My iMac 2012 is slow

[mahfoudhhi]

My iMac has become slow and the colored ball comes on all the time after upgrading to El Capitan.
it is 2011, 16 GB RAM.
any suggestion, please, to enhance performance and speed the machine up?
will upgrading to fusion drive or SSD make it significantly faster?

 

[harryb2448]

How long since you have rebooted the machine? How much free space is on that hard drive? Are you running any resource hogs such as antivirus or cleaning apps such as Mackeeper? Onyx is the recommended utility here for maintenance ~ are you using it? As you are runni ng El Capitan, have you gone into Recovery mode and run Disk First Aid to verify the state of the hard drive? Where did you purchase the additional memory for your iMac?

 

[mahfoudhhi]

How long since you have rebooted the machine? How much free space is on that hard drive? Are you running any resource hogs such as antivirus or cleaning apps such as Mackeeper? Onyx is the recommended utility here for maintenance ~ are you using it? As you are runni ng El Capitan, have you gone into Recovery mode and run Disk First Aid to verify the state of the hard drive? Where did you purchase the additional memory for your iMac?

thank you very much for replying.
I use onyx once every month and I reboot it. it became slw before I install AVG antivirus, and for RAM I upgraded them in a local shop 3 years ago, the free space is more than half Terrabyte.

 

[ferrarr]

To add to harryb2448's questions, did you do a clean install of El Capitan, or did you do an OS upgrade? If so, which OS did you upgrade from? Are the colored ball happening with all apps or only certain apps?

 

[mahfoudhhi]

I upgraded from the last OSX just before El Capitan. the colored ball comes with all application and some times takes a long time.

 

[nickyr]

I would uninstall AVG for a start. You don't need it and it could be slowing your Mac down.

I'd recommend running Onyx (from the automate tab - leave everything at default settings), and installing and running Malwarebytes for Mac.

 

[dtravis7]

A Lot of times slowdowns like yours with every app is the Hard drive failing. I know for sure the 2010 and even some 2011's have a Seagate 1TB drive and there were many issues with that drive. Seagate has gone way down hill.

I would try what nickyr suggested and if it's still doing it, I will almost bet your drive is dying, They are a pain to change but it can be done.

On About this Mac from the Apple Menu, if you look at the SATA entry what is the model number of the drive?

My 2010 just had that issue and it was the drive. Before I could get the new drive shipped here, it would not even allow me to back up my Sierra Partition with Time Machine but I was able to make an Image before it totally went nuts. I put in a new WD 1TB Black and it's like new again.

 

[dtravis7]

PS, you have a Mid 2011 iMac and not a 2012 which is good as the 2012 you would have to get the same hard drive to make it work properly. With OWCs kit you can install any brand of Hard Drive. Of Late I use WD Blacks exclusively for rotational drives.

Just in case here is a video showing how to change the drive.

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DIDIMACHDD11/

 

[mahfoudhhi]

PS, you have a Mid 2011 iMac and not a 2012 which is good as the 2012 you would have to get the same hard drive to make it work properly. With OWCs kit you can install any brand of Hard Drive. Of Late I use WD Blacks exclusively for rotational drives.

Just in case here is a video showing how to change the drive.

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DIDIMACHDD11/

Thank you very much indeed, for your time and effort to comment.
I appreciate it.

 

[mahfoudhhi]

I would uninstall AVG for a start. You don't need it and it could be slowing your Mac down.

I'd recommend running Onyx (from the automate tab - leave everything at default settings), and installing and running Malwarebytes for Mac.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.