why is my Mac running sooo slow? I just had it fixed!!
We have heard this question 1000s of times... but here we go again.
I have an iMac 21" monitor, 2010, computer in monitor.
Processor: 3 Ghz intel core I3;
500 GB hard drive w 72 GB free space
4 GB memory; ( I could add additional 4 GB memory, but have not at this time)
Running OS X Yosemite 10.10.5
I do Photoshop stuff, im on the internet, use Word, Excel, Quark. The machine is not that slow, though I know its older (6 yrs) and Photoshop does drag at times. But I can deal with it. Overall its a great machine, never crashes, doesn't give us (the family) too many troubles. And its the work horse for the family. Wife, myself, two kids all are using it, every day (despite they all have laptops but prefer using this machine due to screen size). We dont download a lot of files either, to keep this thing clean and running as best as we can.
This year it began to run noticeably much slower. On startup, it would take about 8-10 minutes before a desktop showed up (normally I am on the desktop within a minute on startup. Internet pages were taking forever to draw. Photoshop suddenly became so slow, it was virtually unuseable. I paid $45 & downloaded (stupid, I know) this Clean My Mac 3 program, and ran the recommended diagnosis. Program scanned my computer for about 30 minutes. It found all this stuff - corrupt files, duplicate files, other files that it recommended I delete. I did this. Took about 10 min to empty the trash can. I restarted. NOTHING HAD CHANGED! Still slow as ****!
Next day, I packed computer up in its original box, and brought it to the Genius Bar at the Apple Store. I usually try to not do this due to the amount of people in this store 24/7 - even when I make an appointment and arrive early, I have to set aside 2-3 hours for the visit as they are ALWAYS behind with the appointments. Its crazy. But this time, there was no wait, the Genius at the Apple Store got on my computer right away. He ran some diagnosis and then did something (ran some secret program that he had on their network - wouldnt tell me what it was) which located and removed all the malware (i think that is what he called it) files which cause viruses, etc. His program located about 24,000 files that were either malware or some other files that i did not need (Hello Clean My Mac 3 - why didnt you locate these files? What did you actually do for me?) The genius trashed all the files and emptied the trash can. The empting of the trash took nearly 30 minutes. He told me it could take an hour and was surprised it took only 30 minutes. ANYWAY, he restarted. The desktop came up in about 20 seconds!! I was freaking out! He opened up a photoshop file. What use to take a solid 2 minutes to open, opened in seconds. I mean 2 or 3 seconds to open a multi layer high memory photoshop file!! I nearly creamed my corn. Internet opened, pages now are blazing fast. I dont think this machine had ever been that fast even when we first bought it!! Note: the Genius did not reload the OS or delete any programs.
I was so happy!! Brought it home. Hooked it up, but didn't tell anyone that I had it fixed at the Apple Store. The family all came home from work/school and eventually got on the computer. Wife says "whoa, did someone do something to this machine? Internet is moving really quickly! This is great!" My daughter gets on, she's on for about 5 minutes. "Hey Dad - did you do something to the computer? Its working really good suddenly!"
The honeymoon lasted for about a month. Then it started to slow down again the way it stated earlier this year. Got slower and slower. I took the computer to the Apple Store in early August. At this time, Oct 14, not quite 3 months after the Genius worked his magic - it is running very slow again. Not as bad as it was when I took it to the Apple Store.. but its heading that way. Its slower every day..
What happened?
What can I do to get that speed back?
How do your guys get these things to start kicking *** again, and maintain that hi speed?
Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, your my only hope!
iMac, Mac OS X (10.5.8)
