Level 1

20 points

Brand New iMac Suspiciously Slow

Hello everyone! Just purchased a brand new 21.5 Retina 4K iMac. It's a great computer however, everything is working incredibly slow. Maybe I've just gotten used to SSD's but the length of time it takes for this computer to do everything is a little odd to me. I've done an EtreCheck that hopefully someone can provide some insight into. Hopefully I can get to do bottom of this problem, otherwise I'll just exchange the computer for a new one. Thanks!

EtreCheck version: 3.4.2 (436)

Report generated 2017-08-16 10:11:18

Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com

Runtime: 10:51

Performance: Poor

Click the [Lookup] links for more information from Apple Support Communities.

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

Problem: Computer is too slow

Hardware Information: ⓘ

iMac (Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, 2017)

[Technical Specifications] - [User Guide] - [Warranty & Service]

iMac - model: iMac18,2

1 3 GHz Intel Core i5 (i5-7400) CPU: 4-core

8 GB RAM Upgradeable - [Instructions]

BANK 0/DIMM0

4 GB DDR4 2400 MHz ok

BANK 1/DIMM0

4 GB DDR4 2400 MHz ok

Bluetooth: Good - Handoff/Airdrop2 supported

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

iCloud Quota: 139.54 GB available

Video Information: ⓘ

Radeon Pro 555 - VRAM: 2048 MB

iMac 4096 x 2304

Disk Information: ⓘ

APPLE HDD HTS541010A9E632 disk0: (1 TB) (Rotational)

[Show SMART report]

EFI (disk0s1 - MS-DOS FAT32) <not mounted> [EFI]: 210 MB

(disk0s2) <not mounted> [CoreStorage Container]: 999.35 GB

Recovery HD (disk0s3 - Journaled HFS+) <not mounted> [Recovery]: 650 MB

USB Information: ⓘ

USB30Bus

Seagate BUP Slim BK

BUP Slim BK disk3: (1 TB)

YAN PHOTOS (disk3s1 - MS-DOS FAT32) /Volumes/YAN PHOTOS : 1.00 TB (620.90 GB free)

Broadcom Corp. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)

Apple Inc. Magic Keyboard

USB31Bus

Thunderbolt Information: ⓘ

Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

Virtual disks: ⓘ

Macintosh HD (disk2 - Journaled HFS+) / [Startup]: 998.98 GB (875.94 GB free)

Physical disk: disk0s2 999.35 GB Online

System Software: ⓘ

macOS Sierra 10.12.6 (16G29) - Time since boot: less than an hour

Gatekeeper: ⓘ

Mac App Store and identified developers

System Launch Agents: ⓘ

[not loaded] 6 Apple tasks

[loaded] 170 Apple tasks

[running] 106 Apple tasks

System Launch Daemons: ⓘ

[failed] com.apple.security.syspolicy.plist (Apple, Inc. - installed 2017-07-14)

[not loaded] 40 Apple tasks

[loaded] 171 Apple tasks

[running] 104 Apple tasks

Launch Agents: ⓘ

[not loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2017-08-05) [Lookup]

[running] com.adobe.AdobeCreativeCloud.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2017-08-05) [Lookup]

Launch Daemons: ⓘ

[running] com.adobe.adobeupdatedaemon.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2017-08-05) [Lookup]

[running] com.adobe.agsservice.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2017-08-05) [Lookup]

[loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist (? 2afb3af7 85012398 - installed 2017-07-24) [Lookup]

[loaded] com.microsoft.autoupdate.helper.plist (Microsoft Corporation - installed 2017-08-05) [Lookup]

[loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensingV2.helper.plist (Microsoft Corporation - installed 2017-07-02) [Lookup]

User Launch Agents: ⓘ

[loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2017-08-05) [Lookup]

[running] com.spotify.webhelper.plist (Spotify - installed 2017-08-16) [Lookup]

Internet Plug-ins: ⓘ

FlashPlayer-10.6: 26.0.0.151 (installed 2017-08-09) [Lookup]

Flash Player: 26.0.0.151 (installed 2017-08-09) [Lookup]

QuickTime Plugin: 7.7.3 (installed 2017-08-05)

AdobeAAMDetect: 3.0.0.0 (installed 2017-08-05) [Lookup]

3rd Party Preference Panes: ⓘ

Flash Player (installed 2017-07-24) [Lookup]

Time Machine: ⓘ

Mobile backups: OFF

Auto backup: NO - Auto backup turned off

Volumes being backed up:

Macintosh HD: Disk size: 998.98 GB Disk used: 123.04 GB

Destinations:

My Passport [Local]

Total size: 999.83 GB

Total number of backups: 6

Oldest backup: 8/5/17, 7:35 PM

Last backup: 8/9/17, 2:16 PM

Size of backup disk: Adequate

Backup size 999.83 GB > (Disk used 123.04 GB X 3)

Top Processes by CPU: ⓘ

18% MailCacheDelete

18% CacheDeleteExtension

9% System Information

6% iBooksCacheDelete

4% iTunesCacheExtension

Top Processes by Memory: ⓘ

1003 MB Adobe Lightroom

835 MB kernel_task

295 MB com.apple.WebKit.WebContent

236 MB Spotify Helper

235 MB Messages

Top Processes by Network Use: ⓘ

Input Output Process name

2 MB 2 MB apsd

2 MB 978 KB Spotify

1 MB 142 KB com.apple.WebKit.Networking

155 KB 26 KB mDNSResponder

17 KB 6 KB AddressBookSourceSync

Top Processes by Energy Use: ⓘ

4.44 coreaudiod

4.14 com.apple.WebKit.WebContent

2.10 photoanalysisd

2.04 photolibraryd

1.98 Safari

Virtual Memory Information: ⓘ

2.16 GB Available RAM

22 MB Free RAM

5.84 GB Used RAM

2.14 GB Cached files

0 B Swap Used

Software installs: ⓘ

Microsoft Office 2016 for Mac: (installed 2017-08-05)

Microsoft Outlook for Mac: (installed 2017-08-05)

Adobe Flash Player: (installed 2017-08-05)

Adobe Flash Player: (installed 2017-08-09)

Install information may not be complete.

Diagnostics Information: ⓘ

2017-08-16 09:56:59 CalNCService Crash [Open]

2017-08-14 20:12:24 mds Crash [Open]

Cause: Initializing

2017-08-14 19:38:33 Adobe Lightroom.app High CPU use [Open] [Details]

iMac (Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, 2017)

Posted on Aug 16, 2017 10:15 AM

Top-ranking reply

justsome1

Level 1

4 points

Posted on Sep 7, 2017 1:50 AM

It's all just because of the glacially slow 5400rpm hdd. Swap for a SSD or at least 2TB fusion(with 128GB ssd) model. 1TB fusion comes with only a paltry 24 or 32GB ssd cache.

View in context

19 replies

padams35

Level 4

3,613 points

Aug 16, 2017 2:13 PM in response to bearmoose

Generally the applications you describe should load quickly. Even with the lamented 5400rpm drives those apps should open in 'only' a couple seconds... if you have a clean install.

The problem is that the 5400rpm HDDs can only just keep up with Sierra or El Capitan. Add in the adobe updater, microsoft updater, and any other background/startup processes that might try to write to the disk and bottlenecks aren't unheard of.

However the above issue is only a real problem with the 5400rpm HDDs. Literally any other option will be much faster. If you have a particularly need to keep your current system then I would suggest purchasing an external SSD and installing Sierra onto that.

As for 8GB that is substantial enough to run basic programs quickly and may even handle adobe applications one at a time.

MichelPM

Level 10

81,535 points

Aug 16, 2017 2:56 PM in response to bearmoose

The 5400 RPM hard drive is a BIG limitation in a desktop Mac.

The 8 GBs of RAM is only enough to run macOS, now, (gone are the days of running a Mac OS on 2 or 4 GBs of RAM) and barely anything else.

Also, if you can afford to upgrade to the other faster CPU option for that model iMac, that will help, too!

Having more RAM will give you the additional RAM you need to run more resource intense applications, as well, as more RAM allocated to other less resource intense applications.

I would go for a full SSD option rather than a Fusion Drive in a 21 inch model iMac because Apple is STILL pairing a 5400 RPM hard drive with a Solid State flash memory Drive.

No good!

Go for a 500 GB or 1 TB full SSD option.

I am running my old late 2009 iMac from a 480 GBs external SSD.

Also,

FYI, It is best to ALWAYS best run Adobe Photoshop with NO other applications running in the background.

You can run Adobe InDesign and Illustrator together with maybe a couple of other background apps running, but Photoshop is the most hardware/software resource intense Adobe application and needs as much of the CPU, GPU, RAM and hard drive space, as possible.

Good Luck to You!

den.thed

Level 10

91,618 points

Aug 16, 2017 10:59 AM in response to bearmoose

bearmoose,

I concur with rkaufmann87 100%.

Your not going to be happy with anything less that a Fusion Drive or SSD and at least 16GB of RAM.

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,494 points

Aug 16, 2017 11:35 AM in response to bearmoose

You have my recommendations.

Good luck.

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Brand New iMac Suspiciously Slow