: Patience. It took me 4 days, and several reboots, reinstalls and more reboots to realise that all the system probably needed was additional time to 'settle in'...
Here's my Etrecheck results. Please advise what is learned from it and what I should do. Thank you!!!
Dan
EtreCheck version: 2.5.2 (204)
Report generated 10/3/15, 9:41 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: (What does this mean?)
Mac mini (Late 2014)
[Click for Technical Specifications]
Mac mini - model: Macmini7,1
1 2.8 GHz Intel Core i5 CPU: 2-core
8 GB RAM Not upgradeable
BANK 0/DIMM0
4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok
BANK 1/DIMM0
4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok
Bluetooth: Good - Handoff/Airdrop2 supported
Wireless: en1: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
Video Information: (What does this mean?)
Intel Iris
DELL U2413 1920 x 1200 @ 60 Hz
System Software: (What does this mean?)
OS X El Capitan 10.11 (15A284) - Time since boot: about 2 days
Disk Information: (What does this mean?)
APPLE SSD SM0128F disk0 : (121.33 GB) (Solid State - TRIM: Yes)
EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB
Boot OS X (disk0s3) <not mounted> : 134 MB
Macintosh HD (disk2) / : 1.11 TB (893.03 GB free)
Core Storage: disk0s2 120.99 GB Online
Core Storage: disk1s2 999.35 GB Online
APPLE HDD HTS541010A9E662 disk1 : (1 TB) (Rotational)
EFI (disk1s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB
Recovery HD (disk1s3) <not mounted> [Recovery]: 650 MB
Macintosh HD (disk2) / : 1.11 TB (893.03 GB free)
Core Storage: disk0s2 120.99 GB Online
Core Storage: disk1s2 999.35 GB Online
USB Information: (What does this mean?)
Western Digital Elements 10B8 2 TB
EFI (disk3s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB
Elements (disk3s2) /Volumes/Elements : 2.00 TB (1.28 TB free)
Microsoft Microsoft® 2.4GHz Transceiver v9.0
Apple, Inc. IR Receiver
Apple Inc. BRCM20702 Hub
Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
EFI (disk3s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB
Elements (disk3s2) /Volumes/Elements : 2.00 TB (1.28 TB free)
Thunderbolt Information: (What does this mean?)
Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus
Gatekeeper: (What does this mean?)
Mac App Store and identified developers
System Launch Daemons: (What does this mean?)
[loaded] com.apple.airplaydiagnostics.server.mac.plist - /AppleInternal/Applications/AirPlayDiagnostics.app/Contents/Resources/AirPlayDi agnosticsServer: Executable not found!
[killed] com.apple.wdhelper.plist
one process killed due to insufficient RAM
Launch Agents: (What does this mean?)
[loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist [Click for support]
Launch Daemons: (What does this mean?)
[loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist [Click for support]
[loaded] com.google.keystone.daemon.plist [Click for support]
[loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist [Click for support]
[loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensingV2.helper.plist [Click for support]
[running] com.prosoftnet.idrivedaemon.plist [Click for support]
[loaded] com.prosoftnet.idsyncdaemon.plist [Click for support]
[running] com.prosoftnet.idwebdaemon.plist [Click for support]
[running] com.prosoftnet.idwifimanager.plist [Click for support]
User Launch Agents: (What does this mean?)
[loaded] com.citrixonline.GoToMeeting.G2MUpdate.plist [Click for support]
User Login Items: (What does this mean?)
iTunesHelper Application (/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesHelper.app)
Canon IJ Network Scanner Selector EX Application Hidden (/Applications/Canon Utilities/IJ Network Scanner Selector EX/Canon IJ Network Scanner Selector EX.app)
Google Chrome Application Hidden (/Applications/Google Chrome.app)
IDriveMonitor Application (/Library/Application Support/IDriveforMac/IDriveHelperTools/IDriveMonitor.app)
Other Apps: (What does this mean?)
[running] P72E3GC48.com.dashlane.DashlaneAgent
[running] com.apple.print.PrinterProxy.99232 - Invalid signature!
[running] com.apple.xpc.launchd.oneshot.0x10000017.EtreCheck - Invalid signature!
Internet Plug-ins: (What does this mean?)
SharePointBrowserPlugin: Version: 14.5.5 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]
FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 19.0.0.185 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]
QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3
Flash Player: Version: 19.0.0.185 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]
Google Earth Web Plug-in: Version: 7.1 [Click for support]
Default Browser: Version: 601 - SDK 10.11
User internet Plug-ins: (What does this mean?)
CitrixOnlineWebDeploymentPlugin: Version: 1.0.105 [Click for support]
WebEx64: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]
Safari Extensions: (What does this mean?)
Dashlane
3rd Party Preference Panes: (What does this mean?)
Flash Player [Click for support]
Time Machine: (What does this mean?)
Auto backup: YES
Volumes being backed up:
Macintosh HD: Disk size: 1.11 TB Disk used: 221.45 GB
Destinations:
Elements [Local]
Total size: 2.00 TB
Total number of backups: 90
Oldest backup: 2014-11-14 21:03:45 +0000
Last backup: 2015-10-04 01:16:14 +0000
Size of backup disk: Adequate
Backup size 2.00 TB > (Disk used 221.45 GB X 3)
Top Processes by CPU: (What does this mean?)
60% Google Chrome Helper(25)
20% Google Chrome
8% WindowServer
6% IDriveDaemon
4% idrive_ver_001(2)
Top Processes by Memory: (What does this mean?)
1.95 GB Google Chrome Helper(26)
834 MB kernel_task
295 MB mdworker(15)
262 MB Google Chrome
246 MB Contacts
Virtual Memory Information: (What does this mean?)
130 MB Free RAM
7.87 GB Used RAM (1.77 GB Cached)
126 MB Swap Used
Diagnostics Information: (What does this mean?)
Oct 3, 2015, 12:14:46 PM /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Evernote_2015-10-03-121446_[redacted].cpu_resou rce.diag [Click for details]
Oct 2, 2015, 08:18:01 AM /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/IDriveDaemon_2015-10-02-081801_[redacted].cpu_r esource.diag [Click for details]
Oct 1, 2015, 09:14:19 PM Self test - passed
Oct 1, 2015, 10:40:55 AM /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/mds_stores_2015-10-01-104055_[redacted].crash
Oct 1, 2015, 04:23:22 AM /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/mds_stores_2015-10-01-042322_[redacted].cpu_res ource.diag [Click for details]
Sep 30, 2015, 10:09:57 PM /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/IDriveDaemon_2015-09-30-220957_[redacted].cpu_r esource.diag [Click for details]
Ok, I'be come around to a very strong suspicion that most everything people are seeing in terms of slow performance, including the Mail issues, are the result of the new Spotlight system and the fact that it attempts to index virtually EVERYTHING on the hard disk. Give it a lot of data and it will take a lot of time and take over the processor and all the memory it can grab. this is compounded because all sorts of data is simultaneously loading and updating. There needs to be a way to prevent the Spotlight indexing until everything else is loaded. Then activate it at night and check it in the morning. I wonder if there is a way to prevent Spotlight from indexing....
Are all of you running El Capitan from your internal drive? I am running it from an SD card.
I think we all need to look at the Activity Monitor. There seems to be several issues here and they may not all be related. All need to recognize that there are a lot of functions that need to "startup" in the new system. One of the biggest being the "Spotlight" thing. When I connected to iCloud the sync process took hours before all my iCloud stuff would show up on my MacBook Pro 2009. But that may be because of the SMC and PRAM.
I am currently switching back and forth from Snow Leopard to El Capitan with a terrible slow down in all functions. 15 minutes to boot up, Safari taking 5 to 10 minutes to load a page.
I look at the Activity Monitor in Snow Leopard and the same function shows CPU% of Safari at 35% to 75%. Then in El Capitan it shows 3% to 6%. That tells me there is something going on with the way the system is allocating CPU usage. Most of time with several apps open the CPU is 90% idle.
I think my problem might be solved with reseting the SMC or parameter RAM. I will try those and get back to you all.
Same issue here on 1 of 3 Macs where I have installed El Capitan. Well... actually 1 out of 4, but my late 2009 iMac lost it's pace this weekend.
Safari and Mail would present med with a spinning wheel every now and then. Especially Safari when entering logins and passwords.
What helped was resetting parameter ram (pram). Restart then hold down cmd + option + p + r until the Mac restarts with a loud chime.
Tried reseting the SMC or parameter RAM. No change. Funny thing is that most of the time I don't even get the spinning wheel. Like opening a web page, sometimes takes 2 to 3 minutes. CPU % still at 90-95% idle most of the time.
I think my next step will be to install on the main drive. If that doesn't help I will have to take the computer in to the Mac store.
The problem is caused by the mail, I have 32 gb of ram mail app consumes it all and even more!!! I think we have a problem Cupertino. I have used El Capitane from the start of the Beta and never had any issues with the Mail app, only after installing the non Beta version it all started.
I fixed it completely by disconnecting almost everything from iCloud Drive. And voila - everything running perfectly again.
This certainly helped me. Thank you Kenylady.
Disconnecting from iCloud defeats the whole purpose of upgrading for me. If I can't use the services of iCloud I might as well stay with what I have. Which is doing all the iCloud stuff through Safari. But that leave my Snow Leopard machine out.
I have to say.... Each time a click on iTunes, Safari, App Store... Finder i have the....
Pinwheel of DEATH....
Slow slow slow slow very slow... I think i will downgrade yo Yosemite....
Sma e as this one Mail on El Capitan
I find that the new Mail app in El Capitan is trying to clean up the log files by zipping them in memory which caused the problem.
Try to delete your log file manually in the following folder (Command + Shift + G):
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Logs/Mail/
You may see huge size log files in the folder ...just delete all *.log and restart your Mail App. Then, things should back to normal
El Capitan running slowly?
