Slow, yet new iMac?

[Jake49190]

I bought my iMac a few months ago.

It has a

250GB HD
2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2 GB of RAM.

and since I've gotten it, it seems slow to how it should be.

It makes loud noises, slow start up, and I get the "beach ball" constantly.

Should I put in the start up disks and reinstall Tiger? Or anything else I can do?


Thanks

 

[jsw]

I'd first go to System Preferences...->Accounts->Login items and make sure you're not starting a ton of stuff you didn't know about.

An Archive & Install would probably help enormously, but it's a pretty extreme step before you just try to see what's slowing you down.

 

[Jake49190]

Thank you

I looked into my login items, and nothing was checked under start up items. I would like to avoid the start up disk. But if that's my only choice, I guess I'll have to deal with it.

Thank you for your help

 

[jsw]

I looked into my login items, and nothing was checked under start up items.

Just to be sure: you mean nothing was there at all? "Checked" just means to hide it on startup. Anything listed there is run every time you login.

 

[Jake49190]

Ok. I just went back and deleted them off. Ill restart. Hopefully this will work. Thanks

 

[jsw]

Another thing to do is to create a new account and log into that. If it's speedy, it's your account, not your OS install, that's problematic.

Also, having almost no free disk space will cause major issues. You really should have at least double your RAM amount free, and I'd say 5GB or more free is a good idea.

 

[solvs]

Also, run Disk Utility and check the disk for errors. If you get anything, your hard drive might be going bad. Check that other stuff too though.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Loud noises? Please explain!

 

[neven]

Your computer should still be under warranty. If you have a store nearby, drive over and see what they say.

 

[Jake49190]

loud noises, especially when loading/start up/even small projects. I don't know how to explain the sound, but I'm not sure if it's normal.

 

[joebells]

The loud noises sound like hard drive noises(since you say they happen when you start up a program) which are generally a bit loud. Shouldn't be too loud but the hard drive is mechanical and so it will be somewhat noisy.

 

[siurpeeman]

it isn't clicking, is it?