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new iMac running slow

photogpab

photogpab

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 21, 2010
491
8
OK... so i got my new iMac today, 27" 3.1GHz i5 Model which i bumped up to 12gb RAM.

The first few hours i was using it it was FLYING. Lightning fast. every application was running smoothly, nothing was freezing, pausing, getting stuck, etc...

then as the night went on i noticed things were randomly getting stuck or pausing temporarily. it keeps getting worse and now the iMac feels like my 5 year old machine!

switching from program to program, i get delays, color wheel pops up a lot, it pauses, gets stuck, etc..

i opened up Activity Monitor and:

b4dtdz.png


can someone explain??

I'm running all the exact same programs i had on my old iMac, and that machine only had 2gb of RAM.

Maybe Im just reading this wrong. Am I supposed to be looking at USED? or Active?
 
here is a new screen grab:

245lyl0.png


i want to point out that at this time the only programs I am running are:

iTunes
Mail
Safari

thats it! and the machine is running slower than even my old iMac. everything is getting stuck or taking forever to open or close.

for example, when i first installed photoshop i was shocked at how quick the application opened. i just tried to open it again and it took over a minute to open and it was incredible slow. keeps freezing when i try and use it.
 
Last edited:
Launch Activity Monitor again and change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes", then click on the CPU column heading once or twice, so the arrow points downward (highest values on top). Then look to see what may be consuming system resources.

Performance tips for Mac OS X
 
I forget the term for it, but when I picked up my 2011 2.5 mini I was told that the first 12-24 hours the system is "structuring" itself, and to not be worried if system load seemed higher than it should. I personally would leave the computer running without sleep mode for the night and see how it runs when it breaks in!

Edit: Just saw the pic of the dock load at 200+% I would also do a complete shut down and reboot, to make sure that none of your apps have crashed and causing havoc.
 
Do you happen to run Parallels? Or any application that "uses" the Dock.

IIRC, there is an issue with Parallels and the Dock. If so, turn off anything having to do with the Dock in Parallels.
 
well i have no idea if i was supposed to do this, but i clicked on "dock" and then "quit process" and it closed whatever "dock" was and everything is running nicely again:

2liv6dl.png


i wish i knew how to read the activity monitor or why this "dock" application was using up all my RAM? this is really strange.

and why are "page outs" still so high. i read somewhere its bad if page out is high?

----------
DockMac said:
Do you happen to run Parallels? Or any application that "uses" the Dock.

IIRC, there is an issue with Parallels and the Dock. If so, turn off anything having to do with the Dock in Parallels.
Click to expand...

dock mac, no i don't use parallels. like i mentioned, I'm literally running a handful of programs, photoshop, safari, iTunes. thats about it.

i have no idea what "dock" is??
 
photogpab said:
i wish i knew how to read the activity monitor or why this "dock" application was using up all my RAM? this is really strange.

and why are "page outs" still so high. i read somewhere its bad if page out is high?
Click to expand...
The Dock app is what controls the Dock at the bottom of your screen, where your apps are launched. It shouldn't be using so much of your CPU, so force quitting it was the right thing to do. Sometimes an app gets stuck in an infinite loop and needs to be forcibly shut down.

Your page outs are high because you're maxing out your RAM. However, that may have been because of the hung Dock app. Page outs are cumulative since your last restart, so restart your Mac and track page outs under your normal workload. If they're high (say 1GB or more) under normal use, you could benefit from more RAM.
 
When you set up a new machine, spotlight will need to index all of the data. That can take a while and make a new machine feel slow.

Have you turned on FileVault2 yet? If not, I would recommend it... but that will slow things down for a while too.

/Jim
 
I hate spotlight. Do yourself a favor and add system folders to privacy on it. This way it won't index silly changes and bog things down. I haven't bothered with Lion yet, but I recall it hiding some of those folders. The reason being I don't wish to deal with the things it does break, and it's not like it has many features I care about anyway.
 
when i checked the computer this morning before work it was hovering anywhere between 3.5-4.5 GB of RAM being "Used".

Its just still odd to me because all I had open were safari and iTunes, and my old iMac only had 2GB pf RAM on it and I would have all those programs open, plus more... so how was it able to run at all?

I dont know if this is a "Lion" issue?

Either way, the "dock" hasnt started acting crazy again so I'm hoping it was some weird glitch because the computer was new.

I didnt expect a computer with 12GB of RAM to slow down like that.

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flynz4 said:
When you set up a new machine, spotlight will need to index all of the data. That can take a while and make a new machine feel slow.

Have you turned on FileVault2 yet? If not, I would recommend it... but that will slow things down for a while too.

/Jim
Click to expand...

i dont know what FileVault2 is?
 
It was just some random bug with Dock (system process).

and why are "page outs" still so high. i read somewhere its bad if page out is high?
Click to expand...
Dock caused all the page outs.
 
poobear said:
It was just some random bug with Dock (system process).


Dock caused all the page outs.
Click to expand...

yeah i figured as much. i just wish i knew why or what happened to the dock? all of a sudden my iMac was running slower and slower and the RAM usage was skyrocketing up and up. before i knew it the machine was barely even moving.

so strange
 
flynz4 said:
FileVault2 is whole disk encryption. If your computer is ever stollen... or even if you wish to sell or gift it someday, then your data is secure an inaccessible to the 3rd party.
Click to expand...
Since the OP is already concerned about slow performance, I wouldn't recommend FileVault2, as it will only slow things down more and won't help with the current performance issues.
 
so far today:

2pzjl0g.png


everything looks good. I'm not running any big programs right now, just iTunes, but its been running fine.

is there something i can put on my desktop or dock that lets me quickly monitor my activity? without having to open up the activity monitor?

a widget or something like that?


question... what is "window server"? its taking up some space up top of that photo and i don't know what it is.

----------

is this the quickest and easiest way to monitor:

audxlv.png
 
photogpab said:
is there something i can put on my desktop or dock that lets me quickly monitor my activity? without having to open up the activity monitor?

a widget or something like that?
Click to expand...
iStat Pro
photogpab said:
question... what is "window server"? its taking up some space up top of that photo and i don't know what it is.
Click to expand...
It's a single point of contact for all applications, and a part of Mac OS X.

Mac processes
 
GGJstudios said:
Since the OP is already concerned about slow performance, I wouldn't recommend FileVault2, as it will only slow things down more and won't help with the current performance issues.
Click to expand...

The reason I brought it up was because I was wondering if FV2 was the cause of his performance slowdown... especially during the initial encrypting.

Having said that... I have a hard time recommending anyone not use FV2. Yes... for the first few hours... or overnight, there will be a lot of activity as the disk is encrypted, but you end up with a much more secure system.

I have seen posts here where people are very upset when their computer is lost or stolen. Most of the anxiety is around the cost of the laptop. However, the cost of identity theft would (or could) dwarf the cost of a computer.

/Jim
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

Is this a 2011 model, quad core?
 
sorry to bring this topic up AGAIN, but the iMac is doing it AGAIN... right now I'm running:

Chrome
Final Cut Pro X
compressord (i'm uploading a clip to youtube from FCPX so i guess this is part of it)

And its maxing out my RAM again. I just dont get it. Is that normal? A brand new machine with 12 GB of RAM is maxing out and running slow / getting stuck already??

But these machines come standard with 4GB RAM. I tripled the RAM and its maxing it out??

Something seems off...

i1fpkm.png


p.s. compressor is no longer running up the machine, but still the RAM is maxed out:

2qbt8b8.png


closed FINAL CUT PRO X and everything went back to relatively normal:

mvooky.png


although I STILL dont understand why a machine running ONLY Google Chrome is using 6GB of RAM.

Am I crazy here?? doesnt something seem off??
 
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