iMac Really Slow and Hot

[Oliver G]

I have a late 2007 iMac (20" 2.4Ghz, 320GB, 2GB) and up until a few months ago it has been running perfectly, But now after about one of of use it will the spinning wheel will appear and it does not go away for about 10 mins.
After the 10 mins it is really sluggish and the wheel will continually come back. If I try and restart it, it just gets stuck on the white and grey page. But if I leave it for about an hour and come back it works fine, but only for an hour or so and it does the same thing.

I have noticed that it is quite warm to touch and as it get's warmer that the compute starts to get slower and slower.

Has anyone had the same problem? I really want to get this mac back to working order.

 

[rkaufmann87]

I have a late 2007 iMac (20" 2.4Ghz, 320GB, 2GB) and up until a few months ago it has been running perfectly, But now after about one of of use it will the spinning wheel will appear and it does not go away for about 10 mins.
After the 10 mins it is really sluggish and the wheel will continually come back. If I try and restart it, it just gets stuck on the white and grey page. But if I leave it for about an hour and come back it works fine, but only for an hour or so and it does the same thing.

I have noticed that it is quite warm to touch and as it get's warmer that the compute starts to get slower and slower.

Has anyone had the same problem? I really want to get this mac back to working order.

It sounds like the HD is failing, the first thing you should do (if you haven't already) is BACKUP NOW! Then using the install disk that came with the computer run Apple Hardware Test. You can find instructions for that at:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1883

Please report back what you find and we can do more testing if necessary.

 

[Oliver G]

I want to try that but my disc drive is not working (wont accept anything).

I have been told that I should try ajusting the fan speeds with the app SMCFANCONTROL. Is that a good idea? and what speeds should I test?. Can I break the fans or the computer with this?

 

[rkaufmann87]

I want to try that but my disc drive is not working (wont accept anything).

I have been told that I should try ajusting the fan speeds with the app SMCFANCONTROL. Is that a good idea? and what speeds should I test?. Can I break the fans or the computer with this?

Not a good idea at all until you know what is wrong with your computer. If the Superdrive isn't working that should be fixed or replaced. One thing you can do is check the S.M.A.R.T. status of your HD in Disk Utility. If it doesn't say Verified it's in trouble but even if it's Verified it could still be in trouble.

 

[MacHamster68]

definitely sounds like harddrive on its last legs , superdrive not working... ,
just bring it to apple as its late 2007 you should still be under apple care
problem sorted
if you didn't buy apple care for whatever illogical reason then you need to pay for the new harddrive and superdrive and if you cant fit it yourself ... i dont recommend fitting it yourself if you never have worked in iMac's , as to easy to break things inside ..but you can always try , its your iMac, but dont complain if you break it

 

[MeAngry]

The hard drive might be the problem, but not necessarily. There might also be a process running in the background getting stuck and eating all of your CPU time away. (Thus making your iMac get hot and slow.)

What does Activity Monitor say when your iMac starts acting like that? Monitor it for a bit and you might see the culprit.