Need Help with iMac "Upgrade"

EGrav wrote:

Steve Cirone wrote:One would think loading the latest OS would improve things, but on my 27 iMac it slowed it down by about 10X, rendering it useless.  After I did a number of expensive things I got it back to about 4X slower than the original.  I'll have to live with it as I can't afford a new one at this juncture.

So, bottom line is NEVER UPGRADE an OS on an iMac.  Much lamenting on the net about this mistake.  Alas, one cannot go back to a previous OS.  It looks it is Apple's way of telling you to buy a new computer by simply destroying your old one.  "The thing about Apple computers is they just work."   I wish.

That might be true of VERY OLD Macs, but in general, updating to new OS versions is a good thing. There must be a problem with your machine. I updated my 4 1/2 yo iMac and 15" MBP to Mountain Lion, then later to Mavericks and had no problems. There was an increase in speed and better memory management. Reading the various forums, this seems to be the usual experience of most upgraders.
To the OP, Pat, there is a lot of mis-information on the web. I hope you get your problem fixed. 

Completely disagree. We mostly get older Mac computers to fix and I'd say in 90% of cases computers are slower after OS upgrade.

Like I said -for OLD Macs that might be true....

EGrav wrote:Like I said -for OLD Macs that might be true....

I'm talking about computers from 2008 up to in some cases 2012.

For reference as to what "old" may be in the digital world, my iMac which was crippled by upgrading to Maverics is a 27" late 2009, i7, 16 gb ram, 2 tb hard drive.  After "upgrading" to Maverics under the direction of Apple Support on the phone, my computer was essentially useless, 10X slower than before.  About all I got was the spinning pinwheel.

Before the destruction, it was so fast nearly everything I did on it happened immediately.  Image editing was a joy.

After the destruction I took it to the Mac Doc here in San Diego for a complete overhaul, new 2 tb hd, cleaned the inside of the screen, reloaded everything.  It is now usable but much slower, by a factor of about 4X.  But it was so fast to begin with, it is still my fastest computer for image crunching.

EJ said in a similar thread that "upgrading" was a bad idea on a Mac if the original OS is older than two generations, that is, if say I had OS 5 and now went to OS 7, that would be OK.  But not ok to go to 8 or higher.

But after getting burned badly, personally I will never ever change from the original OS in any iMac I may get in the future.

Point of all this is to help others avoid wrecking their computers with so called OS upgrades.  I am not here to grandstand, argue, or pontificate.  I just wish I'd known what I know now 6 months ago.  And just because this happened to me doesn't mean it is a normal thing or a statistical general truth.  But just google up this issue and one will find it is pretty much going to wreck your machine if you do this.

But if you are sure it won't hurt you, go for it.  No skin off my knees.

Must be bad luck. My iMac was also a late 2009, i5, 12gb ram and 1 tb drive. The MBP was also a late 2009 model. Both have been upgraded through the latest OS (Mavericks) without problem and work great. I'm sorry that your upgrade went sideways. But a blanket recommendation not to upgrade OS's is incorrect. Again, no skin off me, either. Good luck.