iMac 2006 upgrade

[draemn]

Hey,

My iMac 2006 20" is starting to get really un-responsive and has very slow loading times from when the OS logs in to when I can do anything with it. I may have some optimization issues, but little to none that I can find. I haven't done anything in a 5 months to optimize, but I only use it for very light uses now (as I have a main PC now).

I'm looking at potentially upgrading some hardware to optimize it. My 2GB of RAM doesn't seem to be an issue as I'm pretty much never using more than 1.5GB at a time. My CPU doesn't seem to be a huge issue (unless there is something I'm missing) and it's a core 2 duo at 2.17 Ghz (I think, maybe higher?)... I'm thinking that maybe the HDD is getting on with age and swapping out the HDD will help out?

What do you think? Thanks.

[lowfat]

Have you tried deleting the /Library/Caches and ~/Library/Caches folders. After a reboot then empty trash it should be a tad faster. As for hardware there isn't much you can do. You could always throw a faster HDD or an SSD in it, but iMacs aren't exactly easy to upgrade.

[_dangtx_]

do try a ram upgrade, even if task manager doesnt convince you. and follow above as well.

[draemn]

I haven't done anything recently, but I usually run OnyX and do stuff like that (clear cache, run maintenance scripts, etc) and that only goes so far. Although RAM upgrades often help slow computers, I'm not too convinced if going past 2GB will really fix things.

[lowfat]

Originally Posted by draemn

Although RAM upgrades often help slow computers, I'm not too convinced if going past 2GB will really fix things.

It won't unless you use applications that take advantage of it.

[draemn]

Yeah, any thoughts on the HDD replacement? I won't be putting a SSD in and I'm not going to try replacing the processor. As of 8 months ago, it was still running just as fast as ever, so it's pretty recent and no major software change (unless a software update crippled performance?) When idle, it uses less than 1 GB of RAM.

[draemn]

I managed to regain about 80% of my performance by using OnyX to clean out many caches, repair stuff etc, so now I'm not as inclined to upgrade.

I might still want to upgrade the HDD, but it will be a lot of work for only that remaining 20% performance that I should have. Any thoughts on using a Momentus XT as just a normal HDD might not provide that much performance and an SSD is too expensive? (I need at least 200GB)

Edit: after some light reading, it looks like the Momentus is a pretty damn good option if you're willing to spend the $100. Some people were reporting something about a 750GB WD blue, but they were mostly talking about 2.5" drives for laptops, so I don't know if there is a comparable product for 3.5" A few users found the WD to be almost as good as the XT and better on power consumption.