Speeding up your imac

I have looked on the forums for an faq or sticky of some kind on this topic and wasn't able to find anything. I have had my iMac for about a year now and its gotten quite slow. I did a google search and got lots of results for this same problem, but there doesn't seem to be any consensus on what causes it. Can someone point me to the appropriate thread/sticky/faq for this topic please? Thanks

Shari

Try these suggestions first

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-operating-system/93819-basic-os-x-mac-troubleshooting.html

Welcome to Mac-Forums..

There isn't just one thing that speeds up or slows down your Mac..so let's start with the basics..

What iMac do you have? What version of OS X? How much memory do you have? How much free space do you have? What applications do you run automatically on start up? How many applications do you run at the same time? Have you run Activity Monitor to see what your CPU/Memory usage looks like?

Have you tried to do a repair permission? Grab a copy of OnyX and run it.

Lots of icons on the desktop can also slow down the machine. Keep the desktop clean.

Well are you using AV software, MacKeeper, CleanMyMac etc at all?
Adequate memory installed for what you are doing? Thread does not provide any information at all.
How much free hard disk space is available?
Do you use Onyx for maintenance chores?

My iMac is twelve months old and has not dropped in speed at all.

My 2009 MBP is actually FASTER now than it was stock in 2009, thanks to the addition of more RAM and a 7200rpm hard drive.