iMac has become terribly slow

David086

Lately back my iMac has become increasingly slower and slower. It struggles to deal with different applications open at the same time such as Safari, Mail, Spotify etc. Even when Safari/Chrome is open just on it's own it can be slow. There's no real heavy applications or games installed either.

My iMac is a 2009 20" so it's pretty old. Attached are a few specs too. Any help/suggestions? Done the usual empty trash, system repair etc..

The Bowling Alley

Mine is 2013 and it has become slow lately too. Not sure what's going on.

FourFourRED

I would upgrade the RAM to 8gb if possible. 2gb is very low for 10.10

I would try Onyx for OS X as well to do a clean up.

whiterebel

Open activity monitor for utilities folder, and have a look at what is putting load onto the CPU. If you see window server taking up 20%+, go into system prefs>accessibility>reduce transparency and tick it. It seems as if there's a bug in 10.10 which uses way too much CPU and doesn't release it.

mocathain

more ram would make a big difference

David086

Thanks for the tips. I've tried the suggestions here but it's still pretty slow. I'm guessing more RAM is the only solution.

Can anyone recommend what RAM I should buy? Don't want anything special just something that improves preformance.

whiterebel

David086 wrote: »

Thanks for the tips. I've tried the suggestions here but it's still pretty slow. I'm guessing more RAM is the only solution.

Can anyone recommend what RAM I should buy? Don't want anything special just something that improves preformance.

I always go to crucial.com

David086

whiterebel wrote: »

I always go to crucial.com

Found 8GB of RAM for €70. Is this a good offer?

http://eu.crucial.com/eur/en/imac-%2820-inch%2C-mid-2009%29/CT3309372

whiterebel

David086 wrote: »

Found 8GB of RAM for €70. Is this a good offer?

http://eu.crucial.com/eur/en/imac-%2820-inch%2C-mid-2009%29/CT3309372

There is also http://memoryc.ie to compare. I've never used them though.

ZENER

+ 1 for memoryc.ie

Have used them lots of times and never disappointed.

Ken

Effects

David086 wrote: »

Found 8GB of RAM for €70. Is this a good offer?
]

Would you not stick 16GB in if you can?

FourFourRED

Effects wrote: »

Would you not stick 16GB in if you can?

Max it can take is 8gb.

Effects

Ah ok. Mines a 2011 27" and it came with 16gb.
Friend of mine has a 2013 20" and he says it's gone really slow since he updated to Yosemite. Another friend has even gone back to Snow Leopard!

jakdublin

Another speed up option that works for me is to boot from an external SSD drive. I had a spare 128gb SSD and now use it to boot up a sluggish Mac Mini. The Mini provides the storage space. It's like a new machine.