Macbook Air M1 with default 8gb RAM runs out of memory and suggest to close the browser

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Macbook Air M1 with default 8gb RAM runs out of memory and suggest to close the browser

Just bought the MacBook Air M1 base config and I am doing a acloudguru.com AWS training . There are range of videos to go through and after watching the videos for 10-15 minutes the suggestions pops up on the Safari browser saying the browser is consuming lots of memory try closing it and relaunch it. I checked the Activity and saw the browser using 3gb memory space :( (just for video). No other application is open on my my Mac. Now if I ignore the warning then the browser refreshes automatically and restart the video again.

I had the Windows laptop with same config (Intel chip of course) I never had that issue doing the training.

Has anyone experienced it? is it with all Macs or just M1 or my Mac only?

I am starting to loose confidence in my Mac as if just a video is going to drain that much then what if I start my code editor and other apps open.

Any suggestions or shall I replace or MacBook Pro 13 or wait for MacBook Pro 16 as I am a software developer.

Thanks

Posted on Dec 22, 2020 12:55 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

chandrakant96 Author

Level 1

11 points

Jan 2, 2021 3:13 AM in response to Tesserax

Thanks, I think getting the 16gb RAM is worth for long term. As I could see that after using the Eclipse or Intellij app the SWAP memory is getting used and I am afraid that it may degrade the performance of SSD overtime. Given that I purchased the laptop during holiday season I have time to return/exchange it. Now the delivery date is pushed back to a month so I will see how it goes after 16gb and interestingly M1X is around the corner.

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Answer 2

Tesserax

Level 10

159,272 points

Dec 22, 2020 1:32 PM in response to chandrakant96

I think the issue is the minimum amount of RAM installed on your MacBook Air. 8 GBs is just not "enough" for most computing activities these days ... regardless of the make of the notebook. Unfortunately, there is no way to upgrade the RAM on your M1 notebook. You will be better off getting either MacBook Pro that you mentioned ... with 16 GB of RAM minimum.

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Answer 3

Tesserax

Level 10

159,272 points

Dec 23, 2020 8:20 AM in response to chandrakant96

No I did understand that this was a M1 notebook. There is not enough information available to determine if this is a general issue with the M1 MacBook Air or yours specifically.

FWIW, I have a M1 MacBook Air with 16 GB of RAM and do not experience this issue at all. However, as configured, I can't verify what you are seeing, like-for-like.

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Answer 4

Dec 22, 2020 7:33 PM in response to Tesserax

My windows laptop with 8gb runs perfectly fine without interruption for hours or video playback.

I think you are answering in general but my question was specific to M1.

Even if I get 16 gb of MacBook Air/Pro my fear is that the video playback would continue to consume memory until 16gb and at that point it will report the same error(similar to 8gb) in that case 16gb is also not sufficient. Since current notebook is trying to use memory continuously and at one point its interrupting so I don't know at what point its stopping. Since it looks like the more time I play the video its going to keep on eating memory.

So my question is that is this MacBook Air M1 issue in general or my Air M1?

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Answer 5

Mar 8, 2021 6:34 PM in response to chandrakant96

Hi! I just purchased my base model M1 Macbook air and I am having the same issues. I cant even play my school videos needed for classes and I just spent over $1000 on this laptop. Just for it to not be able to handle something my last $400 windows laptop handled so easily. Im wondering if you found a fix or a way to make it bearable at least? Or what you ended up doing?

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Answer 6

Jan 26, 2021 11:35 AM in response to chandrakant96

I have this exact same issue. Frustrating.

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Answer 7

gamezj

Level 1

4 points

Feb 17, 2021 5:24 PM in response to Martin Spencer

I have the same issue MacBook Pro M1 16Gb.

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Answer 8

Feb 20, 2021 2:39 PM in response to chandrakant96

I'm having the same problem. It's my first mac and I'm thinking that it was a very bad decision to invest in this peace of RAM devouring. Very frustrated!

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Macbook Air M1 with default 8gb RAM runs out of memory and suggest to close the browser

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