Mac Mini has strange lag issues?

[Pandalorian]

Hello,

about two months ago, i purchased a brand new 2012 Mini with a quad-core i7 and 16GB of ram. with this configuration, it should be a very fast machine, yet for some reason using mission control, resizing windows, etc. is very laggy, i'm seeing framerates of about 20 or 15... seems very strange for a new machine with a powerful config like this one. Any ideas on what i should do?

 

[johnnnw]

I can give you one piece of advice.

Ditch.the.5400RPM.harddrive.

Man are those things slow.

I had non stop laggy issues before upgrading. Right clicking stuff was delayed, slow minimizing, everything.

Fine now.

It's not too hard either.

 

[justperry]

Open Activity Monitor, select ALL processes from the drop down Menu, then select the %CPU tab so that the Top using processes are on top, then do the things which give you lag and keep an eye on Activity Monitor.

----------

I can give you one piece of advice.

Ditch.the.5400RPM.harddrive.

Man are those things slow.

I had non stop laggy issues before upgrading. Right clicking stuff was delayed, slow minimizing, everything.

Fine now.

It's not too hard either.

I have a 2012 Mini, base model, no issues here.
It has nothing to do with the HD, it seems to be Graphic related.

 

[ab2013]

Recently purchased a 2.3 i7 (mid-level) Mac Mini here. I'm also experiencing lag, but the lag is much more severe on Windows than it is in OS X. The lag is caused when the Mac gets too warm, causing the CPU to throttle.

In OS X, I installed smcFanControl (it's free) and set my fan to "High RPM"; however, it seems to be unable to read the RPM from the fan sensor. I've also flipped the computer so that it stands on its side (doesn't rest on its rubber bottom), reset SMC, and disabled Bluetooth and WiFi, which I do not use. This allowed my Mac to run at around 70C at idle/light use (e.g. web browsing), which is still warmish but more acceptable. (It previously ran at around 90-100C)

I cannot solve the throttling issues in Windows, however, which is frustrating. I've noticed that once the CPU core breaks 95C, the GPU throttles to around 500-600 MHz (the 2.3's HD 4000 can turbo up to 1.2GHz) and the CPU drops to around 1.3 GHz, so gaming performance is severely crippled. I've reset the SMC, enabled active cooling, and capped the max performance to around 95% (in Control Panel) ... but the CPU core still breaks 95C under heavy load.

 

[SR45]

I can give you one piece of advice.

Ditch.the.5400RPM.harddrive.

Man are those things slow.

I had non stop laggy issues before upgrading. Right clicking stuff was delayed, slow minimizing, everything.

Fine now.

It's not too hard either.

I don't have cross platform OS's on my system, but I do have the 2011 version of the MacMini with 16 GB of ram, i5 cpu, and a 5400 rpm Hdd. No lag for me, so it might be something you did or installed that is the issue.

 

[philipma1957]

Recently purchased a 2.3 i7 (mid-level) Mac Mini here. I'm also experiencing lag, but the lag is much more severe on Windows than it is in OS X. The lag is caused when the Mac gets too warm, causing the CPU to throttle.

In OS X, I installed smcFanControl (it's free) and set my fan to "High RPM"; however, it seems to be unable to read the RPM from the fan sensor. I've also flipped the computer so that it stands on its side (doesn't rest on its rubber bottom), reset SMC, and disabled Bluetooth and WiFi, which I do not use. This allowed my Mac to run at around 70C at idle/light use (e.g. web browsing), which is still warmish but more acceptable. (It previously ran at around 90-100C)

I cannot solve the throttling issues in Windows, however, which is frustrating. I've noticed that once the CPU core breaks 95C, the GPU throttles to around 500-600 MHz (the 2.3's HD 4000 can turbo up to 1.2GHz) and the CPU drops to around 1.3 GHz, so gaming performance is severely crippled. I've reset the SMC, enabled active cooling, and capped the max performance to around 95% (in Control Panel) ... but the CPU core still breaks 95C under heavy load.

your machine is broken return it. 70c for light cpu use is wrong. i have the same machine doing lite use as i type it is 115 f or under 48 c. my cpu is cool . look at screen shot

 

[palmharbor]

L a g i n g

Had same issue on my mini....spent all kinds of time on the phone with applecare doing all kinds of things with no solution. Finally has to erase HD
download the OS 10.8.3 and from my back up restore all files etc. THAT IS THE ONLY THING THAT WORKED

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

Had same issue on my mini....spent all kinds of time on the phone with applecare doing all kinds of things with no solution. Finally has to erase HD
download the OS 10.8.3 and from my back up restore all files etc. THAT IS THE ONLY THING THAT WORKED

OK. No hardware problem.