Comments on: Does my mac need more memory?

By: admin

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:35:31 +0000

The items on your desktop are still on your harddrive, not in RAM.
RAM is the memory in your computer where things are loaded when you open them up.

By: bamakodaker

bamakodaker — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:54:28 +0000

I wonder if everyone is forgetting something very simple – what about HOW RAM is used? Is your desktop crowded with items using up that RAM? Keep everything IN your harddrive. ONLY have ALIAS’ on your desktop!~ Keep that RAM free.

By: juelz

juelz — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:04:43 +0000

I am confused because from your comments it seems as if my system isn’t doing what it is supposed to- my page in is 258.08 and increasing but my page outs is 0 and swap used is 0- is this good or bad? I have 1.04 memory used out of 2 GB but it seems as if an update im trying t o get for my microsoft office is not letting me download because of lack of memory. I am quite confused at this point

By: Dunwell

Dunwell — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 05:30:20 +0000

recently, I deleted some file and my ibook G4 wouldnt boot. I rebooted it with “Leopard” (it was Tiger before). now it is so slow I have towait onit to open some firefox pages. It is even doing things I didnt comand it to do.
I have 512ram 1.33 processor and 60G HD. what can I do?
Dunwell

By: Ben D.

Ben D. — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:16:52 +0000

“Free tells you how much free memory you currently have, the higher the better”.

Actually you should never expect “free” to be high. See this article from Apple for more information: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1342?viewlocale=en_US

By: sarah

sarah — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:09:27 +0000

My computer is super slow! My page in/outs are: 74840/25909 and ‘ins’ keep going up. Also the Free is 80 MBs. I just rebooted too? Reboot again? I was just running word and excel and I’m soooo frustrated.

By: George

George — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:24:49 +0000

MacBook (Generation 3)
1GB RAM

Free: 11.52MB
Page in: 1218997
Page Out: 736528

Page in/Page out are increasing when I went to a website on FireFox.

Applications in use:

FireFox
Safari
Microsoft Word
Mail
Activity Monitor
Grab
Preview

I also use a lot of Photoshop, iMovie and iPhoto.

For me, it always seems like FireFox that is creating the whole mess. But I need it because of it’s tools that Safari doesnt have.

But my main question is obviously, Do I Need More RAM??

By: admin

admin — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 03:34:00 +0000

Stuart,
how much RAM do you have?
Have you recently upgraded to Leopard?

Wayne

By: Drew

Drew — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 03:04:23 +0000

@ Stuart,
If your mac is restarted & not running any apps and you are getting page ins/outs make sure there are no applications running in the background such as iTunes helper, iCal helper menu items dashboard widgets third party apps…
They should be listed in the activity monitor window.

It could just be the load that the OS places on your system. You may need more RAM, just keep an eye on the amount of paging and contact Applecare if it concerns you. You don’t say what version of Mac OS or the amount of RAM you have, but more should help. 2 – 4 GB should keep it running smoothly for basic tasks.

PS the Leopard Activity Monitor specifies the paging in MB/GB units, Im unsure if the units are Kb, MB or GB in your comment.

Nice article, it helps clarify what is going on with memory.

By: stuart

stuart — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 09:49:19 +0000

Hello again, I just wanted to give an update. I rebooted last night before I went to bed. Again right after start up I has an extreme amount of page in’s. Similar to my above comment. Now less the 16hrs later I now have this
Swap 2.01GB(3.00GB)
Page in: 157,558
Page out: 273,764

I really am having a hard time grasping what is actually wrong since I have not had this problem until just recently. My warranty is not yet finished for my iMac.

Please help shed a light on this for me.

Kind regards,

Stuart