iMac help

[johnothy]

I bought a 2011 iMac on ebay--2.5ghz processor with 8GB RAM, 500 GB hard drive. It was listed in excellent condition and from a high rated seller.

I received it today and was glad to get it. However, it runs so slow... programs won't open, close, they freeze up then say not responding. I erased the hard drive and reinstalled the OS which is El Capitan. It goes through these slow spells where nothing will run right and then for awhile it will run ok with decent speed. But now trying to go into the App store, its locked up again with the circle twirling...I have had other macs and they have never been like this. Anyone have any advice?

 

[AntnyMikal]

I'd try and send it back for a refund if possible. If that's not possible, I guess it depends on how much you want to spend.

Personally if I bought a 2011 iMac I'd take it apart and upgrade everything and give it a good cleaning, I'm talking upgrading anything I could. CPU, HDD to SSD, better thermal paste, RAM and new fan even and good compressed air blowout. Then a fresh install, but really it's hard to know what wrongs with it from here.

Shouldn't be that bad, my MacMini was a 2011 2.3ghz, 500GB, 8GB RAM and it ran El Capitan with no issues. Always a risks buying used electronics. If there's a Apple store or authorized repair shop around you maybe they can take a look at it, for a price probably though.

You might also try an earlier OS as well. Maybe Mavericks or ML.

 

[azure247]

It is a 2011 iMac with a 5400 RPM hard drive and SATA II I believe. It is a very slow hard drive so the beach ball is normal. What you need to do is after restoring it, let the iMac index. If you try to use it while it index, it is going to cause all your problems.

 

[johnothy]

It is a 2011 iMac with a 5400 RPM hard drive and SATA II I believe. It is a very slow hard drive so the beach ball is normal. What you need to do is after restoring it, let the iMac index. If you try to use it while it index, it is going to cause all your problems.

Maybe it was indexing causing the hard drive to run slow. It seems to be decent today and is booting up much faster as I would expect it to.

However when I tried to play the fireplace screensaver it doesn't even run that consistently...its all slow and freezes up...and it won't play my DVD I put in either. I'm very disappointed because the physical shape of the iMac and screen quality is great. It just runs like crap!

 

[azure247]

Maybe it was indexing causing the hard drive to run slow. It seems to be decent today and is booting up much faster as I would expect it to.

However when I tried to play the fireplace screensaver it doesn't even run that consistently...its all slow and freezes up...and it won't play my DVD I put in either. I'm very disappointed because the physical shape of the iMac and screen quality is great. It just runs like crap!

If the DVD drive is really broken then contact the seller because he claimed everything worked.