24" OS x 10.5.7 2.8ghz intel 2gig RAmM -running slow

6 Month Old iMac Running lagging on me.

Hey fellas,

my GF got the 20" imac and i got the 24" i bumped my ram up to 2gigs.

I run VMware with windows xp - sometimes... regardless... i feel like my mac is running slow.. i've only owned it for 6 months.. she says the same thing..

can i do a reformat? my imac never came with the CD's to do that or any software for that matter. Can i request it through apple? Are their certain programs I should be using to adjust my computer settings that would help it run faster? Both of our comps are running a tad slower then when we first got 'em...

anyway.. i'm just looking for general advice to get our brand new iMacs back up to par. Give me links to threads, articles or any tips and i'll gladly read it all. Thanks in advance! I'm gonna go surf around a bit more and help others...

-i dont wanna turn off my spotlight even though i know that might help. i really use it a lot and enjoy it.. any more lil tips?

bumpski

You may just need some simple maintenance. Try Onyx.

Also, you might have an application or process running in the background that is using up a lot of your CPU. Check Activity Monitor (/Applications/Utilities), choose All Processes, Hierarchically from the box in the top right, and look for anything that looks unusual. It might be a startup item you installed, a dashboard widget, etc. Look at your CPU and RAM usage.

Is your hard drive nearly full? You need to have at least 4-5 GB of free space for swap. If your drive is running low on space, it can have quite an impact on performance.

Also, in my experience, 2 GB of RAM while running VMs may not be enough. If you have a large amount of RAM devoted to Windows XP, then things may slow down on both sides. In my opinion 4 GB is optimal for most of what you will do on an iMac. Might as well upgrade, it's pretty cheap.

ADKhikerVW said:

You may just need some simple maintenance. Try Onyx.

Also, you might have an application or process running in the background that is using up a lot of your CPU. Check Activity Monitor (/Applications/Utilities), choose All Processes, Hierarchically from the box in the top right, and look for anything that looks unusual. It might be a startup item you installed, a dashboard widget, etc. Look at your CPU and RAM usage.

Is your hard drive nearly full? You need to have at least 4-5 GB of free space for swap. If your drive is running low on space, it can have quite an impact on performance.

Also, in my experience, 2 GB of RAM while running VMs may not be enough. If you have a large amount of RAM devoted to Windows XP, then things may slow down on both sides. In my opinion 4 GB is optimal for most of what you will do on an iMac. Might as well upgrade, it's pretty cheap.

Click to expand...

oops i meant 4gigs heheh i did upgrade and it was cheap... i guess i should just look through all the processes and see whats going on... hard drive has 100 gigs...


also.. i never got my OS cd's with the purchase of my imac... how can i acquire them?

Where did you buy it from? If it came from Apple it had to have come with the disks. It is possible to get a replacement set from Apple. You will have to call them.

ADKhikerVW said:

Where did you buy it from? If it came from Apple it had to have come with the disks. It is possible to get a replacement set from Apple. You will have to call them.

Click to expand...

got the comp from apple... im goin tomorrow cause my girl's 20" iMac, the screen started to flicker and it freezes and she needs to pull the power cord... so i think its just a lemon... they should replace it on the spot. ill bring my comp and ask for CDs then also...