What is wrong with my iMac?

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This is more of a rant than anything. Lately my iMac has been running super laggy. I get the rolling beachball of death when doing things like...opening safari. OSX has been running super choppy even when I have only iChat, iTunes, and Safari open. I really dont know what the problem is, and I'm not going to reformat because hey, this isn't windows, this shouldnt be happening. Does anyone know if 10.4.7 has been causing a lot of lag? Maybe I should bump my Ram up to 1.5 gigs, but I dont know, because I've never had any problems with the stock 512. I used to see the spinning beach ball/pinwheel once in a blue moon, but now its common to see it numerous times a day. Any ideas?
 
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When was the last time you ran Disc Utility and Repaired Permissions?
 
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Have you checked Activity Monitor to see if something is chewing up all the CPU cycles? I agree with baggss, we need a little more information so that we can help.
 
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How do I get to the activity monitor? Thanks for the help so far.
 
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it is in the Utilities folder in the Applications Folder
 
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Activity monitor is not in my utilities folder...what is going on...?
 
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are you using tiger? if you are try typing 'Activity Monitor' in spotlight and seeing if it comes up
 
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try the options in this thread and see if it persists. That's strange that Activity Monitor isn't in your Utilities folder.
 
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odd...

again, have you repaired Disk Permissions using Disk Utility (in your utility folder in "Applications", it's there i'm sure of it).

Also snoop around Apple's website and call their tech support.

As a last resort you could archive and install, where it takes all of your old files (Documents, Music, Movies, Pictures, etc.) and puts them in a folder, but completely reinstalls everything, including the OS and iLife. That's foolproof.

And, as a LAST LAST resort, you could back up everything and wipe your hard drive clean, then reinstall OS X from scratch.
 
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just a VERY simple option....

If you're new to macs, maybe you just close the app window instead of quitting it? just throwing that out there...
 
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^^^ thanks ShillAT but thats not it haha. BlindingLights, I usually run disk utility but now whenever I try to open it, it bounces up and down in the dock then just disappears.
 
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playm0de said:
BlindingLights, I usually run disk utility but now whenever I try to open it, it bounces up and down in the dock then just disappears.
When that started happening to my B&W running panther, the only way that I found to fix it was to re-install the OS. A painful solution, but maybe better than the beachball of eternity.
 
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Wow I dont really want to back up ~100 gigs of stuff.
 
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jhelm007 said:
When that started happening to my B&W running panther, the only way that I found to fix it was to re-install the OS. A painful solution, but maybe better than the beachball of eternity.


Agreed. The same thing happened to wife's old iMac, running Panther, and that was the only solution.

The nice part about OSX is that you can you do a clean install by selecting the "Archive and Install" option and it won't mess with any of your data. It will simply install a new base system while leaving your profile and data intact. I've done this a couple of times on different Macs and never run into a problem.
 
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Wait...so youre saying I can reinstall OSX but still keep all my stuff?!
 

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Yes, when you hold down C and boot with the OSX DVD, Go to options and make sure it's set for Archive and Install. It will do nothing with your files but completely reinstall OSX.
 
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So I dont need to back up anything right? I can keep everything the way it is and my desktop will remain the same but OSX will reinstall?
 

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playm0de said:
So I dont need to back up anything right? I can keep everything the way it is and my desktop will remain the same but OSX will reinstall?


Yes, with Archive and Install all will be the same. Backing up anytime can be a good iden just in case something goes wrong, but I have never had a problem so far.
 

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