For the first time since i've had my iMac (since oct. 2006) its being EXTREMELY slow. everytime i try to do something that stupid spinning wheel comes up. it has never ever been this slow ever. i've restarted, emptied the trash can and reset the p-ram (option+command+p+r til 4th dong sound). i am running one 500gb external hard drive that is 3/4 full...

any suggestions on what i can do? this is driving me crazy..i cant even work.

HELP

How full is your internal hard drive? My iMac was running pretty slow. I had only 5 GB free. I deleted some files (now I have about 20 GB free) and it's running a little peppier. I know that I need to toss more when I have some free time to sort through it. A tech guy at work told us we should always have at least 10% of our hard drive free for things to operate smoothly.

One more thing to check. Go to the apple in the top left corner and click on About This Mac. See if your system recognizes all the RAM you installed. If not, you might have a bad stick of RAM.

clean it up! check how much memory you have left on your HD, i bet your running close to full.

i hate the beach ball. sometimes i want to kill the beach ball.

1. Free up space. Move some stuff to an external drive or delete stuff

2. Repair your disk permissions (go to your applications folder, find the utilities folder and open disk utility) in Disk utility, select your system drive and under "First Aid" click "Repair Permissions." Let that process run its course, then restart the computer. Make sure not to have any other programs open while you run permissions repair. It won't hurt if you do, but it's best if you don't.

3. As was mentioned above, make sure that all of your RAM is registering in the "about this mac" window. Also, you can click on "More Info" in that window and bring up an overview of your entire system's hardware. On the left-hand side you'll see "Memory." Click that and you'll get a memory overview. If any of your modules show anything but "Status: OK" then you've got a bad stick of RAM.

If those don't work, I've got a few more ideas.

yah! what he said! (i was going to write the same exact thing, but he beat me to it!)(really, i was)

Are the files you're accessing on the external drive? If so, move them to the internal and work off of that. I doubt that's your problem, however, since you said the problem has gotten worse over time.

"Beach ball" is too sweet a term. I call it the "spinning pinwheel of death and destruction."

- i have 140gb of free space on the internal hard drive so i think im good there.
- i have 2gb of ram that are all showing up in About This MAC with "Status - ok" (is
this alot of RAM or not alo...always wondered that? Didnt know how much i could get
in an iMAc? )
- i cant move my info to an internal drive because i have too much....i had one big folder on my desktop for a long time that i worked off of and i ran out of space so thats why im running EVERYTHING (pictures and documents) except applications and music off of that 500gb external? good? bad?

-going to run Repair Permissions right now thanks for all your help!

2gb isn't very much... it's okay, but not a lot. You can do MOST general computing things with 2gb of RAM, but when it comes to photoshop work, batch-processing and running lightroom, you need more.

Which model (size) is your iMac and when did you purchase it? If you purchased it used, when was it built? extra RAM isn't very expensive for iMacs, but how much you can put in them greatly depends on their model and month/year built/released.

Bought in Late Oct. or Early Nov. 2006.
20inch iMac.
2.16ghz Intel Core Duo.
iMac5,1

I did the Repair Disk Permissions and its still running pretty slow?

If you want to do a significant amount of work, but basically start out with a completely new machine, do a full wipe and reinstall of your operating system. (Also a good time to upgrade to 10.5 if you desire).

This eliminates any old preference files, caches, and apps that you realize your not actually using.

Alternatively, google Onyx, and download/run that. It's a maintenance based software, and permits you to run maintenance scripts that get run one a week/month/year. That might help as well. It can do a large variety of options beyond that as well, and it's free.

Check to see if Time Machine is running. Turn it off to see if this makes a difference.

Get MacJanitor. Its a free (I think) program to help clean log files and things up.

Sean

Are you running leopard (10.5) or tiger (10.4) ?

You really should install leopard if you haven't - you can do an archive and install which will keep all of your information but wipe the operating system. However, the best way to do it would be to back everything up and do an erase and install.

If you're already running leopard, back up your internal hard drive via time machine to another drive, then use the leopard disc and perform and erase and install. when prompted to transfer information from another mac, just say "use time machine backup" and plug in your time machine drive. select the backup you just made, and all of your info will migrate over. This can also be done using Migration Assistant at a later time.

A fresh install of a system is normally the best way to eliminate problems as many have suggested but not always necessary and doesn't always fix the problem. For example, it could be bad RAM and a fresh install will not fix that.

You should try running a 'Repair Disk' directly from the install disks first...different to Repair disk permissions. See this Apple doc on how to do it....it's the part under the heading 'Try Disk Utility'.

MacJanitor is a great app and you should definitely try that as well.

You could also try this software. Its a pretty good and might work in this case.

You should also maybe run a hardware test using the original disks that came with your computer to see if there are any hardware problems....

Just some alternatives to try before wiping your computer completely.

See, I have the same slow iMac G5 problem. Really, really slow, and goes to sleep whenever I'm doing something processing-heavy despite the fact that it's set to never sleep.

But I'm afraid of my Mac. I'm afraid to reinstall stuff and don't understand how the backup process works exaclty.

Ok, going to my corner to rock and cry now.

1) Basically, the backup process (without Time Machine) is to take everything you want to keep (ex. word files, pictures) and drag them on to an external hard drive. This copies them, and also leaves a copy on the computer.

2) Do this to everything you want to keep. When this is done (and your 100% sure you got everything) proceed to step 3

3) Take the install disks that came with your computer (or those that you are upgrading to, such as if you bought OS X Leopard), and insert them in to your computer. Restart while holding down the C button.

4) This launches you in to a install style screen, very similar to when you first opened up and turned on your computer. Follow the instructions.

5) You will be given several choices, (These might not be exact wording, but similar)
update, archive and install, delete and install

6) Archive and install will preserve any data on your computer (that you had moved to an external storage device), and then remove and reinstall the operating system. Delete and install completely removes all data, then installs a fresh copy of the operating system. I recommend delete and install.

7) Replace everything you put on your hard drive back into the appropriate spots on your freshly installed operating system. Reinstall any software you had. Modify preferences to suit your desires

8) That's it!

i hate my computer right now. and that is an understatement. i couldn't even type those sentences without seeing that stupid spinning beach ball. argh i hate that beach ball.

anyways, my computer is still screwed up. i did an "erase and install" with Tiger 10.4.11 and it still didnt help. so i gave in and bought Leopard. It gave me install errors the first 2 times and successfully installed on the 3rd try.

computer is still drraaggggiiinnnngg! why. why. WHY!!! I don't know what else to do?
I can't do ANYTHING in Photoshop. Picking a tool takes like 45 seconds.

Soooooo do I need to get the extra 1gb of RAM? Im pretty sure this P.O.C only holds 3gb?

Bought in Late Oct. or Early Nov. 2006.
20inch iMac.
2.16ghz Intel Core Duo.

Anybody else have any suggestions or sympathy. I'm really at my wits end here and clients calling/emailing wanting to know where their flippin' pictures are. "Sorry, cant help you I'm staring at the beach ball!"

*sigh* *mutters pitiful HELP*

How much RAM? still 2gb?

Hmm... you may have a bad logic board or something... is the computer still under AppleCare? It should be if you bought it in late 2006... you need to call them immediately and get this sorted out.

the beach ball (spinning wheel of death) needs to die a slow, agonizing death... i hate it.

Since you didn't get the PM I sent you regarding this....

I have had a very similar problem with my Macbook, running slow, getting the beachball every thirty seconds when doing almost anything. I managed to fix it, in this way:

If there is an Apple store (the real kind) near you, find it online (apple.com/retail) and look at the Genius bar. It's a free service offered by Apple, where you can go in and discuss your problem with a tech. If you want, you can even bring your computer in (this is what I did).

To solve my problem, the tech booted off of an external hard drive at the store (one of their diagnostic ones). This fixed the problem that I had. So, since Apple wanted to charge me an absurd amount for a replacement hard drive (though they would perform the replacement and OS install included in the charge), I went out, purchased a new hard drive (for $68 for a larger, faster one then the $109.23 one that Apple was going to give me), and installed it myself (the Macbooks are easy). So, if this problem is still occuring, try this, as you can always return the Hard drive if it doesn't fix the problem.

But, if you want to live dangerously and not, just back up your data in case the hard drive really goes south quick.

Hope this helps.


To reiterate, it's your hard drive that is going to town. Backup anything you value, purchase and install a new hard drive (you can get them relatively cheap, I think Imacs run a 3.5 inch drive, in which Seagate had one at Future Shop for $55 ish for a 320GB) It also means upgrade time.