Bug - Please help de-bug

[IconicM]

I was on Mavericks, then computer started acting really slow a few days ago. I thought upgrading to Yosemite might help over-wright what ever the bug might be, but no.

The symptoms are slow responses whether bringing up applications or even typing this message I randomly get the Beach ball as seemingly the CPU has to think about me just typing a word - no other apps running.

I had been on Mavericks for a few months with no issues.

This is on a late 2009 iMac 27 with 4 GB of ram, i5 2.66 Mghz processor, yosemite 10.10.2.

I do have a back-up OWC HD with time machine. I could restore to one of the previous states. Should I try this first?

 

[Weaselboy]

Assuming you did not install anything that started all this, what you are describing sound like a failing drive and no amount of reinstalling things will help.

Try a command-r boot to recovery and do a verify disk with Disk Utility and see what that says.

 

[chown33]

The symptoms are slow responses whether bringing up applications or even typing this message I randomly get the Beach ball as seemingly the CPU has to think about me just typing a word - no other apps running.

I agree with Weaselboy. It sounds like a failing hard disk.

To identify whether it's CPU limited or not, open Activity Monitor. Then choose View > Dock Icon > CPU History to show the CPU usage history on its dock icon.

Now, when things actually slow down, glance at the Dock and observe whether CPU usage is heavy or light. If it's light, or anything less than completely maxed out, then the problem isn't CPU usage.

If the Dock icon display is too small, use the CPU History floating window instead.

You might also see some other graphs under View > Dock Icon that you can try showing, to either identify a culprit, or eliminate a suspect.

 

[IconicM]

Hey Guys, thanks a lot for the advise! Sorry for taking a while to respond. Kids and work leave little time for anything else.

As mentionioned, my computer slows to a crawl intermitentnly. Has done this several times as I type this message.

I tried Disk Utility, and the hard drive is shown to be verified.

I also ran Activity Monitor. In an effort to bring something up on Activity Monitor, I cleaned out (deleted) a lot of unread mail, just the type of stuff that will bring up the beachball.

I went though all the tabs, CPU, Memory, Energy, etc. The only one that showed unusual activity was Network. After quickly deleting some 10 emails one-by-one, this was enough to prompt the beachball, then eventually, for Mail to show as "not responding". Did this several times.

I was also running Safari in the background, sitting at MacRumors forums. Safari also went into "not responding" state and also showed "website not responding" for a few seconds. Only did this once though.

Anyway, at this point I am not sure the hard drive is the problem. Although according to some, it's possible for the HD to be on its way to the grave, but Utility will still show the drive "verified". I have seen where people recommend a more sophisticated diagnosis tool. I see that imore.com recommends Disk Warrior 4, for example.

So, what do you recommend I do next? I have a backup drive that I can possibly boot from and run OS X from. I might try that.

I was a bit excited thinking I might be replacing my HDD for an SSD. But I don't want to spend that kind of money for something that is not the problem.

Is there a way for a novice like me to test the logic board? I saw where one person thought initially they had a bad HDD, then turned out to be the logic board.

 

[Natzoo]

This doesn't seem like an expensive fix. But it won't be cheap if its heading the way i think it is. Consider an upgrade but it doesn't seem necessary

 

[IconicM]

Natzoo, care to elaborate on what you think it is??

Just to keep a list of stuff that comes up in Activity Monitor - Network. These go in and out intermittently, but com.apple.geod seems to be hanging in there and not going away at the moment.

Not Responding
Safari
Mail
Safari Web Content
com.apple.geod
System UI

 

[maflynn]

So, what do you recommend I do next? I have a backup drive that I can possibly boot from and run OS X from. I might try that.

I'd take it to apple so they can run some diagnostics. If Mavericks and Yosemite have both exhibited issues where you computer's performance grinds to crawl, then perhaps there's some sort of hardware issue going on.

 

[IconicM]

Well Weaselboy and Chown you guys were right... failed HDD. I took imac to Apple and within about a minute of running the diagnostic, FAILED popped up in big red letters.

I just bought a seagate 2TB SSHD plus 8 gbs of ram from OWC. Should speed things up a little. Thanks for everyone's help!!

I am still worried about having a successful back up from Time Machine. I also bought a couple of external drives. One to use with CCC and another to backup straight from iPhoto, the only thing that is really un replaceable. Probably over redundant but it's peace of mind.

BTW, before I took my iMac in, I downloaded CCC and tried to run it. I was already feeling under protected with TM. Before it started copying, it indicated an issue with the HDD. It seems the utility it runs prior to commencing copy is better than Apple's standard Disk Verify.

 

[IconicM]

New 2.0TB seagate SSHD!! No more spinning beach ball.