Apple I Mac slow down question

[Ken Metcalf]

My question is how to diagnose an IMac or what is bogging down my Imac all of a sudden?
The little wheel is spinning and it will stop recording in the middle of recording?
I only use this for music and have no other software on it except Presonus Studio One.
Any advice or links would be appreciated.

Thanks
Ken

[Wiz Feinberg]

My first thought was the hard drive might be failing, or the case and its components could be overheating due to clogged vents. Remove all dust from air holes and the heatsink fins on the CPU (unplug power first).

If, after vacuuming out the dust, the slowness persists, check the hard drive for read/write errors and bad sectors.

It's also possible that the RAM is faulty, or the capacitors on the motherboard are leaking and failing.

If none of the above are the cause, install iMac compatible anti-malware and scan for a bitcoin miner Trojan targeting Mac OS computers. Your computer could also be carrying a spam bot or a DDoS attack bot, both of which will greatly slow its performance.

[Ken Metcalf]

Thanks Wiz, I have tried a number of things including taking it to to a shop, using Malwarebytes and a friend that is an Apple guy and seem to get nowhere. I updated to High Sierra and that basically wiped my iMac clean... I figured okay as I only use this for music and have the material backed up on an external drive. The High Sierra made it even worse as in slower yet.
Now that I am in Converse maybe I will look for another Computer repair shop.
There is virtually nothing on this IMac except Presonus Studio One. Hard drive is empty.

[Jim Park]

If you open the Activity Monitor from the Utilities folder in Applications, you should see what process is causing the beach ball. It will be in red and be listed as unresponsive. Also you can create a new user account and see if the performance changes. I always run my user accounts as a regular user and not an Admin. Activity Monitor can also list processes by CPU usage so that might be an indicator also. You didnt say how much ram you have, you may have some failing ram. Most recording platforms need 8 GB to function well.

[John McClung]

Ken, I've occasionally had the same issue on my MacBook Pro laptop. The culprit was Spotlight being very busy reindexing its knowledge of all the files on the Mac. I googled and found the solution, can't recall what it was right now, but do a search and you'll find it. The name of the process isn't obvious, but in Activity Monitor sort the list by CPU usage, and force quit the hogs. Say, that's a fun band name! High Sierra might be the problem, I hear it can run slow on older Macs. Mine is a 2006 mode on El Capitan, but with 16GB of RAM and an internal SSD, it runs fine.

Good luck!

[John McClung]

Ken, I've occasionally had the same issue on my MacBook Pro laptop. The culprit was Spotlight being very busy reindexing its knowledge of all the files on the Mac. I googled and found the solution, can't recall what it was right now, but do a search and you'll find it. The name of the process isn't obvious, but in Activity Monitor sort the list by CPU usage, and force quit the hogs. Say, that's a fun band name! High Sierra might be the problem, I hear it can run slow on older Macs. Mine is a 2006 mode on El Capitanl, but with 16GB of RAM and an internal SSD, it runs fine.

Good luck!