Mac running super slow

[nicolanicola]

It is taking forever to switch between applications and when it does switch, the spinning ball is up for about 15 - 20 seconds. I looked at my activity monitor during this and it shows 34% idle. So why if there's lots of RAM free is it running soooo slowly?

 

[nicolanicola]

and just now scrolling took about 30 seconds for spinning ball to go and for it to actually scroll the webpage

 

[earthsaver]

How much hard disk space is free?

 

[Giaguara]

What shows in Console when it's beachballing? (/Applications/Utilities)

 

[tbird301]

Perhaps you need to purchase software that will optimize your hard drive. I use TechTool Pro, which turns a sluggish OS into a "Bat out of Hell".

 

[earthsaver]

Optimizing is great, via TechTool or, my preference, DiskWarrior. However, hard disk space is a likely culprit that can't be solved with either of them. If less than 10% of your hard disk space is free, your system will likely slow down as you report.