iMac A1311 is suddenly so slow it is unusable

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Hello, I am having troubles with my Mid-2010 21.5" A1311 iMac. It worked fine about a month ago, then I left my home and now when I came back it is almost unusable.

Loading to the desktop took about half hour, it was ages before the cursor would respond to mouse movements and clicking anything would see its result within tens of seconds up to a minute.

As all my data are backed up, I didn't hesitate to try and reinstall MacOsX. I don't have the DVD so I created a bootable USB stick. I used the same image I used successfuly before. I managed to get into the bootloader menu and selected my thumb drive, then left it for about 12 hours, while it was stuck at the Apple logo. Then I lost my patience and turned the thing off.

I have no peripherals attached to it and there is only the minimum amount of RAM in there. I tried removing one of them, leaving only one inside, but it started beeping and didn't do anything, so it appears two RAM cards is the minimum here.

I would hate to discard the computer, as it worked perfectly fine until month ago and it seems this should be just a minor issue. Should I try and replace RAMs or does it look more like HDD issue? While booting from USB drive, HDD shouldn't be causing any problems, right? Could it be CPU or something similarly hard to replace?

Thanks for any advice.

Tydlifuk.

EDIT: I also wanted to say that it also takes about half hour to load the Recovery mode and responses are very slow there, too.
 
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Cory Cooper

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Hello and welcome.

At first thought, it sounds more like a HDD issue.

-Did you have a power outage while you were gone?
-Did you leave it powered on when you were gone?
-Were you experiencing any issues previously - like hanging/freezing/etc.?

C
 
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AFAIK there was not power outage. The computer was not powered on but it was plugged in. I had no issues whatsoever before I left, I was quite happy with it, considering it is very old machine.

Where is the "Recovery" system hidden? Is it on the main drive or is there another internal memory just for this? Responses are very slow in the recovery mode as well.
 

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