[funtela]

What's up HF. So my wife has a 2014 iMac that we both have been using for a few months and it's been working fine. I recently updated it to Big Sur, and suddenly it's extremely slow. The loading pinwheel pops up constantly and everything runs extremely slow. Like if something was using up the processor or ram most of the time.

I checked the Activity Monitor and I couldn't really find anything on there that's using up a significant amount of resources. The only thing I've recently installed was Atomic Wallet to hold our crypto but I only open that occasionally.

What can be the issue here? The HDD is nowhere near full. It has 300gb free of the ~500gb capacity. RAM is only 8gb but I doubt that can be the issue. What can be some other causes of this? It's really unusable at this point.

[webdev77]

It's a 2014 iMac for starters, but you also noted you installed a newer OS version. It's likely the OS itself is using up a significant chunk of your system resources. A hdd from 2014 is also going to be pretty slow to begin with, so it may just be that.

[funtela]

It's a 2014 iMac for starters, but you also noted you installed a newer OS version. It's likely the OS itself is using up a significant chunk of your system resources. A hdd from 2014 is also going to be pretty slow to begin with, so it may just be that.

It might be the update then. It ran pretty well before the update. I just thought Big Sur would perform better. Usually older macs run new OSs just fine.

[Photograph]

It might be the update then. It ran pretty well before the update. I just thought Big Sur would perform better. Usually older macs run new OSs just fine.

Funny you mention that. My 2014 Macbook pro was working fine until I updated to Big Sur.

It must be the operating system.

Here I was thinking I was the only one experiencing these issues.

[LoremIpsum]

I worked a while for Apple, but I'm very out-dated so what I hear about your story it could be one of the following things.

Potential solutions;
> Check for a better HDD. I'm not sure if the 2014 is still being upgraded by Apple or perhaps done by yourself. Go for a SSD. Non-spinning components make it faster, more quiet and with more duration or however you say this in English.

> See if you can do a clean install. Backup the files you deem as important, manually on an external HDD or SSD. Clean install your iMac and put back manually, the files you backed up. That way the "litter" that is often sneaky crawling into your iMac is gone. Also all of the "messy" hidden files that are backed up by default will not be a problem since you back up manually

> Let it check by Apple (if they still work at 2014 models) and see what the Diagnostic is. Often you see where the issue is and what to do to solve it.

I hope you can get that thing back to work like a rocket!

[funtela]

Funny you mention that. My 2014 Macbook pro was working fine until I updated to Big Sur.

It must be the operating system.

Here I was thinking I was the only one experiencing these issues.

Yea man it seems like it is. It was running perfect. It was a clean install too. I wiped the whole HDD before installing Big Sur. I might need to go back to Catalina.

[funtela]

I worked a while for Apple, but I'm very out-dated so what I hear about your story it could be one of the following things.

Potential solutions;
> Check for a better HDD. I'm not sure if the 2014 is still being upgraded by Apple or perhaps done by yourself. Go for a SSD. Non-spinning components make it faster, more quiet and with more duration or however you say this in English.

> See if you can do a clean install. Backup the files you deem as important, manually on an external HDD or SSD. Clean install your iMac and put back manually, the files you backed up. That way the "litter" that is often sneaky crawling into your iMac is gone. Also all of the "messy" hidden files that are backed up by default will not be a problem since you back up manually

> Let it check by Apple (if they still work at 2014 models) and see what the Diagnostic is. Often you see where the issue is and what to do to solve it.

I hope you can get that thing back to work like a rocket!

Sorry I thought I responded to you the other day but it must've not posted.

I've already tried a clean install and it didn't help. I now know that I need to downgrade back to Catalina but it seems that Apple made that harder to do this year.

I tried using Internet Recovery but it only allows me to reinstall Big Sur. Bootable USB is another option. Is there another way to do it? I don't want to have to go out and buy one just for this lol.

[LoremIpsum]

Sorry I thought I responded to you the other day but it must've not posted.

I've already tried a clean install and it didn't help. I now know that I need to downgrade back to Catalina but it seems that Apple made that harder to do this year.

I tried using Internet Recovery but it only allows me to reinstall Big Sur. Bootable USB is another option. Is there another way to do it? I don't want to have to go out and buy one just for this lol.

The only way to downgrade the OS, as far as my outdated knowledge, is by using an external drive / bootable CD.
Uninstall the current OS when starting your device and select the bootable drive / CD to install the older version of OS.

Apologies for the poor description, English isn’t my mothers tongue.

[funtela]

The only way to downgrade the OS, as far as my outdated knowledge, is by using an external drive / bootable CD.
Uninstall the current OS when starting your device and select the bootable drive / CD to install the older version of OS.

Apologies for the poor description, English isn’t my mothers tongue.

Thanks man and no worries! I understand you perfectly.

I just picked up a 15gb usb drive so hopefully I can get this done by tonight.

[LoremIpsum]

Thanks man and no worries! I understand you perfectly.

I just picked up a 15gb usb drive so hopefully I can get this done by tonight.

That would be enough I think, good luck!