Question

My Mac has slowed down a lot lately. How can I clean it?

Asked by: Cam_Man595

I have a lot of experience with windows machines but I dont know that much about Macs.  I have an iMac that is about 2 years old and just recently it has started slowing down a lot.  I notice it most in Safari but all programs are running slower now.  Is there a way to remove old junk that may be confusing it?  Also, I am running time machine and It has been running for about 1 year.  Would that make a difference?  I am running OS 10.5.

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Asked On
2008-12-01 at 11:06:45ID23947646
Tags

Apple

,

iMac

Topics

Apple Desktop

,

Safari Web Browser

,

Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard)

Participating Experts
4
Points
500
Comments
13

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Answers

 

by: eoinosullivanPosted on 2008-12-02 at 00:53:30ID: 23075293

Time Machine won't slow down your Mac apart from when it is doing backups.

When the computer starts slowing down .. open the program called Activity Monitor (Applications: Utilities) and see what processes are using memory.  Maybe you have a rogue application hogging memory.


 

by: mplungjanPosted on 2008-12-02 at 02:22:15ID: 23075672

And try Stainless instead of Safari ;)

 

by: Cam_Man595Posted on 2008-12-02 at 05:33:24ID: 23076636

I installed Firefox and I still have the problem.

 

by: strungPosted on 2008-12-02 at 05:41:08ID: 23076701

Download and run the DNSChanger Trojan Removal Tool:  http://www.dnschanger.com/

Let us know if it says your computer had the Trojan. If not, we have other suggestions.

 

by: Cam_Man595Posted on 2008-12-02 at 05:52:01ID: 23076775

I scanned the computer and dnschanger was not found.

 

by: strungPosted on 2008-12-02 at 05:55:21ID: 23076800

How much free space do you have on your hard drive?

 

by: Cam_Man595Posted on 2008-12-02 at 05:57:31ID: 23076814

36.49GB Free

 

by: strungPosted on 2008-12-02 at 06:31:12ID: 23077076

Open Disk Utility (found in \applications\utities) . First check the S.M.A.R.T.Drive status and let us know what it says. Then run Verify Disk and let us know if it reports any problems. Finally, run Repair Permissions.

 

by: AJViennaPosted on 2008-12-02 at 11:23:48ID: 23079899

Was your harddrive very full  e.g. only a few GB free for some time? If yes, it might be very fragmented due to that. In that case it would help to reformat your harddrive and restore from your Time Machine backup.

 

by: strungPosted on 2008-12-02 at 11:51:11ID: 23080129

I think it is very unlikely the slow down is being caused by fragmentation. That is a PC thing, as is re-installing. On a Mac , you should never had to do either.

Here is Apple's official policy on that:  http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1375

 

by: Cam_Man595Posted on 2008-12-02 at 18:19:52ID: 23082639

S.M.A.R.T. says verified

Verify disk says everything is ok

I repaired disk permissions.

I will let you know if there is ant improvement.

 

by: strungPosted on 2008-12-02 at 18:23:35ID: 23082657

Did you try Eoin Sullivan's suggestion of monitoring your CPU usage with Activity Monitor?

 

by: Cam_Man595Posted on 2008-12-03 at 04:13:22ID: 23085171

Strung,
I'm not sure which one of your suggestions worked for me but everything appears to be back to normal now.  Thanks.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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