HELP! iMac 27" 2009 has slowed - not useable now!! :(

[pww-blair]

Hi - I have an iMac 27", late 2009 machine. 2.66 GHz, Intel Core i5, 16gb ram. 1 TB drive with 70% space FREE.

Running OSX Yosmite for about a month.

A few days ago, it started to do the beach ball spinning thing quite a bit for no apparent reason. Now it takes about 15 minutes to boot, and absolutely every program takes forever to open - it's like it's in slow motion. I've had this machine for about a year and it's run flawlessly up until now.

Things I've tried:

- ran SpeedTest to test the processor speed. It checked out comparable to other iMacs that age.

- ran 'Integrity' software, no problems.

- Ran S.M.A.R.T.Reporter... disk checked out fine. Then ran disk first aid, everything confirmed 'verified'.

- zapped the PRAM

- Ran a memory checking program and it confirmed no problems. I even swapped out all the ram with other ram just to make sure - iMac still crawling around, no change.

- I repaired the permissions. It gave an error of displaypolicyd; should be 0; user is 244. I've looked this up and it seems like it's a Thunderbolt firmware issue - but the iMac I have uses MiniDisplay port (and I have a display connected via MiniDisplay).

- I re-started without the second display attached, just in case it was a port issue. Same exact problems.

I'm at the end of my rope here. It runs and feels as though there's no RAM in the machine. But that checked out fine. I suspected maybe a HD problem, but again, it seems fine.

Can someone... anyone.... suggest something I may be overlooking? I'd really appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks,
Blair

 

[chas_m]

From what you've written, I'd say the hard drive has a bad sector it keeps hitting or is starting to fail (despite passing the tests).

One option if you feel like spending the time: clone your existing hard drive to a bootable backup (using Carbon Copy Clone, Chronosync, or Super Duper et al), then boot from the clone (USB3 recommended) and zero out (single pass) the boot hard drive. Then use your clone program to "clone back" and see how that does. If the problem goes away, it was a bad sector (the zeroing process will lock out any bad sectors, but bad sectors are often a sign of a failing HD).

If the problem doesn't go away, I'd just replace the drive.

 

[pww-blair]

chas_m - thanks for your comments. As it turned out, you were correct.... I replaced the HD in the iMac 2009, fresh install of Yosemite (via USB stick) and voila - all is right with the world again. Crazy how that HD failed since it's only a year old!!!

 

[harryb2448]

Sometimes they arrive DOA out of the box, including SSDs!

Pretty fragile things hard drives. Drops and/or bumps in transit don't do 'em any good.