I have not had to troubleshoot a wonky Mac in many years........

[JPK]

A friend dropped off a huge 2011 iMac and says it has been running really slow and lots of spinning beach balls. Of course no recent backups.

I did a full backup, restarted from backup disk, repaired disk & repaired permission.

What are my next steps?

JPK

[GuyGene]

I haven't either, since OS X came out. Nary a system related problem on several (about 10) Macs I help with.

I'd suggest adding RAM, maybe an SSD.

[bhaveshp]

I'm sure others will have more complete suggestions, but:

1. Check how much free disk space. If less than 15 GB free, either free up more space, or get a bigger disk.

2. Check HD SMART status. Download a free utility that reads the SMART status to tell if a drive is failiing

3. Run adware medic (google it) to clear up any hidden malware

4. Create a fresh user login. See if slowness persists

5. Install an SSD to speed up disk bottlenecks

[GGD]

What OS?
How Much RAM
How much disk space used, how much free?
What operations are slow?
Have you looked at Activity Monitor to see what the system is doing?
Have you tried logging out of this user and logging in as a Guest or test user? Does the performance change?
Have you tried doing a Safe Boot (shift key down), and choosing Shut Down when it gets to the login screen, and then restarting?
Have you looked at the Console Logs to see if anything strange is being reported?
As others mentioned, check SMART status with SMART Utility.

[anonymouse1]

In priority order, from what others said, and one addition (underlined)

How Much RAM
How much disk space used, how much free?
See what items are set to automatically start when the user logs in, in Accounts.
Have you tried logging out of this user and logging in as a Guest or test user? Does the performance change?
Run adware medic (google it) to clear up any hidden malware.

AFTER you've checked the backup to make sure it's perfect, you could try nuking and paving and reinstalling from backup, but that's a very last resort.

I'm betting on low RAM, or too little free disk space, or something running automatically in background......

[JPK]

FYI
iMac 27" 2011
10.10.5
2.7ghz Intel Core i5
4GB Ram
1 TB hard drive

Activity monitor looks ok nothing out of the ordinary
Drive appears ok according to disk utility
Ran adware medic (now renamed) nothing found

Checking some tests with Techtool
JPK

[sekker]

Check for malware.

I discovered a new one on this main Mac, and I am sure I did not click on anything nefarious.

[Gilbert]

Could definitely benefit from more RAM.

I just inherited the same machine but with 16GB of RAM as a trade-out for some work I did. The only issue was the HD is failing but the owner didn't want to bother with it and bought a current model 27" iMac.

I have decided to install a 240GB SSD and a new 1TB HD and make them into a homemade Fusion drive. I did it on my other 2011 i7 iMac and it has been great but there I used a 4TB HD plus a 240GB SSD.

Good luck!

[jdc]

JPK wrote:
What are my next steps?

JPK

Id stop wasting your time with all that adware/techtool/permissions crap and just nuke and pave.

As long as you have a backup, who cares.

In my book a "fixed" system is going to "unfix" itself again in no time.

Nuke, pave, start over. You would have been done already...

[mrlynn]

jdc wrote:
As long as you have a backup, who cares.

If malware or corrupted files are the problem, you'll be reinstalling those files. . .

/Mr Lynn