Slothian Desktop

[Delmonte]

Hi there, my 2008 iMac desktop with OSX 10.9.5 has been getting slower and slower. Icons bounce for a long time in the dock. Apps take a while to open or else they don't function properly. Yesterday I tried to download some short movies from my camera into iMovie and after 2 hours I gave up and so did the camera battery. Can you help? I will need dumbed-down answers please.

 

[vansmith]

Download OnyX from here and complete everything under the "Automation" tab. Give that a start and we'll go from there.

Note: Make sure to get the version that corresponds with your version of OS X.

 

[Delmonte]

Thanks for the Onyx link. Sorry it took me a while to find the "download anyway" option, and restarting took a very long time. Since restarting, Mail and Chrome took a long time to open, but now they seem better and so do Word and Excel.

 

[harryb2448]

How much memory and how much free space on the hard drive?

 

[Delmonte]

In About This Mac, it says, "Memory: 2 GB 800 MHz". Then in More Info:Storage it says, "152.56 GB free out of 319.21 GB". Those numbers don't seem to add up. Hope I accessed the correct information for you. BTW, programs still slow to open even after Onyx.

 

[chas_m]

If you're determined to fix rather than replace this six-year-old machine, my suggestions would be to max out the RAM (we'll need some more detailed specs on the model for info on that) and replace the 320GB hard drive with a 256GB or 512GB SSD (Intel is having a sale on them at the moment).

I wonder if the slowness is caused by tons of crap on the desktop? If so, you might try this: gather everything that was on the desktop into a folder, then put the folder inside the Home folder. IOW, the only thing visible on the desktop is the Dock, the Menubar, the background and the hard drive icon. Even if it doesn't help much, believe me your machine will be VERY happy you cleaned that up.

 

[lclev]

Hi Delmonte!

The first problem is the memory. 2GB is not enough for Mavericks. It will run but very slowly and it will have to swap out memory space with your hard drive creating a constant move of data back and forth between the memory and hard drive. This slows everything down.

Looks like you have a 350GB hard drive?? You have plenty of free space so it is not too full which is a good thing.

After running Onyx which vansmith recomended, I would look into upgrading the memory. OWC and Crucial are usually recommended as being the best to work with.

https://www.macsales.com/

Lisa

 

[harryb2448]

Increase that memory to 1x4GB amd 1x2GB.

 

[Delmonte]

Fixed?

Hi there, and thanks to all of you for your suggestions! Today I had more memory installed in my "vintage" computer and now have a total of 4GB. So far it seems to be much, much better but I will know for sure when I try to run iMovie. Wish me luck, and thanks again for your kind help and attention.

Kathy