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View Full Version : Major iMac problems, help and advice needed.


twelvebears
31-07-2012, 10:24
Folks, desperately need some input on something which is driving me bonkers.

So massive Mac fans in our house. We currently own:

Mac Mini (late 2009) 2.26 Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, OSX Lion 10.7.4 (media centre)

13" MacBook (early 2008) 2.4 Core 2 Due, 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4 (interweb, e-mail, music room duties and general 'mule' as bough s/h a bit scruffy now)

24" iMac (mid-2007) 2.4 Core 2 Duo, 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, Mac OS X Mountain Lion 10.8. Susy's design machine for when she's editing photos, using PAINT, anything where she needs a big screen.

20" iMac (mid-2007) 2.4 Core 2 Duo, 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4. My original machine, now used exclusively by George for his school work, movies, web etc.

13" MacBook Pro 2.3 i5, 8GB RAM, Mac OS X Mountain Lion 10.8. Susy's main machine now as she's out and about a lot. Her pride and joy, NO ONE TOUCHES THIS!! (unless she needs some help).

(note to self, STOP COLLECTING MACS!!).

Anyway, all our various machines are behaving perfectly EXCEPT the 24" iMac, which is giving untold problems. In summary:

Performance had been sluggish, with frequent SBBOD and opening of applications often very slow.

Completely failed after an attempted upgrade to Mountain Lion and would not boot, so I did an complete erase of the HD and total reinstall from Snow Leopard disk, and upgrade back up to Lion again but the crap performance and self same issues remain.

Things I have tried:

Running Mac Keeper and clearing all junk and reported issues

Verifying and Repairing the HD volume (even though no problems were reported)

Looking in vain at Activity Monitor to try and see if something was hogging the CPU (it wasn't) or if I had some of the claimed 'memory management issues' reported in connection with Lion - i.e. loads of Inactive and bugger-all Free memory. Sometimes this did seem to be the case (i.e. 2-ish gig of Inactive and almost zero Free), but other times not, even if it was still being really slow to open apps.

Please also note that this rubbish performance is not when I've got several 'greedy' apps (say iTunes, Aperture, Creative Suite) running, it's even when just Chrome, it's pants.

Oh and starting up takes ages too, particularly getting to the point when I can access the Applications folder.

Basically I'm stumped, especially seeing as my old MacBook which has the SAME processor and memory, performs perfectly which no problems whatsoever.

If anyone has any ideas, I would be most grateful to hear from you.

Cheers
Audio Al
31-07-2012, 11:48
I'm no expert on computers

but I think most programs load from your hard disc into memory ,

can you have the 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM tested or replaced with some known good memory ?

Thats where I would start

Hope it helps
AlfaGTV
31-07-2012, 13:17
And my idea is:
Change the harddrive to somethin decent, mke a fresh install and evaluate.
If all is dandy, heres your prob, if not, try the memory route.
If even that fails, crap the thing... Mobo or processor failure...
Br Mike
webby
31-07-2012, 13:19
Hi Steve,

I pm'd you back earlier and I see you've run the Disk Verify now.

I've heard bad things about Mac Keeper actually. This screwed up a friend of mine's macbook.

When you reinstalled Snow Leopard, did you stop there and check how it was behaving before upgrading to Lion?

Are you doing fresh installs or installing the OS with your data on the machine?

What is the size of your HD and how much space is used, and therefore how much is free?

See About This Mac under the Apple menu for this info.
webby
31-07-2012, 13:21
And my idea is:
Change the harddrive to somethin decent, mke a fresh install and evaluate.
If all is dandy, heres your prob, if not, try the memory route.
If even that fails, crap the thing... Mobo or processor failure...
Br Mike

Yes, another thing you could try is to install to an external HD and boot it from there, but then again you've ruled out a problem with the internal drive it would seem.

There are some memory test apps you can run. I'll go look them up.
webby
31-07-2012, 13:26
OK, for a memory test with a GUI, try Rember http://www.kelleycomputing.net:16080/rember/

Also, you could run Apple's Hardware Test. See here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
webby
31-07-2012, 13:30
Mackeeper bad voodoo https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3691


Many users will see references to an application called MacKeeper on various web sites and via pop-ups on their browser. Not only is it expensive for what it purports to do (freeware applications that do the same or more are readily available), it can sometimes install itself without the user realising it, and it can be very tricky to get rid of.

MacKeeper can be regarded as highly invasive malware* that can de-stablize your operating system. It is unethically marketed by a company called Zeobit and a rip-off.

See the link for more info.
webby
31-07-2012, 13:36
Basically I'm stumped, especially seeing as my old MacBook which has the SAME processor and memory, performs perfectly which no problems whatsoever.

Does the macbook have Mackeeper on it?
webby
31-07-2012, 14:23
More Mackeeper info here, and even if it doesn't help you Steve, it's good info.

http://www.reedcorner.net/beware-mackeeper/

That final reader's comment is interesting and perhaps very useful.
twelvebears
31-07-2012, 15:06
Firstly I can say that MacKeeper has NOT been the cause of the problems here, though that's not to say it couldn't cause issues.

No I've managed to successfully confirm that the HD is defo the problem.

I used Carbon Copy to create a bootable version of Susy's MacBook Pro HD on a small USB powered drive. I tested this by booting the MacBook Pro from it to confirm all was in order and then started the troublesome iMac with it.

Instant resolution! Even though using a USB drive is going to be slower than an internal one, the old iMac was immediately able to run Dreamweaver, iTunes, Aperture, Photoshop, Creative Suite, Spotify AND all the Office products at the same time with hardly a moments pause.

So at least I've nailed the problem AND learned an fair bit about Mac trouble-shooting in he process.

A new SSD drive is on it's way and will get fitted shortly.

Really appreciate the help folks, especially Lee. Thought I was on the right track but it's good to get input from those that actually know what they are doing.
webby
31-07-2012, 15:53
Glad you got to the bottom of it Steve.

Disk Utility is a good built in app, but it's not heavy duty and something like Diskwarrior may have shown up errors that DU could not in this instance.


A new SSD drive is on it's way and will get fitted shortly.



Oooh, SSD! Get you! ;)
webby
31-07-2012, 15:55
Even though using a USB drive is going to be slower than an internal one, the old iMac was immediately able to run Dreamweaver, iTunes, Aperture, Photoshop, Creative Suite, Spotify AND all the Office products at the same time with hardly a moments pause.



I have other OS's installed on a USB drive for testing and whatnot and I find it runs pretty well, although I've not used them in this way for very long.
twelvebears
31-07-2012, 18:34
Glad you got to the bottom of it Steve.

Disk Utility is a good built in app, but it's not heavy duty and something like Diskwarrior may have shown up errors that DU could not in this instance.



Oooh, SSD! Get you! ;)

:lol: It's only a little one 120GB which was only £75 from Amazon, so don't get too excited! Nothing apart from OS Apps and pics is on the iMac, all else is on a network drive, so it's speed rather than storage we need.

If I'm impressed though I might start considering them for our other machines now that prices seem to be coming down.
webby
31-07-2012, 20:19
:lol: It's only a little one 120GB which was only £75 from Amazon

That's not bad. Where are you going to fit it?
twelvebears
01-08-2012, 16:11
That's not bad. Where are you going to fit it?

I'll be using it as the OS and Applications drive on the 24" iMac. All of our bulky data is on a Drobo, so space isn't really an issue.

If it performs well, I'll consider them for our other machines.

I'll let you know what I think of it.
twelvebears
01-08-2012, 20:10
If any one is interested, I can confirm that sticking an SSD into an early 2008 MacBook (not Pro) has given it a serious boost in performance.

EVERYTHING is better. Start-up, shut-down, opening and closing applications, all massively faster. In fact opening and closing apps is almost instant.

As a test I raced my 4 yr old MacBook against Susy's new MacBook Pro, with it's 8Gb RAM and 2.3 i5 processor in a start-up of MS Office for Mac, Word. My Word app was fully open while Susy's 'W' ico was still bouncing in the dock.

Seriously chaps, if you don't need big storage on your machine or can store large data on an external drive, DO give an SSD a go.
webby
01-08-2012, 21:59
Steve, did you fit it in place of the MacBook's original HD?
twelvebears
03-08-2012, 14:42
Steve, did you fit it in place of the MacBook's original HD?

Yep, straight swap and then restored from a Carbon Copy back-up