SLOW Imac-2019

[drmajor]

My Imac (2019, Catilina V10.15.6, Processor. 3 Hz, 6-core Intel I5, Graphics Radeon Pro 570X 4 GB) is running way too slow. Beach Ball Time.

I run 2 external 5G hard drives.
Main drive = 203.06 GB available of 1.03 TB
48 GB RAM

Somehow, I have two 1.03GB drives w/ 195.85 available on each. Don't know where they came from.

I have run Marware- nothing there.
Ran EtreCheck which found: I can't get .DOCX file to attach..

Hardware Information:

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2019)

iMac Model: iMac19,1

3.00 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i5 (i5-8500) CPU: 6-core

48 GB RAM - Upgradeable

BANK 0/ChannelA-DIMM0 - 8 GB DDR4 2667

BANK 1/ChannelA-DIMM1 - 16 GB DDR4 2667

BANK 2/ChannelB-DIMM0 - 8 GB DDR4 2667

BANK 3/ChannelB-DIMM1 - 16 GB DDR4 2667

>
Security:

Gatekeeper: Enabled

System Integrity Protection: Enabled


Antivirus software: Apple and Malwarebytes



File sharing: Enabled

Screen sharing: Enabled

>
Unsigned Files:

Launchd: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Resources/com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist

Executable: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Resources/Java Updater.app/Contents/MacOS/Java Updater -bgcheck

Details: Exact match found in the legitimate list - probably OK



Launchd: /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.microsoft.OneDriveStandaloneUpdaterDaemon.plist

Executable: /Applications/OneDrive.app/Contents/StandaloneUpdaterDaemon.xpc/Contents/MacOS/StandaloneUpdaterDaemon

Details: Exact match found in the legitimate list - probably OK



Launchd: /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.microsoft.OneDriveUpdaterDaemon.plist

Executable: /Applications/OneDrive.app/Contents/OneDriveUpdaterDaemon.xpc/Contents/MacOS/OneDriveUpdaterDaemon

Details: Exact match found in the legitimate list - probably OK



Launchd: /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist

Executable: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Resources/Helper-Tool

Details: Exact match found in the legitimate list - probably OK



Launchd: ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist

Executable: /Library/Application Support/Adobe/OOBE/PDApp/UWA/UpdaterStartupUtility -mode

Details: Exact match found in the legitimate list - probably OK



Launchd: /Library/LaunchAgents/com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist

Executable: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Resources/Java Updater.app/Contents/MacOS/Java Updater -bgcheck

Details: Exact match found in the legitimate list - probably OK



Launchd: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Resources/com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist

Executable: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Resources/Helper-Tool

Details: Exact match found in the legitimate list - probably OK



Launchd: /Library/LaunchAgents/com.microsoft.OneDriveStandaloneUpdater.plist

Executable: /Applications/OneDrive.app/Contents/StandaloneUpdater.app/Contents/MacOS/OneDriveStandaloneUpdater

Details: Exact match found in the legitimate list - probably OK



Launchd: /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist

Executable: /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper

Details: Exact match found in the legitimate list - probably OK



Plugin: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin

Plugin: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/SharePointBrowserPlugin.plugin



Preference Pane: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Home/lib/deploy/JavaControlPanel.prefPane



Apps: 19



32-bit Applications:

6 32-bit apps



Kernel Extensions:

/Library/Extensions

Soundflower.kext (MATT INGALLS, 2.0b2 - SDK 10.10)

LogitechHIDDevices.kext (Logitech Inc., 3.9.11 - SDK 10.13)

LogitechUnifying.kext (Logitech Inc., 3.9.11 - SDK 10.13)



System Launch Agents:

[Not Loaded] 16 Apple tasks

[Loaded] 149 Apple tasks

[Running] 147 Apple tasks

[Other] One Apple task



System Launch Daemons:

[Not Loaded] 31 Apple tasks

[Loaded] 169 Apple tasks

[Running] 136 Apple tasks

[Other] One Apple task

>. a bunch of launch agents/Daemaons
>
Internet Plug-ins:

AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: 17.012.20098 (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2020-08-21)

AdobePDFViewer: 20.012.20043 (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2020-08-21)

JavaAppletPlugin: Java 8 Update 231 build 11 (? - installed 2019-12-13)

ZoomUsPlugIn: 4.6.11 (20561.0413) (Zoom Video Communications, Inc. - installed 2020-04-15)

SharePointBrowserPlugin: 14.2.0 (? - installed 2019-08-08)

>
Performance:

System Load: 1.76 (1 min ago) 1.76 (5 min ago) 1.96 (15 min ago)

Nominal I/O speed: 0.71 MB/s

File system: 20.99 seconds

Write speed: 550 MB/s

Read speed: 1379 MB/s



CPU Usage Snapshot:

Type Overall

System: 5 %

User: 12 %

Idle: 84 %



Top Processes Snapshot by CPU:

Process (count) CPU (Source - Location)

Other processes 56.83 % (?)

EtreCheck 17.91 % (App Store)

trustd 17.45 % (Apple)

NavService 2.25 % (NAVIONICS S.R.L.)

firefox 1.64 % (Mozilla Corporation)



Top Processes Snapshot by Memory:

Process (count) RAM usage (Source - Location)

firefox 797 MB (Mozilla Corporation)

EtreCheck 697 MB (App Store)

Finder 442 MB (Apple)

Dropbox 397 MB (Dropbox, Inc.)

Mail 316 MB (Apple)

>
Virtual Memory Information:

Physical RAM: 48 GB



Free RAM: 269 MB

Used RAM: 23.66 GB

Cached files: 24.07 GB



Available RAM: 24.34 GB

Swap Used: 812 MB


>
Clean up:

~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist

/Library/Application Support/Adobe/OOBE/PDApp/UWA/UpdaterStartupUtility

Executable not found

/Library/LaunchAgents/com.microsoft.OneDriveStandaloneUpdater.plist

/Applications/OneDrive.app/Contents/StandaloneUpdater.app/Contents/MacOS/OneDriveStandaloneUpdater

Executable not found



I run latest Version of Firefox....I like the Bookmarks sidebar a lot. Often have 5 to 10 tabs, but no difference with 2.
Microsoft Word/Excel.
Mac MAIL
DropBox
I moved my Music to another computer as it slowed things even more.


Suggestions to clean and speed up????????

 

[MacInWin]

>. a bunch of launch agents/Daemaons
>

I presume you made that edit. The daemons are important for diagnosis. You have a LOT of memory engaged, so something is hogging that area. You might try opening Activity Monitor and see what is hogging the CPU, then Memory.

Can you give us more information on when the beachballs appear? If it's when you are surfing the internet, then it may well be your ISP speed rather than anything in your system.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Your workflow shouldn't be taxing the system, the system is largely idle at Etrecheck time. You've barely used any swap space and have more than 50% of your total RAM available, plus the bulk of your often used data is sitting in cache ready for you, so you aren't hitting the disk IO it seems.

As Jake suggested, open up Activity Monitor to the CPU tab specifically, sort by percentage and now do whatever action causes the beachball and see what you see there.

You should also boot into Safe mode and repeat the process that triggers the beachball and see if it happens.

 

[chscag]

Somehow, I have two 1.03GB drives w/ 195.85 available on each. Don't know where they came from.

That's how Catalina displays the drive:

Macintosh HD (read only system)

Macintosh HD Data (your apps and home user folder)

Assuming your drive is a pure SSD (1 TB) it appears you're getting close to filling that drive to the point where it will begin to slow down as it moves data around to find enough free space. You haven't quite reached that point yet, but you're getting close.

Also, it appears you have many 32 bit apps which are useless and won't run in Catalina. Get rid of them. That should free up some needed space on the drive.

Also, unless you absolutely need the Adobe PDF reader, you might think about removing it. The Adobe reader is a resource hog and space hog. I found that it consumes around 1GB of space with all the fluff it installs. You have a built in PDF reader with your Preview app.

 

[drmajor]

Drive C is a Fusion drive- not all SSD. 1 TB.
I am working on getting its load down to <500GB.

This computer has always been slow. Beach Ball likes to show, no matter what software....Finder, Word, Excel, Firefox & etc. That is reason it now has 48GB RAM. No real help.

I have the PDF version of Activity Monitor, but file is too large Suggestions on that?
I am not able to load on Word or Excel files...??

I use the 32 bit software & not sure what all is 32 now.

I am hard wired to 200mbps network/internet.

 

[MacInWin]

You can use Preview to reduce the size of the PDF, or you can just tell us what is taking up the CPU. The suggestion was for you to find what was taking CPU and then for you to do something about it. If there is nothing driving the CPU usage up the problems lie elsewhere.

Fusion drive + Catalina is not a good combination. While it can be done, there are serious performance issues reported with that, mostly caused by the way Catalina uses APFS to create the two volumes you can see. They are required, so there is not much you can do about it.

Have you tried the Speedtest.net website to test what is the real internet speed you are getting?

 

[chscag]

I use the 32 bit software & not sure what all is 32 now.

You can't use the 32 bit software in Catalina as it will not run, and as stated above, it's useless, so remove it.

You can download EtreCheck from the Mac App Store and run it to see what apps are 32 bit and what else might be causing the slowdowns.

However, with a Fusion drive of 1TB the size of the SSD portion is very small (around 32 to 64GB) and as Jake has pointed out APFS is designed for pure SSDs not Fusion drives.

https://etrecheck.com/en/index.html

 

[drmajor]

I have moved some files from C drive(Fusion) and it has helped some.

What is the issue with the Fusion drives?

Is it beneficial to replace them with SSD drive?
If so, how beneficial?
Who has good SSD drives?
How to transfer present C to SSD?
Does the SSD replace Fusion internally or external?

 

[MacInWin]

What is the issue with the Fusion drives?

Not really an issue, just that because they have a rotating drive as one of the two components the APFS drive format in Catalina can be somewhat slower. APFS is designed for SSDs and takes advantage of how an SSD stores data, but that optimization for SSD means it's not optimized for a rotating drive.

Is it beneficial to replace them with SSD drive?
If so, how beneficial?

SSDs are significantly faster than rotating drives. The fusion drive was an attempt to get some of that speed without the *then* high cost of an SSD by fusing the two, writing first to the SSD and then moving the data to the rotating drive when the OS wasn't using it. But now SSD prices have dropped significantly, so that compromise is no longer that cost-saving.

Who has good SSD drives?

Crucial, OWC, even Samsung make good SSDs

How to transfer present C to SSD?

You keep referring to Drive C, which is a Windows term, but if you mean the internal drive, the best way is to use a cloner software to clone your internal to the new SSD in an external enclosure, or with external connections. SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner are two cloners you might look at. The other option is to use a backup. Once the SSD arrives, before you install it, do a full backup to a different external device, then download and create a bootable USB thumb drive installer for the OS, swap the drive, boot from the USB Thumb drive, install a clean copy of the OS on the new SSD, then boot from that new drive and use Migration Assistant to restore all of your files from the backup. That's a quick sketch of what to do, there are more details at Apple.com in the Support section.

Does the SSD replace Fusion internally or external?

The fusion is internal, but the SSD can be either. Not sure what the focus of the question is, but typically you'd put the SSD internal, particularly on a portable, so that you didn't have to carry it with you as an external.

Hope that helps.

 

[drmajor]

Big help~~!
Will look into 1T SSD.
Or will a smaller one work, as I keep the drive too full now?

 

[MacInWin]

Or will a smaller one work, as I keep the drive too full now?

Sorry, I don't understand what you said.

 

[drmajor]

I apparently keep a large about of data on the Internal Drive... Most SSD drives are not nearly as big as my internal 1T...

So, seems that a 500GB SSD would fill up quickly.

 

[MacInWin]

SSDs now come in very large size. I have a 1Tb internal and a 2Tb external, for example. SSDs used to be very small because they were expensive. Now they are coming down in price nicely.