My new 20" iMac feels sluggish

ItsMeDave · Apr 19, 2007

Hi Everyone,

Is there any way of benchmarking my new iMac? This is my first Mac and I've only owned it for a week - it's got the 250Gb h/d and I upgraded to 2Gb memory. Normal operation such as launching apps and bringing forward running apps seems sluggish to me, there's no snap. I'm a long time Windows user with a personal desktop and company laptop - both of which are near or over 3 years old. They both feel faster to me.
I've been keeping an eye on CPU and memory usage and I hardly ever see the CPU pegged and often have over a gig of free memory - yet things seem slow. I wonder if I have a memory issue? The store upgraded my memory to 2Gb but when I got home the O/S only registered that there was 1Gb present. I went back to the store and they fixed it but it took 2 tries - the tech said there was probably dust in the memory slot. I did notice a performance increase once the second gig was recognized - but still.
I often have a half-dozen apps running at one time and I know that it takes time to load from the h/d - so I'm taking that into account.

I know this is all subjective, and the Mac experience is a whole new thing for me making it hard to judge.
Understand that I'm not feeling buyers remorse, I still love my Mac - but I wonder.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

cheers

MacMania55 · Apr 19, 2007

Hmmm my imac is very fast. Im not sure what the problem is, you have alot of ram too. You may want to try reformatting your computer.

bryphotoguy · Apr 19, 2007

I wouldn't think things will open in a "snap" as you call it. Some programs open faster than others. My question is, how do they run when they're open. If they run fine and without a glitch, you have no problems. Also, run in to any blue screens of death or any other common fatal errors? Kidding aside....
I believe from what I was told, 10.4 is technically an emulated program on Intel iMacs and does not fully take advantage of Intel's processor and architecture. With the new OS coming out, maybe you'll notice that boost in performance that you're missing.
Also, what programs are you running when you say you have 6 programs running at once? I have the same setup (20" Intel w/ 250GB HD and 2GB RAM) as you and am currently running Firefox (w/ 4 tabs open), iChat, iTunes, and ripping a DVD with MacTheRipper and notice no problems or lag.
What kind of RAM did you buy?
That's all I can come up with for now....
Peace,
Bryan

giulio · Apr 19, 2007

After 5 or so months, I've noticed my iMac slow down quite a bit. It's hard drive related. Everything I do required lots of laboring - I hear the HD chugging away.
Mail.app used to open up in an instant. Now its close to a few seconds. I know i know... whiney, right? But still... what happened?

I've repaired permissions, fixed files, defragmented, and rebuilt the file directory. It's only a little bit faster now. The industry needs to re-think the way computers store information - the hard drive is such a bottleneck now that cache, ram, and CPU have caught up.

bryphotoguy · Apr 19, 2007

I am a little anal about my Mac. The only thing I keep on my iMac HD are the apps. I store every bit of info on my external. And I reformat every 6 months to erase everything I quit using and such. It keeps me at least feeling like I am always running at top notch.
Peace,
Bryan

trademark · Apr 19, 2007

I know it may sound stupid, but you are a first time mac user, and it's worth a shot...

Did you set your processor performance to highest under the energy saver options in the system prefferences?

Other than that I can only imagine the problem could be you're running the wrong type of Ram or running advanced programs.

bryphotoguy · Apr 19, 2007

I believe that is only a setting on laptops

giulio · Apr 19, 2007

tm, we're running desktops - there is no CPU throttle setting.

My performance has degraded over time. So I can only think that the hard drive gets clogged because it's the only thing changing in the system over time. I can see it laboring more than it used to.

trademark · Apr 19, 2007

no that's a setting on the iMac, I should know
unless they don't have the setting for the intel core duo

ItsMeDave · Apr 19, 2007

Thanks for the info folks. This may be all in my head, I'll keep an eye on things and re-evaluate as I get more used to OS X. I bought my iMac at London Drugs and the memory upgrade was part of the purchase. I took it for granted that they were going to use Apple-supplied memory, but I guess they used whatever generic stuff they sell. I regret that, I usually buy Crucial and have never experienced any problems. I'm not too keen on doing a re-install at this point in time - but maybe once I get more comfortable.

I love my new Mac!

giulio · Apr 19, 2007

Run MenuMeters. With it, you can see what is making the computer sluggish.

ItsMeDave · Apr 20, 2007

I just installed MenuMeters, thanks giulio, nice app.

MartinS · Apr 20, 2007

Try using MainMenu to deep clean caches and reboot twice. This speeds things up a little for me (even though they weren't particularly slow...)

When you open a file after this it might say something along the lines of "it looks like you're using this application for the first time"... Just open it.

dtravis7 · Apr 20, 2007

trademark said:
no that's a setting on the iMac, I should know
unless they don't have the setting for the intel core duo

The G5 iMacs have that setting but they took it out of the Intel imacs.

eric · Apr 20, 2007

new pcs and macs will tend to have a lot of junk on them simply from the build/install.

you may want to try one of these to clean your logs and caches (as MartinS suggested):

onyx - excellent maintenance tool, great for cache maintenance and tweaking preferences. free!

mainmenu - alternative to onyx, not quite as fully featured, but easier to use, and a bit less dangerous.

gilesjuk · Apr 20, 2007

giulio said:
tm, we're running desktops - there is no CPU throttle setting.

Yes and no, it might not be visible as a control panel option but desktop CPUs have power saving technology as well.

First thing to ask when people mention performance problems is what application are they running, PPC apps are slow!

The only reason I can see the Mac slowing down over time (other than disk fragmentation) is having more things started when you boot up. Extensions etc..

Alexis · Apr 20, 2007

10.4 is technically an emulated program on Intel iMacs and does not fully take advantage of Intel's processor and architecture.

I thought Apple started developing the x86 version of Tiger years ago - it's fully optimised for Intel, not emulated.

Back on topic, what applications are you running? Rosetta apps will be slower.

dtravis7 · Apr 20, 2007

Alexis said:
I thought Apple started developing the x86 version of Tiger years ago - it's fully optimised for Intel, not emulated.

Correct. Tiger for the Intel is a FULL Intel OS. The only Emulation going on is with Applications like Adobe and Microsoft which still are not universal and only run natively on the Power PC.

Alexis said:
Back on topic, what applications are you running? Rosetta apps will be slower.

Agreed totally.

narf1899 · Apr 20, 2007

bryphotoguy said:
I believe that is only a setting on laptops

where the heck is that setting? im on a macbook C2D running 10.4.9 and i just dont have it anywhere! heres what my prefs look like:

bryphotoguy · Apr 20, 2007

it's somewhere in that power settings menu, I think. I haven't touched a Macbook in a few months now. I think because you are using the custom function you choose between power saver and performance mode. Try the options tab. Or maybe I am still thinking OS 9? I quit using OS 9 and the Macbook around the same time. All I know is that setting isn't there anymore and I used to mess with it all the time when I had my Macbook.
Peace,
Bryan