iMac Extremely Slow - PLEASE HELP

I have a mid 2010, 27" i3 3.25GHz iMac. It has worked great so far until a few months ago. It has become EXTREMELY slow. I see the rotating beach ball all the time. I have searched the internet extensively and applied almost all the recommendations. I upgraded from 4GB RAM to 16 GB. I removed many programs from HDD, I removed programs from startup. Nothing has helped. I was surprised even RAM upgrade did not help. My HDD of 1TB is only about half full. I have use the Monitor program to see resource allocation but I can't see why it is slow still--CPU usage, and RAM usage is small. The only hint I see is that disk read/write is high. I am only guessing that is high, I can't recognize programs that are reading/writing. This is when all I am doing is surfing the net using Safari.

I am just totally frustrated. I have upgraded to latest El Capitan too. Nothing seems to help. I thought iMAC did not slow down unnecessarily has Windows does. But it seems I am wrong. I am just at my wits end. I am unable to use this machine.

PLEASE HELP. I REALLY, REALLY need your HELP.

Slowdowns are frustrating. Let's see if we can offer some help: First... are you running any kind of anti-virus programs? How about cleaners or so called cleaners = MacClean, Clean My Mac, etc ?

Have you verified your hard drive? Here's how: Boot to recovery = hold down command plus r keys and restart your iMac. Once in recovery, select Utilities, Disk Utility, and verify the hard drive.

The addition of memory will not solve slow downs in most cases, although more memory is desirable for working on large projects such as photo editing, movies, graphics, and so on.

Open your Activity Monitor (applications, utilities, activity monitor.app) and keep an eye on it for any unusual consumption of memory, high cpu usage.

Let us know.

chscag said:

Slowdowns are frustrating. Let's see if we can offer some help: First... are you running any kind of anti-virus programs? How about cleaners or so called cleaners = MacClean, Clean My Mac, etc ?

Have you verified your hard drive? Here's how: Boot to recovery = hold down command plus r keys and restart your iMac. Once in recovery, select Utilities, Disk Utility, and verify the hard drive.

The addition of memory will not solve slow downs in most cases, although more memory is desirable for working on large projects such as photo editing, movies, graphics, and so on.

Open your Activity Monitor (applications, utilities, activity monitor.app) and keep an eye on it for any unusual consumption of memory, high cpu usage.

Let us know.

Click to expand...

Thanks for your quick response.

I started the iMac into Recovery mode. Went into the disk utility. I see two drives, one called "WDC WDC1001FALS-40Y6A0" Media, which houses the Mac HDD and is 1TB. That is labelled "internal physical disk." The second one is called "Apple disk image media". That is labelled "external physical disk" and is 2.12 GB. I am not sure what the second disk is since the iMac is not connected to anything other than the ethernet cable.

I am not sure how to verify the disk, but I ran "First Aid" and both disks and both volumes and it came back OK. Does that verify it? If not, what do I need to do to verify?

I am not using any anti-virus or cleaners. I have seen some poor reviews for MacCleaner and I decided to skip it. Plus, I am told that iMac's don't get virus (right?).

What do I to do now?

I read in an older thread about a program called OnyX. Is that reliable and helpful for these situations?

ssppss said:

I read in an older thread about a program called OnyX. Is that reliable and helpful for these situations?

Click to expand...

You are right about not needing AV software on your Mac and also on avoiding 'Mac Cleaners' (there is a dedicated thread in the forum specifically warning against use of MacKeeper); however, OnyX is about the only maintenance program recommended here and is used by many members (I have a copy on both of my Mac computers) - make sure that you download the app from the developer's website HERE, and be sure to obtain the version specific to the OS X on your computer; NOW, whether doing a 'standard' maintenance w/ this program will help your problem is hard to say? Dave

RedDave,

Thanks. I will try out OnyX. What kind of things should I check with OnyX?

Another question. How much free space is on the hard drive?

harryb2448 said:

Another question. How much free space is on the hard drive?

Click to expand...

Disk size is 1 TB and it is about half full.

The second one is called "Apple disk image media". That is labelled "external physical disk" and is 2.12 GB. I am not sure what the second disk is since the iMac is not connected to anything other than the ethernet cable.

Click to expand...

Check your SD card slot to see if you have a SD card inserted. Also check all your USB ports to make sure you have northing attached to them other than perhaps your keyboard, mouse.

This is one of the areas where Menu Meters now called iStat Menus comes in handy. I'm not suggesting ssppss should get/install this app but it is sometimes habdy to have a simple visual representation of what level of CPU usage and memory is occurring at any given time. Of course after you learn which apps and processes use the most resources you no longer need to look. For example if I am converting a AVI to an m4v with Handbrake I know I will be using most of my processor, now, but not before I installed iStat. My first warning was that the front right side of my MBP started to get hot. What i am saying is it's hard to have Activity Monitor open all the time.
As far as your problem goes ssppss, OnyX is a good idea. http://www.titanium.free.fr/onyx.html Get the version for your OSX and run the Maintenance script with all boxes ticked.
It might also be worth running MalwareBytes, malware can run in the background and use up a lot of resources. Malwarebytes is available here https://www.malwarebytes.org/antimalware/mac/

chscag,
I checked, SD card has nothing in it and there is nothing connected on the USB ports. Mouse and Keyboard are wireless. Only connection is the Ethernet cable to the router. Could that mysterious second external drive be the reason of slowness?
SSPPSS

It's only a guess but maybe. Can you eject/unmount it? In Disk Utility there is a button at the top which says unmount, try that?

ssppss said:

RedDave,

Thanks. I will try out OnyX. What kind of things should I check with OnyX?

Click to expand...

Hello again - often recommended here is to just run the default automation settings in Onyx (see my opened Onyx app below w/ the blue arrow) - now when you first try to run Onyx, a warning may appear that this is not from an authorized developer (see HERE) - follow the suggestions; for myself, I usually go into Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> General, and move the radio button to 'Anywhere' - Onyx will then open - I then activate the middle button again for protection purposes (see second image). Hope this helps.
.

RedDave,

I downloaded Onyx and the cleanup is in progress. I will report back on the outcome. Based on what I read initially, I checked all boxes for the clean up. For automation cleanup, I used your suggestion.

Thanks for your help.

Is there an anti-virus that I should try also?

I want to be optimistic, but If Onyx doesn't work, do I re-install the OS?

I like iStat as a handy visual tool, though it doesn't tell you more than Activity Monitor (it's just handier to watch CPU activity).

What do your page in/out readings look like? It seems like something is continually writing to/from disk which makes things horribly slow. Now WHY that is happening is a good question.

What is in your startup programs? Maybe something is stuck in there always running

I'd be curious what happens if you set the machine to NOT reopen windows on shutdown, then reboot, and open ONLY Activity Monitor. What does it show? (A picture is worth 1000 words)

Then open Safari to browse-what looks different in Activity Monitor? (Does some process keep popping up to the top if you look at CPU activity? Do disk read/writes suddenly increase? That's what iStat is handy for).

What happens if you use another browser instead of Safari? I know on Windows machines a lot of those browser toolbars can kill the machine, not sure about Safari.

Also, what system and Safari version are you on now?

ssppss said:

Is there an anti-virus that I should try also?

Click to expand...

Nope. Your problem isn't caused by a (non-existant) virus, and thus an anti-virus program won't fix it.

I want to be optimistic, but If Onyx doesn't work, do I re-install the OS?

Click to expand...

Nope. This isn't Windows -- reinstall of the OS is extremely rare in the Mac world. Lots of options left to try.

Rod Sprague said:

It might also be worth running MalwareBytes, malware can run in the background and use up a lot of resources. Malwarebytes is available here https://www.malwarebytes.org/antimalware/mac/

Click to expand...

Does MalwareBytes have any bad reputation like Mackeeper? Is it OK to install and use?

Does iStats itself introduce a heavy burden on the CPU (i.e. will it make my Mac even more slower)?

Added later: I just saw that it is not free, so I am going to postpone downloading it unless this is really the solution to my problem(s).

ssppss said:

Does MalwareBytes have any bad reputation like Mackeeper? Is it OK to install and use?

Click to expand...

I installed it and ran it. It did not find any problem. (I ran on the Admin account. Do I need to run as each user on the computer?).

Malwarebytes is great and often recommended here. Also suggest considering AdBlockPlus and Ghostery.