n0irw Loc: Perry, OK

I forgot to ask, which version of OS X are you running??

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Remember when the max on an IBM PC was 640k?

ptcanon3ti Loc: NJ

haha...honestly...no. :oops:

But I never started using a computer until i began teaching, and then it was a mac.

BobHartung Loc: Bettendorf, IA

You do need a reasonable sized boot drive. Both a SSD or a fusion drive are fine. I would suggest at least 1 TB so that you have plenty of free space to use as a scratch drive.

With the low cost of RAM why not push to 32 GB, especially if you are keeping multiple processing programs running.

Keep all files externally.

By upgrading to a "modern" iMac you can get firewire external drives that are fast. An while you're at it, turn the external drive into a RAID 5 or perhaps to mirrored 4 TB external drives.

jcboy3

First thing to do is make sure you have a backup of your hard drive. And keep it up to date.

Second thing is to check your drive. You need to boot from an external startup disk. If you cloned your backup drive, use it. Otherwise, make one. Google for help on that. Then run Disk Utility, repair permissions, repair drive, repeat both once. If Disk Utility reports errors after that, you should consider replacing your hard drive. Boot from your system drive and resume use of your system.

The freezing of an application can occur occasionally, but if the system crashes again you have a more serious problem.

You can try a fresh installation of the operating system.

But with an old disk drive, I always suspect that the disk is failing. Without further analysis, I would just replace the drive immediately. It's cheap, and if that doesn't work you can always use the drive for external storage after you repair or replace your computer.

Finally, if you still have problems after replacing the drive and doing a fresh installation of the operating system, then you have a more serious problem. At that point, given the age of your system, you are probably best off getting a new one. But if you want to keep trying, you can take it in to have it repaired.

You can buy a system analyzing program and try it first. But for most it's easier to just take it in and let the pros use their tools.

Woodchip

Make sure you go to Disk Utility the go to Repair Permissions and run, this repair it might help

frjack Loc: Boston, MA

Did you "upgrade" your IOS to Yosemite? I put it on my laptop and desktop a few months ago and have been unhappy since, especially with the laptop performance (it is older). WiFi is wretched. Aperture hasn't been too bad since the putative upgrade. Apparently malfunctioning is a feature of Yosemite.

RichieC Loc: Adirondacks

What happens when a computer "crashes" is often it simply runs out or ram, the computer runs a subroutine, which in an image is a very big number crunch, and it comes to an end. A computer needs to finish a routine to know what to do next.. like a wind up toy that has met a wall... it does not know to return and freezes ... or it could be a corrupted bit of code. Apples use virtual memory to help, but it is slower and if you are near full, the blocks it accesses may be fragmented... perhaps a SSD might help if you have sata compatibility. Or use an clean external SSD for a scratch disk... though your internal bus will be much faster.

Frankly- 8 years is a long time, when the software you are using is written to take advantage of new hardware... you will progressively run into more problems I am afraid. This is a "problem" with macs that continue to run and work well, but time and technology has moved on. Usually windows have already met the scrap heap. I have a 9500 that works fine that I bought in the 90's, use it to run a very expensive UMAX scanner that refused to update drivers to OSX. IN fact I have 4 old G3 and G4's macs that work perfectly... The 9500 was on every day all day for 10 years..

Dds82

I have a state of the art iMac and after I started using LR5 all these problems started when using LR. Now it's slow for everything I do. I've orered ram to double it to 16. Hopefully that will help. I'm told most apple computers start acting up after 3 years, which is exactly my situation. Not sure I did the right thing when I switched from Microsoft, where every computer lasted much much longer......

Cdouthitt Loc: Traverse City, MI

16 will help with LR...it's a memory hog...I also run memory keeper which helps keep things running at peak performance.

http://memorykeeper.kromtech.net/

After the RAM update, look into replacing your old drives with SSD drives, especially for boot-up. My new mac turns on in about 18 seconds and programs launch almost instantaneously.

Dds82

I will have to look at this memory keeper, I assume it's software that manages ram.
My HD have tons of unused memory. Would that not suggest it's not a HD issue? What does SSD stand for? I'm thinking a a new flash drive HD....

Cdouthitt Loc: Traverse City, MI

yes, it manages memory and warns you when it gets low and then you can purge it to gain memory. It's not uncommon for me to need to do this a few times while doing large editing sessions in LR5. I'm hoping the new version LR (due to come out soon) will fix some of the the memory usage issues.

Solid State Drive...yep a flash drive.

Dds82

Thx. Will look up ur link .....

MichaelJonesImages Loc: Newburgh,NY

Don't know why everyone always want to throw money at everything without even asking what has changed and when it started happening. I have 20G of ram on my imac and lightroom usually never uses more then 4-5G even when rendering hundreds of photos, or making batch preset adjustments to hundreds of photos.

Maybe the OP is using older software that is suited to that machine. Was your system working fine with your files, software etc until recently or did something change? Did you recently upgrade to a camera with much larger files, new software, etc.? Is processor or ram maxed out when looking at activity monitor while performing your usual functions in LR or other software?

does hard drive has sufficient space left or are you down to less than 10-15% capacity? This severely slows the system in my experience.

Dds82

To answer ur questions: No upgrade to larger cam, but started using 22mp raw files. My hard drive has lots of memory left. My problems started after I started using raw files with LR5. How do I measure or read what u refer to as "ram maxed when looking at activity monitor"? My activity progress bar sits there and progresses very slowly since problem started. How do I measure how much ram LR uses, you state 5-6 G for yours?