Please help with New iMac

[Antsz]

Hey Guys

Since coming over from a PC last month I'm not having much luck, see my other thread about Lightroom.

I went from High Sierra to Mojave, then went back to High Sierra and then last night went back to Mojave.

Since upgrading back to Mojave my mac is running extremely slow and laggy. For instance, if I right click on my desktop it takes about 10 seconds for the menu to pop up. If I load a web page I get the spinning icon for about a minute. I can't even load any apps as it takes forever and just freezes.
I noticed that my HD now says untitled instead of Macintosh HD.

Does anyone have any idea what has gone wrong? It all started so well and now I'm regretting selling my PC!

My specs are
iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017)
3.8 GHz Intel Core i5
8 GB 2400 MHz DDR4
Radeon Pro 580 8192 MB
[doublepost=1540039619][/doublepost]the tosh drive is a usb external storage drive
[doublepost=1540040186][/doublepost]My activity monitor says little use but still unusable

 

[Juicy Box]

Are you using a HDD?

I don't know what the issue is, but it sounds like your boot drive might be corrupt. Maybe there is something wrong with the drive.

You can do an Apple Hardware Diagnostic test, which I think is holding in the "d" button from a shutdown Mac, although, this was with older Macs, I'm sure you can google how to do it on the 2017 models.

This will scan the HW for issues.

In utilities folder, there is Disk First Aid, you can see if there is issues with your disk.

Try doing a fresh install. Back up your drive if you need to, but wipe it, reformat it, and do a fresh install. Sometimes the first day of a new install might be a little sluggish do to indexing, but not like how your Mac is.

If you still have issues, try installing Mac OS on an external drive, or thumb drive, to rule out your internal drive.

Did you mess with the RAM? Maybe try re-seating the RAM.

If you can't figure it out, you can always call Apple, you still have a warranty on it.

Just based off of your symptoms, I think it is something to do with your boot disk, maybe it is an easy fix.

 

[hbruss]

The same thing happened to me. After a few days, for whatever reason, the speed I was used to returned. Hopefully it'll work that way for you too.

 

[theluggage]

Does anyone have any idea what has gone wrong? It all started so well and now I'm regretting selling my PC!

Just a few things to think about (if you haven't done already):

1. You've got Windows 10 running under Parallels there - how much RAM did you allocate to the virtual machine? An 8GB Mac won't stand too much being allocated to Windows, and if you're doing a lot of work with Windows you could do with a bit more RAM - go to the memory tab in Activity Monitor and look at "Memory pressure" (its normal for all of you RAM to be "in use" - don't worry so much about that). For the moment, quit Windows and Parallels to "eliminate them from your enquiries".

2. Probably not the problem but, as part of a process of elimination, unplug your external drive for the moment.

3. In my experience, its not uncommon for a Mac (especially with HD or Fusion) to run like a snail on valium for a while after its been upgraded, while it re-indexes the disc for Spotlight and does various other housekeeping - and if you get impatient and start messing with it then it can all go back to square one. If you've got a "fusion" drive (I assume you've got that unless you've really pushed the boat out for a 2TB SSD) then that will take a while to sort its cache out and get up to speed. I think Photos sometimes does a library re-index/conversion that can grind the disc for a while, too. The first Time Machine" backup can take forever and slow things down, too. Leave it to its own devices for a few hours, or overnight.

4. The system disc being "untitled" is odd, so certainly run the checks that other people have been suggesting.

5. If "upgrading" has got you to this point, make sure everything is backed up and then do a "clean" re-install of the OS. Major pain because you'll have to re-install, re-configure everything, but it gives you a clean slate...

 

[GrindedDown]

First thing I would do is make sure to have an external backup if you haven’t already. It does sound like there is an issue with the boot drive, which may require a restore.

One thing I do know though is that Mac OS has a lot of background tasks and organization occurring when you first install the OS. Spotlight is indexing data, APFS is restructuring data storage, etc... it’s possible this issue may resolve itself within a day or two.

 

[Antsz]

Just a few things to think about (if you haven't done already):

1. You've got Windows 10 running under Parallels there - how much RAM did you allocate to the virtual machine? An 8GB Mac won't stand too much being allocated to Windows, and if you're doing a lot of work with Windows you could do with a bit more RAM - go to the memory tab in Activity Monitor and look at "Memory pressure" (its normal for all of you RAM to be "in use" - don't worry so much about that). For the moment, quit Windows and Parallels to "eliminate them from your enquiries".

2. Probably not the problem but, as part of a process of elimination, unplug your external drive for the moment.

3. In my experience, its not uncommon for a Mac (especially with HD or Fusion) to run like a snail on valium for a while after its been upgraded, while it re-indexes the disc for Spotlight and does various other housekeeping - and if you get impatient and start messing with it then it can all go back to square one. If you've got a "fusion" drive (I assume you've got that unless you've really pushed the boat out for a 2TB SSD) then that will take a while to sort its cache out and get up to speed. I think Photos sometimes does a library re-index/conversion that can grind the disc for a while, too. The first Time Machine" backup can take forever and slow things down, too. Leave it to its own devices for a few hours, or overnight.

4. The system disc being "untitled" is odd, so certainly run the checks that other people have been suggesting.

5. If "upgrading" has got you to this point, make sure everything is backed up and then do a "clean" re-install of the OS. Major pain because you'll have to re-install, re-configure everything, but it gives you a clean slate...

I rang apple today and was advised to remove the external drive and remove parallels, did a restart and it seems back to normal. Bit of a bummer that it seems to go crazy when i run parallels though

 

[theluggage]

I rang apple today and was advised to remove the external drive and remove parallels, did a restart and it seems back to normal. Bit of a bummer that it seems to go crazy when i run parallels though

Parallels would love you to upgrade to the latest version (if you cross their palm with silver) for guaranteed Mojave compatibility (one of the snags with Parallels). However, you do need to keep an eye on the memory - running VMs is one reason why you might want to upgrade beyond the base 8GB.

Personally, I'd always give a new MacOS a few months before taking the plunge, anyhow...

 

[mreg376]

I rang apple today and was advised to remove the external drive and remove parallels, did a restart and it seems back to normal. Bit of a bummer that it seems to go crazy when i run parallels though

I agree with #theluggage that if you're going to run Windows in Parallels you should have more than the 8GB RAM minimum. I would get at least another 16GB to upgrade you to 24GB.

 

[alien3dx]

I rang apple today and was advised to remove the external drive and remove parallels, did a restart and it seems back to normal. Bit of a bummer that it seems to go crazy when i run parallels though

window need 4GB to work marvellous while mac need min 8 GB to work. So your need 4GB + 8 GB = 12 GB . While this 12 GB are fo operating system only not app so 16 GB is the best minimum . But buy two more 4 GB stick to 16 GB so you good to go. If you can afford buy 2x 8 GB stick .