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Lion running like a dog! - Slow iMac

B

bulldoze

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 15, 2011
229
51
Our household 2009 iMac 27" does not get much use now as we rather do our browsing on the iPad or my Macbook Pro but the main reason it does not get used is that is it so deathly slow.

Much slower to use than any Windows PC I have ever had and that includes old 486 ones. We see the beach ball more than we see anything else and I cannot quite figure out what the problem is.

We only really use it for web browsing and some photo retouching in iPhoto, some MS Office stuff but just tiny docs and spreadsheets. We do have 3 accounts set up on it and it only has 4gb but surely this should not turn it into treacle? We do have a time machine hooked up to it.

It got really slow when we upgraded to Lion so maybe that is it?

Hints anybody?
 
The iMac is fully up to date so I am not sure what it could be - my wife tends to have about 50 icons on her desktop which infuriates me a bit lol but surely this is not adding to the slothness?
 
Do you have any/many Safari extensions installed?
Was it a fresh install (nuke and pave) of Lion or was Snow Leopard "updated" and was SL "updated" from Leopard :) This will create a lot of baggage that can cause slow downs.

Another thing I found, which may have been specific to me, is the cache files weren't cleaned out when updating to Lion, seems even Onyx missed them in SL and Lion. Every boot it was loading up a couple of gigs of cache, which for a 4Gb machine at the time, caused serious issues.

Check HD/Library/Caches and HD/System/Library/Caches.
 
Snow leopard was updated to Lion so maybe this is the cause although I did the same with my Macbook and that is still running fine.

Maybe I will invest in Ccleaner or something else that will clean out the system - any recommendations?
 
bulldoze said:
Maybe I will invest in Ccleaner or something else that will clean out the system - any recommendations?
Click to expand...
You don't need "cleaner" or "maintenance" apps to keep your Mac running well, and some of these apps can do more harm than good. Some remove files/folders or unused languages or architectures, which does nothing more than free up some drive space, with the risk of deleting something important in the process.

These apps will not make your Mac run faster or more efficiently, since having stuff stored on a drive does not impact performance, unless you're running out of drive space. Some of these apps delete caches, which can hurt performance, rather than help it, since more system resources are used and performance suffers while each cache is being rebuilt.

Many of these tasks should only be done selectively to troubleshoot specific problems, not en masse as routine maintenance.

Mac OS X does a good job of taking care of itself, without the need for 3rd party software. Among other things, it has its own maintenance scripts that run silently in the background on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, without user intervention.


Instead, this may help: Performance Tips For Mac OS X
AndyMoore said:
Another thing I found, which may have been specific to me, is the cache files weren't cleaned out when updating to Lion, seems even Onyx missed them in SL and Lion. Every boot it was loading up a couple of gigs of cache, which for a 4Gb machine at the time, caused serious issues.
Click to expand...
That's not correct. Cache files are there to improve performance, not degrade it. You actually degrade performance every time you delete cache files, as system resources are used to rebuild them. Leave the cache files alone. They're there for a purpose. Read the rest of this post and the links for more information.
 
Deleting the cache files worked for me. They were huge and related to software that was no longer installed. I've no idea why they were still hanging around but they definitely caused a problem for my iMac which went away once they were deleted.

As I said, was probably specific to my iMac at that time and not a normal situation but it's worth checking.
 
AndyMoore said:
Deleting the cache files worked for me. They were huge and related to software that was no longer installed.
Click to expand...
If the cache files related to deleted apps, the only thing they could possibly do is take up drive space. They cannot in any way affect performance, unless you were running very low on free disk space.
 
I wrote about it back in May 2011 and was pointed to an article regarding Aperture but also worked for me. I'm not the only person suggesting this and as I said, it certainly worked for me.
 
AndyMoore said:
I wrote about it back in May 2011 and was pointed to an article regarding Aperture but also worked for me. I'm not the only person suggesting this and as I said, it certainly worked for me.
Click to expand...
Read the maintenance myths link I posted. Deleting cache files can degrade performance, not improve it, despite what you think you experienced. Application cache files are not loaded on every boot. They are only loaded when you launch the app. If the app has been deleted, the cache file simply takes up disk space. It is never loaded and has zero impact on system performance.
 
Ok, I've read that page and section 4 in particular.

I don't and have never recommended clearing these cache files as part of regular maintenance. I do recommend it when running into performance issues for troubleshooting, as recommended by that page.
 
AndyMoore said:
Ok, I've read that page and section 4 in particular.

I don't and have never recommended clearing these cache files as part of regular maintenance. I do recommend it when running into performance issues for troubleshooting, as recommended by that page.
Click to expand...
Even when troubleshooting, deleting all cache files is counter-productive and not necessary. If you're troubleshooting a particular app, only delete the cache files for that app, not all cache files. Again, a cache file is only accessed when the app that owns it is launched; not before.

Also, when deleting apps, the following will help you identify all related files and folders, including cache files, so you can delete those along with the app, to free up disk space.

The most effective method for complete app removal is manual deletion:
 
Well I've definitely seen performance improvements doing this (after having performance issues not as general maintenance) but I'm not going to argue anymore, you think it was all in my head and I don't, who's to say . . . ;)

Both of us are not alone in our beliefs so I say it's down to whom ever is having issues to try this or not.

:D
 
Lion Does Not Roar

Our major university has advised us that no one should install Lion citing these as some of the many reasons not to do so:
• Adobe Creative Suite 5 (CS5) does not work on OS X Lion
• The Faculty of Arts shared drives are not accessible with OS X Lion installed
• Mac Mail client setup is problematic on OS X Lion
• Parallels 5 is not compatible with OS X Lion
May I add, Quick Time does not work with previously accessible files, nor do .pdf downloads in Firefox and Safari which with Lion have constant plug in crashes.* Indeed, to my knowledge Lion users are having so numerous and varied issues they are too numerous to list, like computers no shutting down.

I have been an enthusiastic and exclusive Mac user for many years and had more app crashes and malfunctions with Lion than all other previous operating systems combined. Why did Apple release such a problematic OSX with so many serious faults? Are loyal mac computer users now just guinea pigs to help satisfy the demands of the apple i device hoards for superficial gimmickry? And more to the point, when will apple fix this mess of an osx?
 
hmmm it looks like Mackeeper was hogging CPU processes. I remember that I found this on the iMac last year but I thought I had deleted it!

Just gone through this deletion process

http://applehelpwriter.com/2011/09/21/how-to-uninstall-mackeeper-malware/

Some of the steps did not work as my time machine would not let me delete all backups of Mackeeper files for some reason.

But it seems to have worked for the moment as I do not have any Mackeeper stuff running as a process at the moment.

Fingers crossed.
 
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