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2008 iMac, losing performance?

S

Stilface

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 24, 2009
34
0
So, it dawned on me the other day that my computer is old. Not pre-historic but in terms of technology its definitely past it's prime. Since i came to this realisation I have been noticing (or imagining) performance issues with my mac. The amount of time it becomes unresponsive or i get the swirling lollypop of joy is increasing day by day, it seems.

I have never done a fresh install of my OS due to not wanting to reinstall all of my software.

Apologies for making a 'My computer is slow, why!?' thread, but i wanted to post a couple screenshots of processes and basic performance numbers that i have just to get a bit of feedback.

Here are a couple of photos (1, 2) showing just that. I'm just curious as to how normal these numbers are in relation to new macs. Obviously newer macs are going to be bigger faster and better, but is my mac using up too much Memory to run software i don't even use anymore?

I know its normal for windows to require an OS reinstall every few months, to keep it top notch, at least thats what I used to do. Perhaps I have just become lazy, but how much does a system reinstall help a mac. Or is there an easier way to give it a little spring clean rather than formatting the disks?
 
just one question it looks like as you took the pictures when idling , basically you did not stress the cpu/gpu/hdd at that moment , but your temps seem quiet high
so just one question have you ever opened the iMac since 2008 and cleaned it inside ? if not then i would do that now

yes it seems like i am on a mission , and yes i am , i want clean iMac's inside ,as i sometimes buy them and i dont like to to buy dust bag's with clocked up heatsinks that are nearly dead choking from dust :(

and onyx might help to clean it on the software side, but ideally after so many years a reinstall could breath new life in the old girl
 
Last edited:
About every year or so I do a clone to an external, then a clone back to my internal. Seems to do the trick.

and you will have to define "slow". Slow when surfing? Slow when opening a 500 gig photoshop file? or slow when opening a 3k jpeg?

Ive only got a lowly late 2007 iMac, so you arent all that far behind.

quark 8, ID 4 and 5, PS 5, AI 5, Acrobat, Suitcase, Safari, FF, Sunrise, pages, Numbers, iTunes, iPhoto, iWeb, Mail and a few other small things:

2p.png
 
Doesn't OS X like 10-15% free space on the boot drive? I've heard of this since the early 10.1 days, but I've never seen it in practice slowing down your machine? But if so, you might want to consider clearing out some of your hard drive space. 4GB free on a 400GB drive isn't leaving much room for error.
 
Thanks for everyones advice, i shall look into cloning and then reinstalling and see if that helps my system.

By slow i mean taking longer to open basic software such as photoshop/safari whenever i open safari i seem to get 30sec-1min of the spinning lollypop.

MacHamster68 said:
just one question it looks like as you took the pictures when idling , basically you did not stress the cpu/gpu/hdd at that moment , but your temps seem quiet high
so just one question have you ever opened the iMac since 2008 and cleaned it inside ? if not then i would do that now
Click to expand...

Is there a tutorial on how to clean inside? I really dont want to break my iMac and the tutorials ive seen on youtube look a bit drastic!
 
tsugaru said:
Doesn't OS X like 10-15% free space on the boot drive? I've heard of this since the early 10.1 days, but I've never seen it in practice slowing down your machine? But if so, you might want to consider clearing out some of your hard drive space. 4GB free on a 400GB drive isn't leaving much room for error.
Click to expand...

I think so for the anti-fragging options included in the file system.
 
did not even notice the harddrive , ideally you should have 20% empty drives
but yours is full apart from these 4 gb leftovers which i would not even count as free space
 
MacHamster68 said:
did not even notice the harddrive , ideally you should have 20% empty drives
but yours is full apart from these 4 gb leftovers which i would not even count as free space
Click to expand...

this.
i have a 2007 iMac and i really don't think it is running any slower than when i got it, but i have a healthy amount of free space on my HDD. you really need to clean up some space on your main drive. i bet you will see huge improvements!
 
This isn't 1997 where your state of the art computer is a relic three months later. Your imac should provide satisfactory pergormance for a long time to come.
 
upgrade to ssd

I had the same problem with my iMac 7,1 (2008) earlier this month. So I decided on a hard drive upgrade. I bought my self the ocz vertex 2 3.5 drive for 250 USD and installed it into iMac. the process might seem hard on some of the guides you find on the internet, but it really isn't.

The iMac now runs superfast, boot time is about 23 sec and all application launches instantly. Everything runs smoothly.

Your iMac 2008 with solid state drive will even run faster the newer iMacs with standard harddrive.
 
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