Help I Feel like My MB is acting like an Old Dog

Lyssa wrote:
You need to take a look at how much RAM each application is using, along with how much CPU is being used. Make sure you have "All Processes" showing.

20% free on your hard drive is okay, but more room might be better.

~Lyssa

Lyssa,

Thank you for the quick rely, I have done and tried to google to see if my RAM is higher than others for the most part I think not. Anyways, I welcome your additional thoughts?

Order of most used RAM
Name / CPU / Threads Ream Mem / V. Mem
Adium 0.0 6 138.4 MB 201.7 MB
kernel_task 5.3 73 132.1 MB 21.6 MB
NeoOffice 0.3 22 119.2 MB 251.1 MB
Safari 0.0 8 113.4 MB 275.4 MB
iTunes 0.4 13 99.2 MB 113.2 MB
Mail 0.0 7 89.4 MB 102.4 MB
WindowServer 3.1 5 86.7 MB 58.4 MB
Finder 7.0 10 79.6 MB 81.8 MB
mds 0.1 5 68.6 MB 281.3 MB
DashboardClient 0.0 7 45.7 MB 203.0 MB
DashboardClient 0.0 7 45.1 MB 214.3 MB
mdworker 0.0 3 44.4 MB 73.3 MB
Skype 0.1 17 43.3 MB 125.7 MB


Thanks!
-h

Lyssa wrote:
Adium's real memory usage looks to be a touch high--mine is under 50MB.

Have you tried running JUST Parallels to see how it behaves? Also make sure you try MacMedic's suggestion.

~Lyssa

Hi again!

Thanks for the replies. I have tried the make new user account a few months ago and will try it again.

With regards to Parallels solo, does not seem to change the feel of performance. Still feels slow.

On your Adium how many services/accounts do you login to? I have 7 including Bonjour.

Thanks again for your help!

Cheers,
-h

Mac Medic ( be@MacOSG.com ) wrote:
Try logging into another User account and see if things are faster in there once.

Dave M.
MacOSG Founder/Ambassador  An Apple User Group  iTunes: MacOSG Podcast
Macsimum News Associate Editor  Creator of 'Mac611 - Mobile Mac Support'

Thanks for the suggestion! I tried this a little while back but will do it again to see if there are any new results!

Appreciate your help and support!

Cheer,
-h

Lyssa wrote:
I have 3 (2 AIM, 1 MSN), so that could be the reason for the lower consumption.

Another thing to try would be starting the computer in Safe Mode and working there to see if things feel snappier.

Is it only Parallels that runs slowly? Do any other applications/actions seem slow?

~Lyssa

Please remind me about starting in "safe mode" that sounds like a Ms term.

No other apps will just kind of freeze up for a short while, VLC if playing a movie and doing something in NeoOffice, or Safari. If I wait the machine will come back but I believe it should perform faster.

Thanks again!
-h

Thanks!

Will try that and report back. Appreciate your help!

Cheer,
h

Lyssa wrote:
Start your computer with the Shift key held down to enter safe mode.

Similar to the Windows Safe mode, several services aren't active in Safe mode--I can find an article with a list if need be as I don't know exactly which ones are cut off.

If your computer runs better in Safe mode, we can troubleshoot further and figure out what's bogging things down.

~Lyssa

Hello,

Had a chance to try things in safe boot. I would say there were improvement, as expected but without audio, spotlight, and the parallels services iI was not able to make an apple to apple coparison.

I did read the Apple post on safeboot. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564

here is the memory usage I found

sorted by largest memory usage

App /CPU / Threads/ Real Mem / V Mem
Safari 0.0 9 224.6 MB 334.6 MB
Adium 0.0 6 214.1 MB 210.3 MB
Mail 0.0 7 174.4 MB 185.6 MB
NeoOffice 0.3 22 149.9 MB 329.2 MB
Skype 0.2 18 106.1 MB 123.8 MB
Safari Webpage Preview Fetcher 8.6 6 78.5 MB 215.7 MB
DashboardClient 0.0 7 68.6 MB 195.3 MB
kernel_task 2.4 53 65.5 MB 10.3 MB
DashboardClient 0.0 9 57.8 MB 61.5 MB
WindowServer 2.2 5 53.0 MB 46.1 MB
DashboardClient 0.0 5 50.7 MB 53.0 MB
Finder 0.0 8 50.1 MB 44.2 MB
DashboardClient 0.0 5 47.5 MB 58.4 MB
DashboardClient 0.0 9 44.8 MB 53.4 MB
Dock 0.3 3 43.8 MB 36.1 MB
GrowlHelperApp 0.0 3 43.6 MB 57.5 MB
SystemUIServer 0.3 3 40.9 MB 45.1 MB
DashboardClient 3.7 5 37.2 MB 46.5 MB
Activity Monitor 4.3 2 33.7 MB 22.7 MB
coreservicesd 0.0 4 32.3 MB 19.9 MB
DashboardClient 0.0 4 31.0 MB 45.4 MB

I am going to try a normal boot and look at the page ins/out as suggested also.

Thanks so much again for the help!
-h