imac (1.5 years old) operates very slowly

R

rosiegirl8

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my imac is about a year and a half old. i think it's actually always been a bit slow, but when i got it i never had a chance to look into it. now that i've had it for awhile, it's really slow. hard to switch between applications, minutes spent watching that colorful ball go around. it entertains my 2 year olds, but not me!

i can't seem to quit some programs normally (mostly iphoto and firefox, sometimes entourage) without forcing quit.

is there some sort of disk cleanup i can do (before this i had PCs)? or is there some sort of easy fix (deleting extra copies of photos, etc) that i can do?

i do have a lot of photos on the computer (they're in a folder and also in iphoto) and some videos, but the videos from my video camera are all stored on my external drive.

any thoughts? thanks!


i'm not sure what info to give about the computer, but here's this:
mac OS X 10.4.11
intel core 2 duo
2.16 GHz
1 GB memory
 
satcomer...thanks, i'll do that!

giaguara...is there an easy way to free up space? i have only 2GB of 484GB left. is there a list of things to look for to free up space...all i remember is that i had to delete temp files and stuff like that on my PC but i have no idea what to do on a mac!
 
Empty trash, delete caches (in your Library folder)... and delete all applications/data you don't need. Take a look at your downloads too, maybe you can get rid of some disk images.
 
undoubtedly, the problems you are having stem from your almost full hard drive. OS X needs 10-15% disk space free on it's main volume just so it can handle itself (think trying to work on a desk piled high with work and documents and bills and bits of paper etc).

Although Chevy recommends getting rid of applications and emptying the trash, this is fairly obsolete thinking now, with many applications never taking up more than about 20-40 mb, and only the big pro level stuff taking up any significant amount of room (and if you have paid that much money, you probably want to keep it installed!). Disk space gets eaten up by media these days, music, movies and photos.

use OMNI Disk Sweeper (google!). it scans your hard drive and shows folders from the biggest to the smallest, it's a very good way of finding the culprit.

i would look to remove about 100gb from your main disk if you can, perhaps by investing in an external hard drive. 500gb external drives can usually be found for about £60-80 ($100-$150) now, and are well worth the investment, even as backup.

clear at least 50gb off your main disk, and you should see an extra bit of pep. an extra 1gb of RAM always helps keep the spinning beachball away as well!
 
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lt...thanks! i would love to get rid of that beachball. or, you know, switch between programs in a timely fashion.

i already have an external drive where i backup my photos and videos. are there extra copies of photos on my computer? i save them in individual folders by date and also import into iphoto...are there too many copies floating around?
 
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