My mac is getting slow?

Question

I have had my eMac for a little over a year now, and I love it (don't try and convince me otherwise, I hate PCs). But lately it has been getting pretty slow, apps taking longer to start, stratup is longer etc. I already cleard up space on my system hard disk (I have about 47 GB available) and I even run matinence scripts all the time, as well as clean my caches and everything, but it still goes slow. What can I do!? please help.

Answer 1

The eMac first made in 2002 so did you buy this eMac new one year ago or did you get it second-hand? If it is a few years old, you may be running OS 9. You forgot to mention that. Exactly what version of the OS is it? Let's assume it is OS X and you have updated it as far as you can without buying a newer version CD.

Don't waste your time defragging it. That's a PC solution, doesn't apply to you, fortunately. Don't waste your time trying to repair disk permissions. If some permission is wrong, it won't work at all, not work slowly. You can't have "slow" permissions. Either they are correct or they are not.

Boot to the OS X install CD but DO NOT install anything. When you get to the install screen, click on the "Installer" menu and open Disk Utility. Choose the First Aid tab. Click on the icon for the hard drive. Click to Repair Disk (NOT Repair Disk Permissions). If it shows any problem, what is the last line? Repaired successfully? Then click to repair disk again. If it says anything other than "Appears to be OK", worry. If it says "OK", read on.

Disconnect EVERYTHING except the power cord, the original Apple keyboard and the original Apple mouse. Set your user to automatically login. Start it up from a cold start and use a watch to time it. Write down the minutes and seconds that it takes to start up. Now create a new user with the name "Test" and be very sure to give it the option to administer the computer. Log out and login as the new user. Don't worry about opening any programs. Just set the user to automatically login. Now shutdown. Start it up and time it. Is it the same or faster? If it is the same, maybe there is bad RAM. If it is faster, you have some wacky thing going on with your user files. Use the System Preferences / Accounts pane to delete your original user. Takes a few minutes to complete. Then copy your precious files from the old user disk image (in "Deleted Users") to your new user desktop and put them where you want them to be a few at a time, restarting after every few files. This is time consuming but how else will you know what wacks it out? Don't take anything from the old user Library folder unless you want it to go slow again -- or worse.

Answer 2

I'm a Mac and PC owner and user. My PC crashed on 2 different occasions while putting in a flash memory stick. One time it was clearly because of a static discharge and would have happened if I simply touched the usb port with or without the memory stick. The other time, my usb port was loose (there was a screw loose in the case) so the port was able to move and ground itself when I tried to push the mem stick in. The other suggestion that you had a virus is also possible. Whatever the case, make full use of the Apple support. They are usually very good and you will learn before your warrantee expires how to deal with the little problems that can occur. And don't listen to the a__holes who want to bust you for your choice of computers. Years ago, many mac users were encouraged to be arrogant about how much better Macs were. That lasted right up until Bill gates bailed out Apple and kept them afloat. Many users were really rude about their preference for Mac and so now a lot of PC users are still trying to "get even". Ignore them. Enjoy your computer!

Answer 3

Occasionally the user permissions associated with files or applications become damaged. This problem can cause the computer to run very slowly. You may be able to fix them by using Disk Utility to repair permissions on the startup disk.

1. Open Disk Utility, located in Applications/Utilities, and select the startup disk in the left column.
2. Click First Aid.
3. Click Verify Disk Permissions to test permissions or Repair Disk Permissions to test and repair permissions.

Hope this helps.

Answer 4

Yeah, what he said. Try repairing the file permissions. Also, try running the Activity Monitor from your Utilities folder. That might tell you exactly what is slowing down your system.

Answer 5

I haven't owned a mac before. But my dad says when your computer gets slow, it probably has low memory. But I'm not the expert!

Answer 6

I don't know much about macs, but have you tried defragmenting it? Try adding more memory. Usually the more ram, the faster it will go. Other than that, I don't know what to tell you.