21,5 mid 2010 iMac , more Ram or not ?

[franzmueller]

Hi

Here´s the story ...

Bought an 3,2 GHZ mid 2010 iMac to replace my 2008 2,4 GHz Macbook and I thought that because of the better processor it will run better .... or not ?

The case is that since several months , I have the feeling that my iMac is running really , really crappy slow and I was seriously thinking of upgrading the Ram to 8 GB ( it has now 4 GB stock ) but then , I received an e-mail from Apple that I should change my Harddrive.

Could be that the drive is the cause that my overall computer runs so crappy ?

What do I mean with crappy ?

Good question ... like opening iPhoto and it takes easily 30 seconds to startup or Pages ... it takes 15 or so seconds to open .

When I want to play an Itunes movie rental , it can take up to 10 seconds to start playing ( movie has been fully downloaded into my computer ) or when I push pause and when I want to play again the " ball " starts spinning for up to 30 seconds until something happens ..this drives my wife crazy each time ....

Using Calendar fullscreen is nice but when I perform several changes in my appointments it takes ages to react ....

Annoying


Could be a the faulty drive the reason of all this ?? Its only half full ...


Should I upgrade the RAM ? It never hurt to have more RAM right ?


By the way ....I´m running 10.8.2 ...

The superdrive stopped working several months ago but I have a hard time deciding if I want to spend something like 130 euros for something I barely use anymore ....

Anyway .... your advices are welcome

Regards from Spain !!!

 

[Bug-Creator]

A dying HD can for sure cause such problems...

Not sure what you mean with you received an email from Apple ?

Did you ask them for support, or is it more of a recall-message (like "we found out that some 2010 iMacs with HD xy suffer a high rate of failure") ?

When updating the RAM, better buy 8GB (for 12GB total) only minimal extra cost in these days and the upgrade surely made a difference on my 3.06GHz 2010 iMac....

 

[simsaladimbamba]

8 GB of RAM probably does not hurt, but startup times of the OS and applications are rarely affected by that, unless you start a closed applications shortly after it being closed.

Open Activity Monitor and go to the System Memory* tab and look for Page Outs and Swap used and report back.

Using Activity Monitor to show you CPU and RAM usage​

* Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor​

You would probably benefit from an SSD to house the OS and your applications, though replacing the HDD with an SSD in an iMac is a bit tricky and cumbersome.
You two options:

• iMac Intel 21.5" EMC 2389 Hard Drive Replacement
• Installing iMac Intel 21.5" EMC 2389 Dual Hard Drive

 

[Rhinoevans]

Always add Ram, 4 not enough unless you are just checking email and internet. With 4 G Ram, on occasion, with not much open, I had very little available.

Check your ram usage occasionally to see what you are using. Some how the page out is related but I am not an expert in that area.

Ram is so cheap, 16G around $69-$80, and 8 for $35. Less than a night out with pizza

Just upgraded my cMBP to 16. Probably more than I needed, 8 would have probably been ok, but for an extra $40, why not.

 

[franzmueller]

A dying HD can for sure cause such problems...

Not sure what you mean with you received an email from Apple ?

Did you ask them for support, or is it more of a recall-message (like "we found out that some 2010 iMacs with HD xy suffer a high rate of failure") ?

When updating the RAM, better buy 8GB (for 12GB total) only minimal extra cost in these days and the upgrade surely made a difference on my 3.06GHz 2010 iMac....

Thanks for the answer ... it was a recall notification

Regarding the RAM ... will ask .... I thought 12 GB was an overkill ... I´m not a gamer or so

regards