iMac running slow... freezing often.

[grantrobarts]

So I am ready to throw my 24" iMac (white) through the window. I am having it freeze and run utterly slow pretty much everyday at least once a day. I am running the latest version of Leopard and all my software seems to be up-to-date.

I am usually running photoshop, iPhoto, or something big when my computer bogs down but last time I checked that shouldn't matter.... OS X seemed to be pretty good at handling more than one large application open at a time.

It's a 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM, with a NVIDIA GeForce 7600GT.

 

[pwn247]

I recommend backing up your precious data (photos, videos, documents, etc...) and doing a full reinstall.

You can toss your OS X Leopard disc #1 into the drive and hold down C at boot to open the CD. Wipe your drive and do a clean install.

 

[Amdahl]

If it is only freezing when you are working on the media apps, then try running Activity Monitor and watch the System Memory tab to see if it is out of Free memory and using lots of Swap. If so, you are simply low on RAM.

 

[Sun Baked]

I recommend backing up your precious data (photos, videos, documents, etc...) and doing a full reinstall.

You can toss your OS X Leopard disc #1 into the drive and hold down C at boot to open the CD. Wipe your drive and do a clean install.

Usually we use that as a last resort ... this isn't a Windows machine.

Could be something as simple as a process that is hogging the machine time, is running once a day.

Looking for that might help and take less time to fix than backing up the entire machine and reinstalling an offending app.

One person complaining about a slow machine, kept reinstalling the OS, then immediately putting Norton Antivirus back on it -- which turned out to be an app creating all his angst.

 

[toolbox]

firstly

1. Use disk utility to repair the permissions on the hard disk, also might be worth running verify disk whilst your there
2. Reset the PRAM

esetting PRAM
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.

3. Reset the SMC if it's a intel based mac

From the Apple menu, choose Shut Down (or if the computer is not responding, hold the power button until it turns off).
Unplug all cables from the computer, including the power cord and any display cables.
Wait at least 15 seconds.
Plug the power cord back in, making sure the power button is not being pressed at the time. Then reconnect your keyboard and mouse to the computer.
Press the power button on the back to start up your computer

 

[chocolate632]

I had this same problem with my iMac G5 17". I was running slow and freezing all the time too. I reinstalled photoshop and BAM! It was back to normal. Try this and let us know how it goes, it might only have worked for me.