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iMac Mid 2011 w/High Sierra - Poor Performance

My 10 year old iMac(16gb) with standard software runs very slow. I'm thinking...purge/back up my data and then do a reset to factory settings as a way to gain performance. Is there a better approach?


Thanks.

iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Oct 23, 2021 4:25 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 25, 2021 1:31 PM

Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at startup), does the problem occur in Safe Mode? Could take 10 minutes.


Safe mode attempts to repair Disks & clears lots of caches & loads safe Drivers, & prevents loading of 3rd party extensions, so if Safe Mode works try again in regular boot.


EtreCheck is a FREE simple little diagnostic tool to display the important details of your system configuration and allow you to copy that information to the Clipboard. It is meant to be used with Apple Support Communities to help people help you with your Mac. It will not display any personal info.

https://www.etrecheck.com/


Pastebin is a good place to paste the whole report if you capture the URL while there…

https://pastebin.com/

Whew, they've changed pastebin & made it harder, but after pasting in, click Create new paste button, then Embed button, then copy the URL...

<script src="https://pastebin.com/embed_js/KuvnghqA"></script>


The important part of the above is between the quote marks...


https://pastebin.com/embed_js/KuvnghqA


If pastebin is a problem for you then workable but harder for me to work with...the Note tool on the bottom of this editor's toolbar, as shown in the image, to copy and paste the output from EtreCheck. In a Reply before you click post, look for this to add longer texts...

9 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 25, 2021 1:31 PM in response to Dan5718

Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at startup), does the problem occur in Safe Mode? Could take 10 minutes.


Safe mode attempts to repair Disks & clears lots of caches & loads safe Drivers, & prevents loading of 3rd party extensions, so if Safe Mode works try again in regular boot.


EtreCheck is a FREE simple little diagnostic tool to display the important details of your system configuration and allow you to copy that information to the Clipboard. It is meant to be used with Apple Support Communities to help people help you with your Mac. It will not display any personal info.

https://www.etrecheck.com/


Pastebin is a good place to paste the whole report if you capture the URL while there…

https://pastebin.com/

Whew, they've changed pastebin & made it harder, but after pasting in, click Create new paste button, then Embed button, then copy the URL...

<script src="https://pastebin.com/embed_js/KuvnghqA"></script>


The important part of the above is between the quote marks...


https://pastebin.com/embed_js/KuvnghqA


If pastebin is a problem for you then workable but harder for me to work with...the Note tool on the bottom of this editor's toolbar, as shown in the image, to copy and paste the output from EtreCheck. In a Reply before you click post, look for this to add longer texts...

Oct 23, 2021 6:34 PM in response to Dan5718

Run the Apple Diagnostics to see if any hardware issues are detected.


Unfortunately the diagnostics don't always detect drive failures so run DriveDx and post the report here using the "Additional Text" icon which looks like a piece of paper. If you have a Fusion Drive setup, then post the health report for both the hard drive and the SSD.


To look for possible software issues run EtreCheck and post the report here using the "Additional Text" icon which looks like a piece of paper.



Oct 25, 2021 9:36 AM in response to Dan5718

Dan5718 wrote:

Thank you. Apple diagnostics would not run. A message about recovery over the internet was displayed.

That is completely normal as the online Apple Diagnostics utilizes the Internet Recovery framework to access the Apple servers just like Internet Recovery Mode does. Did you let the computer finish booting to see if the Apple Diagnostics would load?

Oct 30, 2021 10:12 AM in response to BDAqua

Safe mode attempts to repair Disks & clears lots of caches & loads safe Drivers, & prevents loading of 3rd party extensions, so if Safe Mode works try again in regular boot.


Thank you so much. The above advice "cleared things up" and my 10 year old iMac is running just fine now.


Excellent and professional feedback. My very best.

iMac Mid 2011 w/High Sierra - Poor Performance

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