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2013 iMac base model super slow

crzdcolombian

crzdcolombian

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 16, 2010
814
172
We bought my wifes parents a iMac for X-mas in 2013. I went to their house today and it takes like 5 minutes to start up. Ok maybe not 5 minutes but the fact that my 2013 Macbook air takes 5 seconds from off to using safari I think its unacceptable.

I know the macbook air is SSD and the iMac is a normal HD but the time it takes to boot up is crazy. Then when you are finally signed in. It takes a good 30 seconds to 1 minute to start surfing the web or do anything.

They just use the computer for iTunes, Facebook and iPhoto for the most part. They are only using 300gb of a 2 terabytes. Their Ram is 8gbs.

Unless they have a virus or something I don't get what is wrong with their computer. I used youtube when I was there to clear their history and cache and other "tricks" to make your computer faster and nothing.

I am going to see them next week for X-Mas and am probably just going to back up all their stuff on one of my external HDs and do a fresh restore of IOS.

Anyone have suggestions or idea what is going on? Sorry for the long explanation
 
1.) Check the disk for errors (from the recovery partition)
2.) Boot into safe mode (press and hold the Shift key while power up). Safe Mode loads no third-party driver or any startup items.
3.) Make a system report with EtreCheck http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck
 
Firstly back up the computer using time machine or carbon copy cloner.

Secondly do a repair disk permissions and repair disk in disk utility.

If that works all good.

If not you probably have a dying hard drive, do a hardware test there are various apps that will do that (the apple hardware test being the easiest to find but probably the least effective) and check the disk.

It will probably need replacing, if still under warranty get apple to do it or use the chance to throw in an SSD yourself.
 
Jan.K said:
1.) Check the disk for errors (from the recovery partition)
2.) Boot into safe mode (press and hold the Shift key while power up). Safe Mode loads no third-party driver or any startup items.
3.) Make a system report with EtreCheck http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck
Click to expand...

thanks will attempt this when I see them over X-mas. As for Samuelsan2001 the hard drive failing in under 2 years? would really make me question the quality of Mac products. Hope that isn't the case
 
OP:

You didn't say which OS you're using on the slow iMac, but if it's Mavericks, Yosemite or even El Capitan, the fact that you're trying to run these recent OS's from a platter-based hard drive is probably contributing to "the slowness".

You DON'T have to open up the iMac to get vastly improved performance.
Instead, add a USB3 external SSD drive, and let that serve as your "booter".

Doing this is very VERY easy (trivial, really) and you and your wife's parents will be AMAZED at the performance increase.

There are a couple of ways to do this:

1. Buy a "ready-to-go" USB external SSD drive, such as this one:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00ZTRY532?tag=delt-20
or
2. Buy a "bare" SSD drive and a USB3 enclosure that specifically supports "UASP" (USB attached SCSI protocol), put the drive into the enclosure (easy!), and set yourself up that way.

Regarding how high capacity an SSD you need, I wouldn't get more than 240gb.
This will hold the OS, applications, and accounts.
If your parents have LARGE libraries of music, photos, movies, you can leave these on the internal HDD, and access them that way.

Again, I predict your wife's parents will be very happy after adding an external SSD and configuring it to boot the iMac...
 
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wow 120gb of SSD is only $70 bucks !!! Just bought it on amazon hopefully its in by the time I go visit them. That seems like a insanely cheap fix. My wife wanted to get them a new iMac.
 
crzdcolombian said:
We bought my wifes parents a iMac for X-mas in 2013. I went to their house today and it takes like 5 minutes to start up. Ok maybe not 5 minutes but the fact that my 2013 Macbook air takes 5 seconds from off to using safari I think its unacceptable.

I know the macbook air is SSD and the iMac is a normal HD but the time it takes to boot up is crazy. Then when you are finally signed in. It takes a good 30 seconds to 1 minute to start surfing the web or do anything.

They just use the computer for iTunes, Facebook and iPhoto for the most part. They are only using 300gb of a 2 terabytes. Their Ram is 8gbs.

Unless they have a virus or something I don't get what is wrong with their computer. I used youtube when I was there to clear their history and cache and other "tricks" to make your computer faster and nothing.

I am going to see them next week for X-Mas and am probably just going to back up all their stuff on one of my external HDs and do a fresh restore of IOS.

Anyone have suggestions or idea what is going on? Sorry for the long explanation
Click to expand...

This model has a 5400rmp HDD?

That is probably why.
 
crzdcolombian said:
We bought my wifes parents a iMac for X-mas in 2013. I went to their house today and it takes like 5 minutes to start up. Ok maybe not 5 minutes but the fact that my 2013 Macbook air takes 5 seconds from off to using safari I think its unacceptable.

I know the macbook air is SSD and the iMac is a normal HD but the time it takes to boot up is crazy. Then when you are finally signed in. It takes a good 30 seconds to 1 minute to start surfing the web or do anything.

They just use the computer for iTunes, Facebook and iPhoto for the most part. They are only using 300gb of a 2 terabytes. Their Ram is 8gbs.

Unless they have a virus or something I don't get what is wrong with their computer. I used youtube when I was there to clear their history and cache and other "tricks" to make your computer faster and nothing.

I am going to see them next week for X-Mas and am probably just going to back up all their stuff on one of my external HDs and do a fresh restore of IOS.

Anyone have suggestions or idea what is going on? Sorry for the long explanation
Click to expand...

Working as intended. Slow ass drive.
 
I have a 2013 iMac the I custom ordered top-of-the-line with an internal SSD, and it's still a screamer as far as I'm concerned. My work iMac was refreshed at the same time, and of course they get the very lowest configuration they can. The difference is night and day, and I'm pretty sure it's the 5400 rpm hard drive to blame.
 
crzdcolombian said:
thanks will attempt this when I see them over X-mas. As for Samuelsan2001 the hard drive failing in under 2 years? would really make me question the quality of Mac products. Hope that isn't the case
Click to expand...

Any component can die at any time, that is the nature of electronics. HDD's usually average about 6-7 years but dying after 2 years is quite common. Apple buy their hard drives like everyone else, they buy good quality drives but as I say it's the nature of the beast for computers, if you have never had a hard drive die on you you are a lucky person or fairly new to computers.
 
I have experienced the hard drive die after two years on both a top-of-the-line 27" late 2009 iMac and 27" late 2012 iMac. If i remember correctly, one drive was Seagate and the other Western Digital. So yes, it can happen after such a short period of time.

The 120GB SSD you have bought should bring a significant performance boost to the machine by using it as the boot drive :)
 
ok cool thanks guys. its ordered and should be in on monday. Hope it fixes their issue. All they do is play games on Facebook casino and farm games or something random like that. Thought it was a virus.
 
AlexisV said:
Try removing any programs you have in startup programs
Click to expand...

This is worth a look out. Over the years I had installed and removed apps that run at startup, they didn't usually remove themselves from the startup program list so it was full of items that couldn't be found. I *think* cleaning those up did improve boot time which had got so bad I just used sleep overnight instead.
 
Nospig said:
This is worth a look out. Over the years I had installed and removed apps that run at startup, they didn't usually remove themselves from the startup program list so it was full of items that couldn't be found. I *think* cleaning those up did improve boot time which had got so bad I just used sleep overnight instead.
Click to expand...

the computer has no start up programs, I ran cache, all diagnostics and everything you guys said to do. its the HD is ******. I just hadn't used a computer that didn't have SSD in 3 years. When I used it I thought it was broken haha. 1st world problems.
 
crzdcolombian said:
ok cool thanks guys. its ordered and should be in on monday. Hope it fixes their issue. All they do is play games on Facebook casino and farm games or something random like that. Thought it was a virus.
Click to expand...
I have actually found that I encounter attacks fairly regularly and I now have Avast running at all times. It is worth trying to scan the computer for an infection. My rMBP also ran super slow and it has improved immensely since I got rid of the virus. 'Avast Mac Security 2015' is free to download and use so it won't hurt. My parents also had an infected Mac and there I ended up just deleting everything and reinstalling from scratch and it has worked fine since.
 
This is a good example of people having different ideas about what is fast or slow. Your parents are probably fine with the speed as it's all they know. You on the other hand think there's something wrong with it.

I had to use my dad's 3 or 4 year old freebie android phone the other day and thought he was insane. He thinks it's the best thing since sliced bread. I just shook my head. But I've learned from experience that pushing tech onto my parents is too frustrating so I let him be.
 
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