slow mini - finding things running behind?

I've never had any problem with my Mac mini at all. Recently it has been running *very* slowly. I cleared of lots of pictures and other files, hoping that would help but it hasn't.

Someone, somewhere, suggested looking at the applications to see if things are running "behind"?? (Widgets, maybe?) I don't know how to tell that. I did go to utilities within applications, but then I don't know what I'm looking for.

Could someone help with that? Or any other suggestions?

My son uses ITunes a lot. Could that be a problem?

Thank you!

Janet

JanetC said:

I've never had any problem with my Mac mini at all. Recently it has been running very slowly. I cleared of lots of pictures and other files, hoping that would help but it hasn't.

Someone, somewhere, suggested looking at the applications to see if things are running "behind"?? (Widgets, maybe?) I don't know how to tell that. I did go to utilities within applications, but then I don't know what I'm looking for.

Could someone help with that? Or any other suggestions?

Thank you!

Janet

Click to expand...

They're probably referring to using Activity Monitor to see which programs are running in the background and whether they're taking up a lot of system resources. You can find Activity Monitor in the Applications folder, under Utilities.

If it's been a long time since you ran maintenance on your Mac, you might consider downloading a program like MainMenu or Onyx, which will streamline some of the maintenance tasks for you.

We fixed it. After I turned off the computer I unplugged the modem, waited a bit, and plugged it back in. My friend suggested that, saying it seems resetting the modem connection can help at times - and it did! Wahoo. It's back to speed.

Janet

Was the computer running slow or just your internet connection? While I suggest restarting your machine once in a while, resetting the modem should do nothing to the performance of the machine itself.