2010 Mac Mini running very slow with spinning ball

[clarkee]

I have a late 2010 Mac Mini 2.4GHz, 2GB Ram, 320GB HDD running OSX 10.6.6.

This mac replaced my 1.83GHz mac mini, and compared to the old one is very slow.

It takes a while to switch between apps, takes ages to open some apps, ie iphoto 11, itunes etc and a lot of the time i getting the spinning beach ball when changing apps.

It always seems to need permissions repairing. I can run it once, which will take 20-30 minutes, then just to see if its done anything, i can do it again and it takes another 20-30 minutes to repair permissions again.

Originally i just used a bootable back up from my old mini to copy the data accross, but and i thought that was the problem, so i wiped the new mini and used the mac file transfer to do the job, but it it still running badly. i have also reinstalled snow leopard twice with out deleting the data.

I have doen some googleing and trawling through this forum, so apologies if i have missed a similar problem!

Can anyone offer any suggestions before i have to wipe it completely and start to install apps one by one to see what affects the performance?

Thanks in advance.

clarkee.

 

[old-wiz]

I think your disk may be bad. You shouldn't have to keep repairing things. My wife has one like yours and has no problem at all. Perhaps a trip to the Apple store would be a good idea.

 

[philipma1957]

wipe it clean and only install the software discs. do not transfer anything from your old mac. run it for a week if it is slow and beachballs bring it back. if it works okay you can be sure that something on your old mac screwed it up.


my guess is something on your old mac causes the problem when you transfer it over. the only way to be sure is a clean install with just the two software discs.

 

[upinflames900]

Also could really be a hard drive that is failing... does it take a long time to transfer large files?

 

[dolphin842]

To pile on with what others have said, this sounds like a hard drive ready to crash. Getting inexplicable beach ball delays upon switching apps is a classic sign of impending hard drive failure. Make sure your data is backed up right now.

If there's data you want to get off and it's not letting you, take it to a Genius Bar ASAP. They have copies of DiskWarrior they can run, which will give you the best shot at recovering data.

If you can backup and you want to test the disk yourself, boot from the install DVD, then from the menu bar click on Utilities-->Disk Utility. Select your drive and click on Repair Disk... though this isn't as good as DiskWarrior. It'll still run tests and try to fix what's wrong, but likely it's just staving off the inevitable.

 

[clarkee]

Thanks for all your replies.

I do back ups every few days depending on work flow, so data loss is not a worry.

Have taken the advice though, and i have an appointment booked at my local apple store tomorrow night.

Thanks again for all the replies.

clarkee.

 

[atrevers]

Hope this reply isn't too late - I had exactly the same problem (and had gone, like you, from a 1.83 core duo to the new 2.4 C2D). Completely unresponsive, unusable most of the time, displaying the beach ball more than anything else. I'd transferred from my old mini using my Time Machine backup, and was beginning to think this was the problem.

However! Before formatting and then going down the route of warranty work, I realised that the last thing I'd done on my old mini was install the free version of Sophos which had just been released. I decided to uninstall that as a last-ditch operation - and all of a sudden my mac runs like a brand new computer should do. I can only imagine that Sophos was scanning everything on access, and must be very resource hungry. It's got to the point where I can happily multitask iTunes, iPhoto and Aperture, alongside surfing in Safari, without any beach ball.

Obviously, this may not help you - but it may help somebody!

 

[cocacolakid]

Hope this reply isn't too late - I had exactly the same problem (and had gone, like you, from a 1.83 core duo to the new 2.4 C2D). Completely unresponsive, unusable most of the time, displaying the beach ball more than anything else. I'd transferred from my old mini using my Time Machine backup, and was beginning to think this was the problem.

However! Before formatting and then going down the route of warranty work, I realised that the last thing I'd done on my old mini was install the free version of Sophos which had just been released. I decided to uninstall that as a last-ditch operation - and all of a sudden my mac runs like a brand new computer should do. I can only imagine that Sophos was scanning everything on access, and must be very resource hungry. It's got to the point where I can happily multitask iTunes, iPhoto and Aperture, alongside surfing in Safari, without any beach ball.

Obviously, this may not help you - but it may help somebody!

Hey, thanks! I had Sophos on my 2010 Mac Mini for a few months and despite upgrading to 8gb of RAM it still was having beachball moments, which I didn't recall it doing when I first purchased it (with 2gb of RAM). Sophos was uninstalled and it's flying again.

 

[clarkee]

A Genius took my mini to be tested, but was fairly sure it was a failing hdd.

So should have it back in the next few days with a new one installed.
(and I've ordered 8GB of ram from crucial!!!)

Coincidentally I had installed sophos on the new mini when I thought it was running slow at the start. I will undoubtably not be reinstalling it when I set up the mac with the new hdd after your comments.

Thanks again peeps!

Invaluable as ever.

 

[dolphin842]

Kind of odd they had to take it in to test it... the genius at my store ran the DiskWarrior test right away while I was there.

 

[tom vilsack]

i can't speak to your issue per say....but i just upgraded my old mini ppc 1.25 from default 40 gig hd to new samsung hm160hc 8mb ide......hugh difference! even after i had upgraded to max ram 1 gig machine still was kinda slow...where the harddrive upgrade made all the difference...

 

[clarkee]

Mac Mini back and all hooked up!

Working loads faster with new HDD and minus Sophos!

Just waiting for my 8GB of ram to arrive and it'll be uber fast.

Thanks for all the replies.

clarkee.

 

[nizmoz]

I have the older style Mac Mini that has been constantly having this issue with 4gb of ram. I have reinstalled the O/S multiple times. I get no errors from the HD, or anything. I am about to throw this thing in the trash. If you reboot, it fixes it for a short while then it starts doing it again. I can't see it being the Hd going out as they usually show signs of that like noises, etc. Any advice?

 

[philipma1957]

I have the older style Mac Mini that has been constantly having this issue with 4gb of ram. I have reinstalled the O/S multiple times. I get no errors from the HD, or anything. I am about to throw this thing in the trash. If you reboot, it fixes it for a short while then it starts doing it again. I can't see it being the Hd going out as they usually show signs of that like noises, etc. Any advice?

what year is the mini , what is the drive size and how full is the drive?

 

[nizmoz]

what year is the mini , what is the drive size and how full is the drive?

Bought in early early 2010, base model Mini. I upgraded to 4gb of ram to try and fix the issue from my Mac Book Pro. I think it has a 160gb if I recall correctly. It isn't near full, over 70% free still.

 

[philipma1957]

okay first off check the serial number it may be under warranty if it is bring to an apple repair store. if you purchased it in early early 2010 it maybe a white 2009 model.

 

[nizmoz]

okay first off check the serial number it may be under warranty if it is bring to an apple repair store. if you purchased it in early early 2010 it maybe a white 2009 model.

I don't believe it's under warranty anymore. Either way I will check. But if not, that doesn't help me solve the issue if it isn't!