Slow iMac mid 2011 Intel

[toolpro]

Slow to being disfunctional. Minutes, any process. Only used by wife for email, photos, Foxfire, and Safari. Plenty of headroom on drive. Empty trash. Almost nothing running; Activity Monitor 5-6% CPU load. I have rebuilt in Recovery mode.

Any suggestions? Or is this machine just obsolete in 2022? I hate to trash anything that is used so lightly. All help appreciated.

Best regards,
Rick Dawsey

 

[Amethyst1]

• You can replace the original slow 2.5" 5400-rpm hard drive with a 2.5" SATA III SSD. That alone will provide a huge speed boost.
• You can also upgrade the RAM to, say, 8 GB (32 GB max). That will provide more headroom especially when multi-tasking.
• Maybe the original hard drive is failing and causing the slowness. Does it make any strange noises?

 

[toolpro]

No strange noises. I would recognize that.
Replacing the drive and upgrading the RAM are good suggestions, but it is not that degree of slow.
It is slow like 'with no operations running, click a link and go to the kitchen for a glass of water, and come back and it still has done nothing' slow.
If these machines are still functional to some degree, something is wrong.
Thanks! Rick

 

[TwoH]

I think Amethyst is correct with his suggestion of HDD replacement and RAM upgrade.

 

[rpmurray]

You may want to download a copy of DriveDx (it has a free trial) and see if it's showing any problems in the Health Indicators, strange noises aren't the only symptoms of a drive going bad. Might also be worthwhile to download Etrecheck (also free) to see if it spots any background tasks or anything else that may be slowing down the iMac.

I have a 27-inch 2011 iMac running Monterey (thanks to OCLP) and while it's not as fast as my 27-inch 2020 iMac it's not as slow as you're reporting.

Edit: And I agree about replacing the HD with an SSD and upping the RAM. I have an SSD hooked up to the 2011 iMac using one of the two Thunderbolt ports with a Thunderbay 4 enclosure (or you could try the mini) and it does make a world of difference. The 32 GB of RAM didn't hurt either.

 

[toolpro]

I ran DriveDx and etrecheck last night, but I have to run etrecheck again. I will forward both to you tomorrow.
Thank you all,
Rick