topic Re: An iMac question in Electronics

An iMac question

glb613 — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 10:26:52 GMT

My iMac has become slow and buggy. I get the spinning beachball more often than I should. I'd like to erase everything then restore it from a backup. I wonder if this will put back what is causing it to be so buggy? Would it be better just to format it and manually reinstall everything I want? I've restored my iPad but never my iMac. I also don't want to restore all of my photos since I have them stored both in the cloud and on an external hard drive. I will do a backup before I proceed with this. Any thoughts?

Re: An iMac question

Krimpette — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 11:12:48 GMT

I'm not near as tech-savvy as you are, but have you called Apple C/S? I've had great success with them helping me through any of my issues. I get that spinning beachball fairly often on my older Macbook Pro. Yesterday, I cleared all history, which seems to have helped a bit. In my case, I think my laptop slowed down some after installing Sierra. My computer guru seems to think my issue is more related to the fact that I only have 4GB of memory.

Good luck to you!

Re: An iMac question

jackthebear — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 11:17:10 GMT

@glb613 wrote:
My iMac has become slow and buggy. I get the spinning beachball more often than I should. I'd like to erase everything then restore it from a backup. I wonder if this will put back what is causing it to be so buggy? Would it be better just to format it and manually reinstall everything I want? I've restored my iPad but never my iMac. I also don't want to restore all of my photos since I have them stored both in the cloud and on an external hard drive. I will do a backup before I proceed with this. Any thoughts?

install more memory? my daughter did that and that was an easy thing

Re: An iMac question

tockerman — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 11:18:11 GMT

do you have some anit virus software in there? i have some in mine? you could go to the apple store and they might help you. or call tech support?

Re: An iMac question

glb613 — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 11:40:58 GMT

@tockerman wrote:
do you have some anit virus software in there? i have some in mine? you could go to the apple store and they might help you. or call tech support?

I have security software and nothing is found. My iMac is too old for free tech support. I have 8 GB of RAM which should be enough for what I do. I just want to know of restoring from a backup is going to install what's making this computer so slow. Thanks.

Re: An iMac question

Krimpette — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 11:44:53 GMT

@glb613 FWIW, I thought that I was no longer eligible for free tech support from Apple, but I called anyway and was able to get help. Not sure why. Do you live near an Apple store, perhaps?

Re: An iMac question

StylishLady — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 12:02:09 GMT

I have a new iMac with 8 GB memory, using the OS X Sierra 10.12.6. So far so good. Not sure why you are getting a "kernel panic" so much.

Re: An iMac question

I am still oxox — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 12:15:11 GMT

@tockerman

Macs generally do not get viruses,

I wonder how old the computer is, I had an Imac that was 8 years old and it ran very very slow

Re: An iMac question

jaxs mom — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 13:41:15 GMT

I wouldn't do a complete restore over that, until I'd troubleshot all other possible fixes. It's often a result of not enough available RAM, because too many programs are running at once. This can happen when Time Machine is backing up sometimes too. If it's an issue in safari then it's usually an internet connection issue sometimes on the other websites end and not yours.

When was the last time you restarted your mac?

Re: An iMac question

jaxs mom — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 13:42:25 GMT

@jackthebear wrote:
@glb613 wrote:
My iMac has become slow and buggy. I get the spinning beachball more often than I should. I'd like to erase everything then restore it from a backup. I wonder if this will put back what is causing it to be so buggy? Would it be better just to format it and manually reinstall everything I want? I've restored my iPad but never my iMac. I also don't want to restore all of my photos since I have them stored both in the cloud and on an external hard drive. I will do a backup before I proceed with this. Any thoughts?
install more memory? my daughter did that and that was an easy thing

The new ones aren't like the old imacs. My new one doesn't have the memory slots that are easily accessable like my previous one.

Re: An iMac question

glb613 — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 17:25:21 GMT

@jaxs mom wrote:
I wouldn't do a complete restore over that, until I'd troubleshot all other possible fixes. It's often a result of not enough available RAM, because too many programs are running at once. This can happen when Time Machine is backing up sometimes too. If it's an issue in safari then it's usually an internet connection issue sometimes on the other websites end and not yours.

When was the last time you restarted your mac?

I am going to do a restore. I just want to know if after it's done formatting, will doing a restore from a backup reinstall what's causing my problems.

Re: An iMac question

jaxs mom — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 19:03:22 GMT

There is no way to know if the problem will continue, when the cause hasn't been determined. So it's a total ****** shoot to go through that whole process.

Re: An iMac question

glb613 — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 19:24:56 GMT

@jaxs mom wrote:
There is no way to know if the problem will continue, when the cause hasn't been determined. So it's a total ****** shoot to go through that whole process.

My iMac is 5 years old and I think it's time to clear everything out and start over. I did it with my Windows based computers about every 3 years and it made a huge difference. Plus, I seem to have duplicate phtos everywhere and I want to get rid of them.

Re: An iMac question

kcladyz — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 20:55:53 GMT

you can do a total resent and not reinstaill meaning start with a fresh pc