iMac SLOW After Snow Leopard Upgrade

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Since I upgraded my iMac to Snow Leopard, it has been running very sluggishly, in particular when running an up-to-date Flash. For some reason it runs at 32-bit and slows all computer performance.

Normally I find myself having to Force Quit applications like Safari, Firefox, Mail, and iTunes.

Anyone experiencing something similar?
 
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Yes, after updating my macbook it went into being a super slow, horrible, experience to use it. I reformatted and did a fresh install of SL and now its running super fast.
 
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Did you go with the option of keeping a complete filesystem backup but not restoring to previous state?
 
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I would suggest to fresh install SL. I upgraded from leopard, although I didn't have the slow problem as you, what I found was that the space used by the upgrade was much more than Leopard alone. After I fresh installed SL, it only took up half of what fresh install of Leopard would take up. Really space efficient. And the upside is its faster, although just.
 
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I would suggest to fresh install SL

Since I got SL installed already, just pop in the SL install disc and install again? I'll do that today, report back later.
 
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Did you go with the option of keeping a complete filesystem backup but not restoring to previous state?

I just used my time machine back up.
 
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Wow. Seems to be working much much faster, thanks.

Does it matter that Flash Player (Safari Internet plug-in) runs at 32-bit instead of 64-bit? It and a DashboardClient are the only apps at 32-bit.
 
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I know this is an old thread but can someone walk me through what I need to do to get my imac back to running fast? I just upgraded to SL and now everything is slow and I always have to force quit everything! Please help!

All I did was get the CD...run it and install it. Now everything is slow
 

chscag

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Did you do a fresh install and restore from your Time Machine backup? Or did you just do an over the top upgrade?

If the latter, try the former.
 
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OK your speaking to a "dummy" LOL Can you explain to me what the difference is between the 2.

Here is what I did. I ordered the CD..got it and inserted it and followed the promts and insltalled it. I also installed ilife 11. Did the same thing. I don't know about time machine? I thought that was an extra service you paid for.

So are you saying to just pop in the CD and install again? Do i remove anything? Will I lose anything?

Thanks and sorry I am not up to speed in doing this all
 

chscag

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You did an upgrade rather than a clean install. That almost always results in fragmentation which will cause slow downs.

Here's what you need to do: First, buy an external drive. Use Time Machine to make a full backup of everything. Make sure it's a good backup.

Then boot with your Snow Leopard DVD. Use Disk Utility to wipe the drive clean, and then reinstall Snow Leopard. During the reinstall, it will ask if you have a backup from which to restore. Respond yes, make sure the external drive is attached. The backup you made will be restored automatically and all the fragmentation will be gone. The system should then boot faster.

After the backup is restored, it's a good idea to also do a PRAM - NVRAM reset. See the following Apple KB article: LINK
 
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OK I have a C;lick-Free External drive and I already backedup everything. Can I do this now?
 
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If you have a backup of your current drive, then yes, you can erase and reinstall Snow Leopard. When loading up the installer, select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu at the top.
 
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I'm so confused.
I did my backup. Put the SL disk in but it didn't bring up the disk utility so I searched and found it and opened it.
I don't know what to erase? What I think I should erase isn't highlighted under format and name so it won't let me select it.

I am constantly have to force quit my iphoto and email and firefox. EVERYTHING is running so slow.
 

chscag

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Let's see if we can help:

1. Boot with SL DVD.

2. Do not proceed with the install. Click on the top menu, "Utilities", click on "Disk Utility".

3. Highlight your hard drive on the left side. Click on the line that shows capacity.

4. Click erase at the top of the screen.

5. Select the format - Mac OS Extended

6. Name the hard drive "MacIntosh HD" (no quotes)

7. Click erase at the bottom of the screen, then click erase again on the second window. It make take a bit to finish.

8. After that's completed, continue with the Snow Leopard install.

9. Here is where you will be asked about the backup. Make sure your external hard drive is attached and contains the backup you made with Time Machine.

10. Your backup will be restored minus any fragmentation.

11. Reboot.
 
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Stuck

Hello, this is my first post to this forum. I'm looking forward to participating here.

At step 4. above the dialogs were grayed out and I could not complete the erase. Any thoughts on what might be blocking that?

Thank you,
Jeff
 

chscag

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Did you follow the procedure exactly as I gave it in those steps? And are you booting the machine with your recovery installation DVD?
 
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I may have done that wrong. In the old days (PC) I'd restart with the disk in the drive. I did this and the restart looked normal. Is there a special procedure to force the reboot from the DVD drive?
 

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Yes, have the OSX DVD in the drive and after the startup sound, hold dowm the C key and keep it held down till the machine boots of the OSX DVD. Be sure you press the C key very fast and right after the Startup Sound or it will again boot from the Hard Drive.

You can also hold down the Option Key right after the Startup Sound and choose the OSX DVD.
 
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Ok, progress but a big deadend. I erased the disk but the install won't proceed unless I go back, open the Utilities and "enable journaling". I tried a couple of things, I formatted the disk as "Mac OS Extended" and tried "Mac OS Extended (Journalded). Using both formats, the "enable journaling" was grayed out.

I did stumble upon a sequence that activated the "enable journaling" command and tried it but the install still would ask me to go back and do it.

I ended up using the utility to restore my system. Right now it's chugging through. I'll know in the morning if it went smoothly.

Any advice on why the re-installed failed would be helpful. Just curious, does this restore copy everything back without the fragmentation after all?
accomplishing what I tried to in the first place but in a back door way?
 

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