I watched the recent WWDC keynote where Apple launched a bunch of new products. One of them was the high end mac aimed at the professional sector. This was a computer designed to process hours of high definition video footage for movies/TV. As per usual, they boasted about how many processes you could run at the same time, and how they’d all be done instantaneously, compared to the previous model or the leading competitor.
Meanwhile my 10 year old iMac takes 30 seconds to show the File menu when I click File. Or it takes 5 minutes to run a simple bash command in Terminal. It’s not taking 5 minutes to compile something or do anything particularly difficult. It takes 5 minutes to remember what bash is in the first place.
I know why it couldn’t process video footage without catching fire, but what I truly don’t understand is why it takes so long to do the easiest most mundane things.
I’m not working with 50 apps open, or a browser laden down with 200 tabs. I don’t have intensive image editing software running. There’s no malware either. I’m just trying to use it to do every day tasks. This has happened with every computer I’ve ever owned.
Why?
In: 5988
Your heatsinks are full of crap after 10 years and the cpu is throttling waaaaaay down to keep from overheating. Sounds like you may be having trouble reading the HD reliably as well. (you can check the smartdisk diagnostic logs to see that)
I do a fair bit of video editing on 2011 iMacs that are only [email protected] and 32 gig of ram. Running the latest os thx to OpenCore and the machines are still snappy. They get torn down and fans/heatsinks cleaned/replaced every 2-3 years.
Find a copy of geek bench and test your machine to see how bad it’s gotten.
edit: it pretty much goes without saying you should be running from SSD “hard drives” and ditch the oldskool spinning rust. Also, 16GB of ram should be the bare minimum, 32GB for any real use.
Edit #2: iMac heatsinks clog up with time (even in really clean heppa filtered environments) due to the fact that cleaning them requires complete machine disassembly and most people don’t / won’t / can’t do that themselves. I’d bet dollars to sand there’s half a kitten worth of fluff trapped in there by now if you’ve never cleaned them. And no, the heatsinks can’t really be cleaned with compressed / canned air without disassembly…
The real answer is your hardrive. 10 years ago and it’s probably got a spinning hardrive. Those things die slowly over time because they have moving parts. SSD is the way to go and will last extremely longer. Since it has no moving parts.
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