Electronics

[glb613]

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? 

[Krimpette]

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!

[jackthebear]

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@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? 

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

[tockerman]

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? 

[glb613]

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@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? 

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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.  

[Krimpette]

@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?

[StylishLady]

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.

[I am still oxox]

@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

[jaxs mom]

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? 

[jaxs mom]

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@jackthebear wrote:

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@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? 

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

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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.