Lagging Imac and Spinning Wheel Problems

[jgags6]

I'm hoping you guys can help me. I am a long time Mac guy and I am having a problem with my current iMac. The issue started last month. The computer seems to get "clogged" up when running it and will be unresponsive for 1-2 minutes. Then it will catch up and work fine. Then the issue will repeat. While it is unresponsive, I can still move the mouse and sometimes I can click on the desktop to pull up the finder screen. Usually the spinning wheel is on the cursor.

I originally thought it might be a RAM problem so I upgraded from 4gb to 32gb. I also ran a antivirus and it did find 2 bugs. Also, I opened Activity Monitor and noticed that there were two Web Services (or something like that) that were very small, but not responsive. So I force quit them and my computer went back to normal. That seemed to solve the problem -- until this morning.

I came to work to notice the same issues. I have since restarted, checked for updates, and looked at the activity monitor again to see if there was anything sucking up RAM or unresponsive. After multiple restarts and trying to figure the issue out I have not been able to come to a solution. Does anyone have any Idea of how to fix this? Thank you for the help: Here is what my mac is:


Imac 27'' Mid 2010
2.8 GHZ Intel Core i5
32 gb RAM

 

[keysofanxiety]

Due to the age and your description of the issues, I suspect the hard-drive may be failing. If you're on OS X 10.9 or higher, you can verify this through SMART Utility. An earlier version if you're on OS X 10.8 or earlier can be downloaded here.

If that comes back clean, I'd run a volume verification through Disk Utility to see if the volume is corrupted.

Either way, please quote this and we'll go from there.

 

[jgags6]

Due to the age and your description of the issues, I suspect the hard-drive may be failing. If you're on OS X 10.9 or higher, you can verify this through SMART Utility. An earlier version if you're on OS X 10.8 or earlier can be downloaded here.

If that comes back clean, I'd run a volume verification through Disk Utility to see if the volume is corrupted.

Either way, please quote this and we'll go from there.

Yes It looks like you are correct. What should I do now... Is it simple to replace the HD or based on the age of the computer should I just invest in a new one?

 

[keysofanxiety]

Yes It looks like you are correct. What should I do now... Is it simple to replace the HD or based on the age of the computer should I just invest in a new one?

You can find HDD replacement instructions here. Since you're replacing the HDD anyway I'd recommend going for an SSD, as that would vastly improve the system performance in every area and increase its longevity. That would also be the most financially viable option, as it'd be significantly cheaper than a replacement computer.

 

[jgags6]

Thank you very much for the help

 

[CooperBox]

This interested me as I have a similar iMac of similar vintage, with fortunately no noticeable unresponsiveness to date.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Smart Utility is a paid app, and is not suitable for external drives........

 

[jgags6]

You can find HDD replacement instructions here. Since you're replacing the HDD anyway I'd recommend going for an SSD, as that would vastly improve the system performance in every area and increase its longevity. That would also be the most financially viable option, as it'd be significantly cheaper than a replacement computer.

Just one more question: After I replace the HDD can I use any of the Mac startup CDs or do I have to use the one that came with that particular iMac. I have 3 iMacs and I don't know if I still have that CD.

Thanks!

 

[keysofanxiety]

This interested me as I have a similar iMac of similar vintage, with fortunately no noticeable unresponsiveness to date.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Smart Utility is a paid app, and is not suitable for external drives........

SMART Utility is free for 5 launches.

If you install the following application & restart, it will enable SMART logging on external drives through SMART Utility.