Activity Monitor screen shot: SLOW computer.. Help/Thoughts?

When is the last time you restarted your Mac?

If you're having performance issues, this may help:

Performance Tips For Mac OS X​

 

If you're still having performance issues, post a shot of the Activity Monitor with it sorted by the "Real Mem" column with the highest usage at the top.

The bottom of the screen shot says you are using 10 GB of swap space. If the system hasn't been up for a long time or this performance issue occurs within a couple of days of rebooting, it may mean you need more RAM unless there is something else causing the issue.

However restarting your Mac is most probably the first thing to try.

 

It looks as if it is kernal task eating almost all of your available ram, this may help
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20091848-263/kernel-task-taking-up-ram-in-os-x/

Your best bet would be to upgrade your ram with prices as low as they are, you could buy another 16gb for around £60-70 and upgrade yours to 24gb using your current 8gb as long as they are 2x4gb sticks. What year iMac are you running?

 

You just rebooted and kernel_task is using 5.42 GB? Something seems very wrong to me.

[EDIT] OK, you haven't rebooted between the two screenshots.

Please restart your computer and then repost an Activity Monitor screenshot.

 

That's ok. We're all here to help each other I knew absolutely nothing about macs this time last year but this place has been amazing.
I believe this is the ram for your iMac

http://www.crucial.com/upgrade/appl...6GHz+Intel+Core+2+Duo+(24-inch)-upgrades.html

Double check I got the specs right before you decide on what to do and I'm pretty sure you can only play a total of 16gb in yours, so another 8gb would bring you to that.

Here is how you upgrade

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1423#2

I'm still think there is an underlying reason why kernal_task is using so much of your current ram, but a ram upgrade is the cheapest and easiest thing you can do to make you mac or pc faster.

Good luck and i hope this helps you

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Me again, I've just noticed that inkjet8 seems to be using a fair bit and could be influencing kernal_task, try unplugging your printer from your mac and see if it lowers.

 

To determine if you can benefit from more RAM, launch Activity Monitor and click the System Memory tab at the bottom to check your page outs. Page outs are cumulative since your last restart, so the best way to check is to restart your computer and track page outs under your normal workload (the apps, browser pages and documents you normally would have open). If your page outs are significant (say 1GB or more) under normal use, you may benefit from more RAM. If your page outs are zero or very low during normal use, you probably won't see any performance improvement from adding RAM.

Using Activity Monitor to read System Memory and determine how much RAM is being used

 

Was the initial screen shot taken when you had Parallels, VMware, or somesuch running? With a large amount of hardwired RAM, that's an indication. If you are running those, try dialing back the memory requirements. Or, as suggested, buy more memory if you can -- it's relatively cheap these days.

 

No, you're not paging out. No need for more RAM.

 

Your printer software appears to be consuming an unusual amount of RAM. You might try uninstalling it completely, unless it provides functionality you need, in which case, uninstalling and reinstalling it.

 

Definitely remove your printer software. 4.5gb for what should be an idle process most of the time? That's your culprit.