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Slow iMac

A

ahostmadsen

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 28, 2009
1,112
864
I have a Mid 2011 27-inch top-of-the line iMac (quadcore 3.4GHz i7, 8GB ram), and it just seems so slow. It has a non-SSD HD, and perhaps it's just that I have become so used to SSDs. But I feel it has become slower. To start programs just take forever, and sometimes responses to key-strokes have a delay (the first few key strokes in a program). For example, to start MS Word 2016 takes 1 min! I ran diskutil to see if anything is wrong with the HD, but it found no errors.

Is there anything I can do speed it up, except upgrading the HD (which I don't know is even possible)?
 
If nothing is coming up as an issue, then it's just purely because you're used to an SSD that you're beginning to notice the speed differences as your iMac ages. You could always run your computer off of a thunderbolt SSD, since that'll probably give you quite a speed increase.
 
rapicell said:
If nothing is coming up as an issue, then it's just purely because you're used to an SSD that you're beginning to notice the speed differences as your iMac ages. You could always run your computer off of a thunderbolt SSD, since that'll probably give you quite a speed increase.
Click to expand...
So, I could install an external Thunderbolt SSD and use that as startup disk? I tried to search some, but they seem very expensive. I use around 550Gb of my 1 Tb internal disk.
 
Have you put more memory in it yet? I have the exact same computer and the 4GB it ships with is not enough, it is a bottleneck. I put 16GB and now it works perfectly.
 
ahostmadsen said:
I have a Mid 2011 27-inch top-of-the line iMac (quadcore 3.4GHz i7, 8GB ram), and it just seems so slow. It has a non-SSD HD, and perhaps it's just that I have become so used to SSDs. But I feel it has become slower. To start programs just take forever, and sometimes responses to key-strokes have a delay (the first few key strokes in a program). For example, to start MS Word 2016 takes 1 min! I ran diskutil to see if anything is wrong with the HD, but it found no errors.

Is there anything I can do speed it up, except upgrading the HD (which I don't know is even possible)?
Click to expand...

Why would you think that upgrading the internal HD isn't possible?? I have the same computer as you and I've installed a 256GB SSD as my startup and replaced the 1TB HD with a 2TB HD as a "storage" drive... The SSD fits nicely behind the optical drive..

Read post #706....
 
vkd said:
Have you put more memory in it yet? I have the exact same computer and the 4GB it ships with is not enough, it is a bottleneck. I put 16GB and now it works perfectly.
Click to expand...

Agreed, I put 2x 8GB SODIMM (20GB total) in mine a few weeks back and it transformed my mid-2011 27" iMac. Couldn't have been more pleased. I was planning to stick a 256GB SSD in there too but now I'm not sure if I have too since the main benefit of a SSD is in startup and launching apps. This iMac stays on or in standby so everything is cached into memory and stuff launches pretty quickly. I might still do it just because I like to open stuff up! LOL
 
I upgraded to 8Gb. I don't think the memory is the bottleneck. I check the memory through activity monitor, and it is never critical (as opposed to when I only had 4Gb).

If I wanted to upgrade to SSD, how would I do that? Clearly, I need a combination of SSD and traditional HD, as I want at least 1Gb. I'm not a tinkerer, so it has to be very easy.
 
I suppose you can get an external SSD and boot off that. If you want to add a SSD internally, that would definitely not be easy.
 
The issue is that as far as I can find from Google, external Thunderbolt SSD 256Gb drives are $400-500, way too much for speeding up launches. USB 3.0 drives are cheaper (half), but I don't think this older iMac has USB 3.0?
 
ahostmadsen said:
To start programs just take forever, and sometimes responses to key-strokes have a delay (the first few key strokes in a program). For example, to start MS Word 2016 takes 1 min!
Click to expand...

What you are describing there sound like a failing drive. I know DU said it is okay, but often DU does not detect failing drives like this. Even with the slowest hard drive in town, that machine should not have the symptoms you are describing.

Something you might try is make a new test admin account and see if the issue still exists when logged in to that account. That would eliminate anything specific to your account causing the slow down.
 
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ahostmadsen said:
I upgraded to 8Gb. I don't think the memory is the bottleneck. I check the memory through activity monitor, and it is never critical (as opposed to when I only had 4Gb).

If I wanted to upgrade to SSD, how would I do that? Clearly, I need a combination of SSD and traditional HD, as I want at least 1Gb. I'm not a tinkerer, so it has to be very easy.
Click to expand...

I agree with the memory--8GB is plenty.
 
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Weaselboy said:
What you are describing there sound like a failing drive. I know DU said it is okay, but often DU does not detect failing drives like this. Even with the slowest hard drive in town, that machine should not have the symptoms you are describing.

Something you might try is make a new test admin account and see if the issue still exists when logged in to that account. That would eliminate anything specific to your account causing the slow down.
Click to expand...

Yeah this is not a case of forgetting how a non-SSD computer feels, there is a serious issue. A machine this new should run flawlessly, even if it "only" has 4 GB RAM. I have 4 GB in my Airbook and it runs great even while running windows in Fusion.
Your Mac is not running properly, @Weaselboy made a good suggestion to try a new user. Is it feasible to take it an Apple store for a hardware test? What does Disk Utility SMART status say about your HD?
 
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barbu said:
Yeah this is not a case of forgetting how a non-SSD computer feels, there is a serious issue. A machine this new should run flawlessly, even if it "only" has 4 GB RAM. I have 4 GB in my Airbook and it runs great even while running windows in Fusion.
Your Mac is not running properly, @Weaselboy made a good suggestion to try a new user. Is it feasible to take it an Apple store for a hardware test? What does Disk Utility SMART status say about your HD?
Click to expand...
Yes, this is what I feel. I have had an SSD laptop for some time, but just recently I feel the iMac has been so slow. I cannot for sure say that it has actually slowed down, I cannot put a number on it. But 1min to start MS Word seems a lot -- on my rMB it takes a few seconds. On the iMac I also feel other programs take quite long to load -- not as extreme as the MS apps, though.

The smart status (in system report) says verified. I could run a hardware test, but would that discover anything that might be ABOUT to fail?
 
Can you get your hands on DiskWarrior? It might not be a physical problem but a logical filesystem problem instead. The behaviour you describe is definitely undesirable!
Did you try @Weaselboy 's suggestion and try logging in under a new test user account?
 
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