IMac 24 C2D freezing, beach ball, pinwheel

Hello wonderful user community!
I am helping my wife with this issue, she's never posted on the ASC before.
In the last two weeks my iMac has started behaving strangely.   It doesn't seem to matter whether running Spotify, Chrome, Firefox, or other applications, I will get beach balls, seemingly at random intervals. If watching a video on Youtube or Netflix, the picture will freeze the but the audio will continue. You can't Force Quit or make any commands in other applications, so it seems to be system wide. If someone is playing a video from my hard drive from the LAN, their video playback will freeze. After 15 secs to a minute or more, the machine will resume normal operation.
What I've tried:
The OS was installed less than a year ago from 10.6 disk and updated to OS 10.6.8 using Combo Updater.
Disk Repair Permisions
Disk Repair (boot from external drive)
reset PRAM
Take to Genius Desk at Apple store (results inconclusive, no hardware issues)
Activity Monitor shows no app in particular hanging
I'm about to cut and run on this thing, put it on Craigslist, and move on.
Any light shed on this would be incredibly helpful. I work from this iMac while my daughter watches videos on a 2nd monitor throughout the day. At night it's our TV and we watch movies on it. Needless to say it's an integral part of our lifestyle.
Hardware Overview:
Model Name:          iMac
Model Identifier:          iMac9,1
Processor Name:          Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed:          2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors:          1
Total Number Of Cores:          2
L2 Cache:          6 MB
Memory:          8 GB
Bus Speed:          1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version:          IM91.008D.B08
SMC Version (system):          1.45f0
Serial Number (system):          YD9*****0TG   <Serial Number Edited by Host>
Hardware UUID:          93EC2F20-E293-50E4-9EC3-F0401B5D8D65
Console sample taken during time period of several hangs:
2/20/12 8:56:32 PM
[0x0-0x13013].com.SugarSync.Manager[262]
[Mon Feb 20 20:56:32 2012:405406] [info] [datastore.sync.syncset] [0xb0617000] [Start syncing /sc/5000]
2/20/12 8:56:47 PM
[0x0-0x13013].com.SugarSync.Manager[262]
[Mon Feb 20 20:56:47 2012:405079] [info] [datastore.volumerelayclient] [0xb0617000] [getBucketChangeId timed out. bucket id: 5000]
2/20/12 8:56:47 PM
[0x0-0x13013].com.SugarSync.Manager[262]
[Mon Feb 20 20:56:47 2012:405145] [error] [datastore.sync.syncset] [0xb0617000] [ScVolumeSyncer.cpp:1644 getBucketChid failed for path /sc/5000]
2/20/12 8:56:47 PM
[0x0-0x13013].com.SugarSync.Manager[262]
[Mon Feb 20 20:56:47 2012:405168] [info] [datastore.sync.manager] [0xb0617000] [restartWithDelay. syncPath = /sc/5000, delay = 600 sec]
2/20/12 9:01:54 PM
[0x0-0x25025].com.spotify.client[317]
05:01:54.340 I [social_presence.cpp:120] Presence: A track was played
2/20/12 9:01:55 PM
[0x0-0x25025].com.spotify.client[317]
05:01:55.352 I [snd:517] 64k-Latency: 2 ms. Play latency: 184 ms (ap)
2/20/12 9:06:47 PM
[0x0-0x13013].com.SugarSync.Manager[262]
[Mon Feb 20 21:06:47 2012:405283] [info] [datastore.sync.syncset] [0xb0617000] [Stop syncing /sc/5000]
2/20/12 9:06:47 PM
[0x0-0x13013].com.SugarSync.Manager[262]
[Mon Feb 20 21:06:47 2012:405353] [info] [datastore.sync.syncset] [0xb0617000] [Start syncing /sc/5000]
2/20/12 9:07:02 PM
[0x0-0x13013].com.SugarSync.Manager[262]
[Mon Feb 20 21:07:02 2012:404888] [info] [datastore.volumerelayclient] [0xb0617000] [getBucketChangeId timed out. bucket id: 5000]
2/20/12 9:07:02 PM
[0x0-0x13013].com.SugarSync.Manager[262]
[Mon Feb 20 21:07:02 2012:404974] [error] [datastore.sync.syncset] [0xb0617000] [ScVolumeSyncer.cpp:1644 getBucketChid failed for path /sc/5000]
2/20/12 9:07:02 PM
[0x0-0x13013].com.SugarSync.Manager[262]
[Mon Feb 20 21:07:02 2012:405016] [info] [datastore.sync.manager] [0xb0617000] [restartWithDelay. syncPath = /sc/5000, delay = 600 sec]
2/20/12 9:08:15 PM
[0x0-0x25025].com.spotify.client[317]
05:08:15.352 I [social_presence.cpp:120] Presence: A track was played
2/20/12 9:08:16 PM
[0x0-0x25025].com.spotify.client[317]
05:08:16.228 I [snd:517] 64k-Latency: 3 ms. Play latency: 195 ms (ap)
2/20/12 9:14:26 PM
[0x0-0x25025].com.spotify.client[317]
05:14:26.646 I [social_presence.cpp:120] Presence: A track was played
2/20/12 9:14:33 PM
[0x0-0x25025].com.spotify.client[317]
05:14:33.708 I [snd:517] 64k-Latency: 2 ms. Play latency: 6179 ms (ap)
2/20/12 9:15:36 PM
[0x0-0x25025].com.spotify.client[317]
05:15:36.315 I [offline-mgr:2144] Storage has been cleaned
2/20/12 9:17:02 PM
[0x0-0x13013].com.SugarSync.Manager[262]
[Mon Feb 20 21:17:02 2012:405144] [info] [datastore.sync.syncset] [0xb0617000] [Stop syncing /sc/5000]
2/20/12 9:17:02 PM
[0x0-0x13013].com.SugarSync.Manager[262]
[Mon Feb 20 21:17:02 2012:405274] [info] [datastore.sync.syncset] [0xb0617000] [Start syncing /sc/5000]
2/20/12 9:17:17 PM
[0x0-0x13013].com.SugarSync.Manager[262]
[Mon Feb 20 21:17:17 2012:405045] [info] [datastore.volumerelayclient] [0xb0617000] [getBucketChangeId timed out. bucket id: 5000]
2/20/12 9:17:17 PM
[0x0-0x13013].com.SugarSync.Manager[262]
[Mon Feb 20 21:17:17 2012:405155] [error] [datastore.sync.syncset] [0xb0617000] [ScVolumeSyncer.cpp:1644 getBucketChid failed for path /sc/5000]
2/20/12 9:17:17 PM
[0x0-0x13013].com.SugarSync.Manager[262]
[Mon Feb 20 21:17:17 2012:405181] [info] [datastore.sync.manager] [0xb0617000] [restartWithDelay. syncPath = /sc/5000, delay = 600 sec]

meow3cjc wrote:
I did study XLab's article before posting here, and I did check the Activity monitor for oddities and found none.
Another clue: When watching a DVD disc, there are no freezes. This is the ONLY time we don't experience the 15 minute freeze cycle. Starting to think the harddrive is failing...
If you suspect the HD is failing then run Apple Hardware Test in Extended Mode , it is wise to run the test 2-3 times to be sure. If it picks up any error codes then you should plan on visiting an Apple Store or AASP to get it fixed and the codes interpreted. Apple does not publish what codes are interpreted as however some will give you a good idea. For example if it has HDD in it then you know the error is related to the HD however you don't know if it's the drive itself or it possible it could be fan sensor for the HD, this is why it's smart to take it in.

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The script is a single long line, all of which must be selected. You can accomplish this easily by triple-clicking anywhere in the line. The whole line will highlight, though you may not see all of it in your browser, and you can then copy it. If you try to select the line by dragging across the part you can see, you won't get all of it.
Triple-click anywhere in the line of text below on this page to select it:
clear; shopt -s extglob; Fb='%s\n\t(%s)\n'; Fm='\n%s:\n\n%s\n'; Fs='\n%s: %s\n'; Fu='user %s%%, system %s%%'; PB="/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c Print"; A () { [[ a -eq 0 ]]; }; R () { o=; [[ r -eq 0 ]]; }; Pm () { [[ "$o" ]] && o=`sed 's/^ */ /' <<< "$o"` && printf "$Fm" "$1" "$o"; }; Pc () { o=`egrep -v '^[[:blank:]]*($|#)' "$2"`; Pm "$1"; }; Pp () { o=`$PB "$2" | awk -F'= ' \/$3'/{print $2}'`; Pm "$1"; }; Ps () { o="${o##+( )}"; [[ ! "$o" =~ ^0?$ ]] && printf "$Fs" "$1" "$o"; }; id | grep -qw '80(admin)'; a=$?; A && sudo true; r=$?; t=`date +%s`; clear; { A || echo $'No admin access\n'; A && ! R && echo $'No root access\n'; system_profiler SPSoftwareDataType | sed '8!d;s/^ *//'; o=`system_profiler SPDiagnosticsDataType | sed '5,6!d'`; [[ "$o" =~ Pass ]] || Pm "POST"; o=`pmset -g therm | sed 's/^.*CP/CP/'`; egrep -q 'No th|pms' <<< "$o" && o=; Pm "Thermal conditions"; o=`pmset -g sysload | grep -v :`; grep -q '= [^GO]' <<< "$o" || o=; Pm "System load advisory"; o=`nvram boot-args | awk '{$1=""; print}'`; Ps "boot-args"; d=(/ ""); D=(System User); for i in 0 1; do o=`cd ${d[$i]}L*/L*/Dia* && ls !(*.diag) | tail | awk -F_ '{$NF=a[split($NF,a,".")]; print}'`; Pm "${D[$i]} diagnostics"; done; o=`syslog -F bsd -k Sender kernel -k Message CReq 'GPU |hfs: Ru|I/O e|n Cause: -|NVDA\(|pagin|SATA W|ssert|timed? ?o' | tail -n25 | awk '/:/{$4=""; $5=""; print}'`; Pm "Kernel messages"; o=`df -m / | awk 'NR==2 {print $4}'`; o=$((o<5120?o:0)); Ps "Free space (MiB)"; o=$(($(vm_stat | awk '/eo/{sub("\\.",""); print $2}')/256)); o=$((o>=1024?o:0)); Ps "Pageouts (MiB)"; s=( `sar -u 1 10 | sed '$!d'` ); [[ s[4] -lt 85 ]] && o=`printf "$Fu" ${s[1]} ${s[3]}` || o=; Ps "Total CPU usage" && { s=(`ps acrx -o comm,ruid,%cpu | sed '2!d'`); o=${s[2]}%; Ps "CPU usage by process \"$s\" with UID ${s[1]}"; }; s=(`top -R -l1 -n1 -o prt -stats command,uid,prt | sed '$!d'`); s[2]=${s[2]%[+-]}; o=$((s[2]>=25000?s[2]:0)); Ps "Mach ports used by process \"$s\" with UID ${s[1]}"; o=`kextstat -kl | grep -v com\\.apple | cut -c53- | cut -d\< -f1`; Pm "Loaded extrinsic kernel extensions"; R && o=`sudo launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.(apple|openssh|vix\.cron)|org\.(amav|apac|calendarse|cups|dove|isc|ntp|post[fg]|x)/{print $3}'`; Pm "Extrinsic system jobs"; o=`launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.apple|org\.(x|openbsd)|\.[0-9]+$/{print $3}'`; Pm "Extrinsic agents"; for d in {/,}L*/{La,Priv,Sta}*; do o=`ls -A "$d" | egrep -v '^(\.DS_Store$|com\.apple\.)'`; Pm "$d"; done; o=`find -L /S*/L*/E* {/,}L*/{A*d,Compon,Ex,In,Keyb,Mail,P*P,Qu,Scripti,Servi,Spo}* -type d -name Contents -prune | while read d; do ID=$($PB\ :CFBundleIdentifier "$d/Info.plist") || ID="No bundle ID"; egrep -qv "^com\.apple\.[^x]|Accusys|ArcMSR|ATTO|HDPro|HighPoint|driver\.stex|hp-fax|\.hpio|JMicron|microsoft\.MDI|print|SoftRAID" <<< $ID && printf "$Fb" "${d%/Contents}" "$ID"; done`; Pm "Extrinsic loadable bundles"; o=`find /u*/{,*/}lib -type f -exec sh -c 'file -b "$1" | grep -qw shared && ! codesign -v "$1"' {} {} \; -print`; Pm "Unsigned shared libraries"; o=`launchctl getenv DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES`; Pm "Inserted libraries"; o=`find {,/u*/lo*}/e*/periodic -type f -mtime -10d`; Pm "Modified periodic scripts"; o=`scutil --proxy | grep Prox`; Pm "Proxies"; o=`scutil --dns | awk '/r\[0\] /{if ($NF !~ /^1(0|72\.(1[6-9]|2[0-9]|3[0-1])|92\.168)\./) print $NF; exit}'`; Ps "DNS"; R && o=`sudo profiles -P | grep :`; Pm "Profiles"; for f in fstab sysctl.conf crontab launchd.conf; do Pc $f /etc/$f; done; Pc "hosts" <(grep -v 'host *$' /etc/hosts); Pc "User launchd" ~/.launchd; R && Pc "Root crontab" <(sudo crontab -l); Pc "User crontab" <(crontab -l); R && o=`sudo defaults read com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook`; Pm "Login hook"; Pp "Global login items" /L*/P*/loginw* Path; Pp "User login items" L*/P*/*loginit* Name; Pp "Safari extensions" L*/Saf*/*/E*.plist Bundle | sed 's/\..*$//;s/-[1-9]$//'; o=`find ~ $TMPDIR.. $ -flags +sappnd,schg,uappnd,uchg -o ! -user $UID -o ! -perm -600 $ | wc -l`; Ps "Restricted user files"; cd; o=`system_profiler SPFontsDataType | egrep "Valid: N|Duplicate: Y" | wc -l`; Ps "Font problems"; o=`find L*/{Con,Pref}* -type f ! -size 0 -name *.plist ! -exec sh -c 'plutil -s "$1" >&-' {} {} \; -print`; Pm "Bad plists"; d=(Desktop L*/Keyc*); n=(20 7); for i in 0 1; do o=`find "${d[$i]}" -type f -maxdepth 1 | wc -l`; o=$((o<=n[$i]?0:o)); Ps "${d[$i]##*/} files"; done; o=$((`date +%s`-t)); Ps "Elapsed time (s)"; } 2>/dev/null | pbcopy; exit 2>&-
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
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Click anywhere in the Terminal window and paste (command-V). The text you pasted should vanish immediately. If it doesn't, press the return key.
If you're logged in as an administrator, you'll be prompted for your login password. Nothing will be displayed when you type it. You will not see the usual dots in place of typed characters. Make sure caps lock is off. Type carefully and then press return. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you make three failed attempts to enter the password, the test will run anyway, but it will produce less information. In most cases, the difference is not important.
If you're not logged in as an administrator, you won't be prompted for your password. The test will still run. It just won't do anything that requires administrator rights.
The test may take up to a few minutes to run, depending on how many files you have and the speed of the computer. A computer that's abnormally slow may take longer to run the test. There is no indication of progress until it's done. Wait for the line "[Process completed]" to appear in the Terminal window. If you don't see that line within half an hour or so, the test probably won't complete in a reasonable time. In that case, close the Terminal window and report your results. No harm will be done.
When the test is complete, quit Terminal. The results will have been copied to the Clipboard automatically. They are not shown in the Terminal window. Please don't copy anything from there. All you have to do is start a reply to this comment and then paste by pressing command-V again.
If any private information, such as your name or email address, appears in the results, anonymize it before posting. Usually that won't be necessary.
When you post the results, you might see the message, "You have included content in your post that is not permitted." That's because the forum software falsely identifies something in the post as a violation of the terms of use. If that happens, please post the results on Pastebin, then post a link here to the page you created.
Note: This is a public forum, and others may give you advice based on the results of the test. They speak only for themselves, and I don't necessarily agree with them.
Copyright © 2014 Linc Davis. As the sole author of this work, I reserve all rights to it except as provided in the Terms of Use of Apple Support Communities ("ASC"). Readers of ASC may copy it for their own personal use. Neither the whole nor any part may be redistributed.

Imac runs slow beach ball all the time, imac runs slow beach ball all the time

can any one help imac runs very slow and every click the beach ball is at hand is this thing going to crash

Hi DylanLauren,
From your post I see that your Mac is running slower than it should be. There are several things that may attribute to this slowness, of which you can find troubleshooting in the article linked to below.
OS X Lion: If your Mac runs slowly
Take care,
Alex H.

Import for about 10-15 min okay then import picture freezes beach ball

I was importing my latest video from the camera Sony DCR-TRV8 (standard def mini DV camcorder) and it would import properly for variable amount of minutes, sometimes 10, sometimes 15 sometimes 2 or anything in between, before the picture freezes on the iMovie 08 import window and iMovie has basically crashed (beach ball, no interaction and no recovery). The camcorder is continuing to run playing its video and sound successfully on its little display, however none of it gets recorded after iMovie freezes.
I eventually have to kill iMovie and restart it (makes me feel like I'm on pre XP Windows again). I'm working on a Mac Pro (2.5GB RAM and plenty of room on the HD).
Has anyone else run into this? And know how to get around it?
Now this didn't happen on the previous 3 tapes (done in previous months), where it ran the length of the tape without attention from me and imported everything onto the system's hard drive and iMovie 08's library. I thought it might be that the system was going to sleep or something, but I made sure I was fidgeting with the window (moving it) occasionally this time and it did it anyways.
Any help would be appreciated.
Scott
Message was edited by: Sasparilla256
Message was edited by: Sasparilla256

Found [this thread|http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6387869] ("iMovie freezes") that suggested one of the iMovie updates (likely 7.1.1) is the source of these import freezes. People have trashed their iMovie app and prefs, then did a re-install from the DVD and that fixed it for them. One guys claims he also updated to 7.1 and is still OK.
I downgraded to 7.0 and am currently importing a tape and it's gotten further than it has in the past. I'll let you know after I import a few whether it fixed it permanently for me.

IMac late 2009 - beach ball of death

My iMac is hanging a ridiculous amount - Every 30 seconds or so, no matter how few applications are running, I get the beach ball of death. It'll typically stall for a minute or more. Ugh.
I upgraded the RAM to see if that would fix the problem, and it didn't (the computer still hangs when available RAM is in excess of 10GB). I've run the Apple Hardware Test, and there were no problems reported. I've run virus scans, and there were no problems reported. I've upgraded the machine to OSX Lion, and have all of my software updated to current versions.
Please let me know if you have any ideas for a solution!
System specs:
iMac Late 2009, 21.5 inch
Processor 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory 12 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Graphics ATI Radeon HD 4670 256 MB
Software Mac OS X Lion 10.7.2 (11C74)
Thanks,
Mike

Yes... took it back to Mac Store who sent it to their depot who did a deeper scan and it was a failing harddrive. Thank goodness for Time Machine and having backups... I am not as stressed as I would have been. However, they reinstalled it with Snow Leopard instead of my purchased Mountain Lion. When I brought it home I imported from Time Machine. But another issue reared its head and fought with its password issues (seriously, hours of work there) only to find that I could not upgrade from SL to ML on my disc. I did a check for software update from the Apple Icon (no Apple Store in SL) and it downloaded 1.6 GB of 5 updates (what appears to be the Java and others that are making the rounds currently). When this installed I was unable to log in at all, unable to get past the login screen, with some heavy duty serious lag and blue screens. So I am BACK at the Mac Store and having them do a complete wipe (again) and installation of Mountail Lion this time. In theory I should be able to take my machine with a new harddrive, Mountain Lion installed, back home and import form Time Machine.
Preach it from the rooftops and mountains... buy an external hard drive and install Time Machine. Seriously! Do it now! I am very happy that I finally, after a year, got around to doing this in time.

IPhoto hangs/freezes/beach balls when printing TIFF: solved

I was having a problem today with iPhoto 9.5.1 (902.17) on Mac OS X 10.9.3: iPhoto is freezing/hanging/beach balling when printing TIFF images. I can effortlessly re-create the problem by selecting a specific TIFF image (from a Nikon D700) and attempting to print to my HP LaserJet m451dw (over the network).
The problem occured on the iPhoto print screen. I was able to select 1 or more images to print and then select the print size (e.g. full, contact sheet, etc...) however when I click the Print button at the bottom of the screen iPhoto would hang. Normally the printer dialog would appear.
I am using the latest Mac OS X 10.9 drivers from HP (Jan 2014) and printing from other apps such as Word worked.
I had tried the following with no luck: completely rebuilding the iPhoto DB; removing and reinstalling the printer; removing the iPhoto preferences.
The solution in the end was to rotate the TIFF image. The wife had rotated a number of images to portrait mode for a contact sheet but could not print. After mucking about with the problem TIFF image I rotated it around back to landscape and it is now working.
I hope this helps someone else experiencing the same problem.

Terence Devlin wrote:
The reason I asked about the format of the disk is that folks report issues with Libraries stored on disks that are not formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
Terence could you tell me more? I have not found the corresponding post.
I have a huge (10K photos, 50GB) library on a RAID server under linux formatted as ext 2.
I am not a designer playing with fonts.
After I upgraded to iPhoto '09 from the DVD, it converted my library and I started to look at the animation which crashed in the middle (face recognition was running in the background).
Any attempt to restart iPhoto failed (empty window with spinning wheel).
Then I downloaded the last version of iPhoto.
I restarted from a clean copy of the iPhoto library.=>Same failure.
I try to rebuild everything (except the database which was not an option).=> same failre
I copied a smaller iphoto library on the local hard disc => it works.

IMac full of beach balls

I have the new 2009, iMac i7 and after the firmware update I now seem to be getting beach balls all the time. It tends to hang and after a few minutes is will respond to all the clicks I made in the interim. Anyone else having this issue?

Some procedural tests to help narrow down the cause...
Try starting up in Safe Mode
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1455
This will run some maintenance during startup, and start up with only Apple's essential system extensions and processes running. If you do not experience the "beach balls" in Safe Mode, it is possible that you have some third-party software installed that is causing interference when booted normally. It is also possible that the Safe Mode maintenance actions fixed something.
You can also try creating a new admin user account in System Preferences Accounts pane
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/8235.html
Log out and log in to the new account. Does the same problem recur in the new user account? If it does not, the cause is likely to be something in your normal user account. If it does recur in the new account, then the cause is likely to be at the system (OS) level, or possibly hardware-related.

IMac randomly freezes. Spinning pinwheel

My late 2009 iMac running OS X 10.6.3 and now 10.6.4 has had a problem randomly freezing. The problem is easily remedied by manually shutting down with the power button and then powering the machine back on. However, I am tired of having to do this and am wondering if there is anything that can be done to stop this from happening. There is no rhyme or reason to these occurrences. Sometimes it will happen when waking up from sleep mode. Sometimes it occurs when you are actively using the computer. I never overload the ram with to many programs or processes at one time. Also, I have tried various resets with no luck. Please help!

You people are overly cautious. As long as the drive isn't being written to at the time, you're not likely to do any harm to the system shutting it down by holding in the power button. Things were a bit different in the days before journaled filesystems, but like so many bits of sage IT wisdom floating about, it's based on severely outdated information. Look at the number of people still giving advice for ni-cad batteries to people with Li-Ion batteries for example. Telling them all about memory effects, and how you should let the battery completely discharge before charging it again. Hasn't been valid advice for probably 10+ years, which is probably just about how long it takes for it to filter down to the general populace. You've got to just love it when someone tries to pass off someone else's bit of advice/wisdom as their own in an attempt to seem like some kind of IT sage, and then because they don't really understand any of the background info, invariably screw it up or keep repeating the same bit of advice for years, long after it stopped being relevant.
Anyway, journaled filesystems, like HFS+, should be able to recover from just about anything short of a HDD failure. Granted the goal is to let everything shut down in an orderly fashion, but I got to tell you. Mac OS X tends to shut down way too fast, so behind the scenes it's probably just kill -9ing everything. Which is to say it's about the same as if you just shut the system off via the power switch.

IMac Super Slow - Beach Ball of Death always spinning

I am new to all this. My iMac is on a wireless network at home and has been running uber slow. I checked under Activity Monitr and see that the pie Chart under the System Memory tab, has a small green sliver of available memory. there is a HUGE red portion which says Wired: Total amount of physical memory that cannot be paged to disk.
What the heck does that mean? How do I see what is contained there and I can I delete some of it? The only thin running is my printer, mouse (wireless) keyboard and Time Machine back-up up disk.
I appreciate any help.
Ann

How much free space do,you have left on your startup drive?
Select the drive icon, on your desktop, then hold the command-I keys on your keyboard to bring up the info pane for your startup drive.
It sounds to me like you need more RAM memory.
Your iMac can take a max. RAM amount of 6 GBs.
Here's a reliable Mac RAM seller
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple/memory/iMac
And here's the procedure for installing it into your iMac
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1423

FREEZE (Beach Ball) in ALL ANY VIDEO PLAYER

Ok, This is very annoying. I fixed this problem before when i clean install SL, then update. But after the last update, (safari update), the problem came back again.
ALL VIDEO PLAYER:
QuickTime 7
QuickTime X
VLC Player
with
Perian and Flip4Mac Codecs
FREEZES while playing Videos.
Do any body experience this problem?
Any Solutions?
<Edited by Host>

How much hard drive space do you have? How much ram do you have?
Make sure you are using the latest versions of all those players you listed.
Disconnect all peripherals from your computer. Boot from your install disc & run Repair Disk from the utility menu. To use the Install Mac OS X disc, insert the disc, and restart your computer while holding down the C key as it starts up.
Select your language.
Once on the desktop, select Utility in the menu bar.
Select Disk Utility.
Select the disk or volume in the list of disks and volumes, and then click First Aid.
Click Repair Disk.
Restart your computer when done.
Repair permissions after you reach the desktop-http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25751
Message was edited by: CMCSK

Spinning beach ball on yosemite

iMac gets spinning beach ball every so often. I must wait for about 5 minutes to get back control. HD only half full. Plenty of RAM. Activity monitor doesn't show high usage of CPU or RAM when beach ball spins. Please help.

HD only half full. Plenty of RAM.
How large is your HD and how much space do you have left?
How much RAM do you have?
Which model iMac are you using?
Check out: Troubleshoot the spinning beach ball/freezing & crashing
Troubleshoot the spinning beach ball

IMac 24 C2D freezing, beach ball, pinwheel

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