New iMac Running Very Slow

[wirelessimports]

Ok, so I have an iMac 24 inch with 2GB of ram so you would think it would be pretty fast right? I don't know what's wrong with it but its very slow. I have migrated info from my old macs to this one but the old ones never had this problem. Its like my mac has a virus or something.

I would turn on the computer and check activity monitor and my free system memory would be around 700MB+ and by not doing anything and leaving it alone it would continue to fall and fall and by just letting it go it would hover to about 12-40MB of free system memory.

Safari among other things is painfully slow as well as constantly crashing. I can't get any use out of this. Anyone have any trouble shooting idea's?

 

[Dimwhit]

My iMac came with 2GB RAM. After being on a while, it would be painfully slow switching between applications--especially when Firefox was involved, but really with any apps. Took awhile for the new app to be active and usable.

I bumped my RAM to 4GB and haven't had a problem. Don't know, though, if that's quite the issue you're having, so I don't know that you need so drastic a solution. But RAM won't stay this cheap forever...

 

[emptyCup]

Tell us about the software you are running. Anything new? Did this start right after migrated over to the new machine?

 

[wirelessimports]

I am running Leopard. I have no idea what software could be causing this. I don't believe any of the software I have could be causing this since its all software I had with my old macs.

In my dock I have (not all running), Dashboard, Safari, Firefox, Mail, Address Book, iPhoto, iTunes, Adium, System Pref, Calc, Cal, Text Edit, Xtorrent.

I have Azureas but hardly use it. No single program is taking up more then 150MB.

You know it might be that stupid google desktop I installed? How do I get rid of it? I deleted it from my applications folder but its still in activity monitor and wont force quit.

My iMac is the latest 24 inch model with no upgrades.

 

[wirelessimports]

Heres a picture of my Activity Monitor:

 

[HLdan]

2 things are causing this, it's really never the best course of action to migrate all your programs to the new computer reason being, drivers and such get mixed from old OS to new OS, for the most part it shouldn't be an issue but it can cause problems. Secondly dumping all your software at once to the new machine causes Spotlight to have to index all of that software and it takes a really long time. It's best to install each app individually and you'll get a way different experience, trust me.

 

[wirelessimports]

So other then a complete OS reinstall, do I have any other options?

 

[HLdan]

If it was only an issue with the OS itself then an archive and install would suffice, in this case the slowness is due to dumping all of your apps on the OS all at once. It would be to your advantage to set aside a couple of hours to reformat and install the OS plus each individual app.

The migration assistant works well with a small amount of apps and really from a system that hasn't been used much. When you migrate you are carrying over more than just the apps (drivers, hidden files, preferences) which is why conflicts happen and will cause Spotlight to take a century to index and even then things may not be perfect. Do the erase and install.