I have a 20" 2.16 ghz C2D iMac with 2 GB of RAM. I've always been able to run multiple applications and still get great performance out of Photoshop (and the others as well), but for the last few days, it has been extremely sluggish, to the point that when I move a layer, it is jumpy and sometimes moves only parts of it at a time. I have not added anything new that I can think of so I just can't figure out what is going on. Right now, I have two browsers, adium, Linotype Font Explorer, Mail and Photoshop open and it is really sluggish. It reminds me of (gasp!) how my PC would act before I'd take it in and have the OS reinstalled. Any ideas what is going on?
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Why is my iMac suddenly so slow?
- Thread starter twomiracles
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Also, use Activity Monitor to check All Processes and see if something is hanging or using a lot of your resources. In addition, create a new user account and see if things are snappier there. 
Tons, it has the 250GB HD and I don't use it for storage at all, I put all of my photos and other images on an external. I've never heard of Cocktail, but I'll give it a look.
What exactly would I be looking for here? I don't see anything using a large percentage of CPU, is that what I need to look at?
Thanks!
Use Linotype Font Explorer to clean font and application caches.
Use Onyx to clean caches and run optimisation.
Use Onyx to clean caches and run optimisation.
Use Linotype Font Explorer to clean font and application caches.
Use Onyx to clean caches and run optimisation.
Okay, I cleaned the font and application caches and it took a bunch of fonts out of CS3...I want them back. How do I put them back?
Also did the Onyx thing and it's still slow. Even copying two or three layers in Photoshop is slow. Moving a layer around is slow, it moves a little at a time. Even switching between applications (just clicking on the icons at the bottom) is slow. I have not tried adding a new user, will try that today, but mostly just want to know how to put those fonts back.
Thanks!
Okay, please forgive if this is a newbie question, but if I am under a new user, I have none of the apps that are being so slow so how can I test it?
Have you repaired disk permissions?
I know that you probably have tried this already but ... a reboot might help.
I know that you probably have tried this already but ... a reboot might help.
Erm, put the apps in the Applications folder and they should then be accessible to all users. By default, most of them should be there already unless you opted to not have them installed there.
As for the fonts, I guess you may have to manually reinstall them from their source(s). I haven't used a third party app to clear font caches before so I'm not familiar with what it may have done exactly.
See, I told you it was a newbie question. I just thought since I didn't see them at the bottom of the screen where I've added their icons, they weren't there...didn't even bother to look in the folder. I've done the repair permissions thing (and yes, rebooted more than once since it started ) so I'll give it a little bit to see if that helped and if not, I'll go back and try the other user. I'll be back!
Thanks!
) so I'll give it a little bit to see if that helped and if not, I'll go back and try the other user. I'll be back!Thanks!
More weirdness...it is showing me weird previews. I'm looking in a folder of graphics and the icon preview is not of the item, it's if something else in a completely different folder. BUT, when I open the item, it is the correct item. I'm having flashbacks to my PC days, here! I guess I'm going to try using the new account all day and see how it works...ugh, this is really not what I expected from a Mac (still prefer it to my PC, but this kind of thing is exactly why I switched in the first place).
(still prefer it to my PC, but this kind of thing is exactly why I switched in the first place).Another thing that might be worth mentioning...
I have strange zips appear on my desktop. They seem to show up when I download other zips, but they don't go to the same place. This has been happening for a couple of weeks now. I never unzip them, just put them in the trash. However, once after I trashed about three of them and then tried to unzip the legitimate files I had downloaded that morning, they wouldn't unzip. These are files coming from sources I know and trust and have come from several different sites. Could this be related?
I have strange zips appear on my desktop. They seem to show up when I download other zips, but they don't go to the same place. This has been happening for a couple of weeks now. I never unzip them, just put them in the trash. However, once after I trashed about three of them and then tried to unzip the legitimate files I had downloaded that morning, they wouldn't unzip. These are files coming from sources I know and trust and have come from several different sites. Could this be related?