Large amounts of virtual memory usage causing low startup disk space warnings

Question

Level 1

0 points

Large amounts of virtual memory usage causing low startup disk space warnings

My wife has an Intel Core 2 Duo Macbook with Leopard 10.5.8. We've run the software update. We've run repair disk permissions. We've restarted the computer. But despite all of that, her virutal memory usage is really high compared to my computer. Each process is using from approximately 600 - 1100 MB of virtual memory. She has 12 GB of free space on her hard drive, but her computer has been running slower lately and has had the low startup disk space warning.

Does anybody know what might be the problem? And do you know how I can fix it? I can't go to an Apple store because they don't have any in the country I'm living in right now. Thanks for any help you can give!

MacBook (13-inch Aluminum Late 2008), Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on May 27, 2012 9:39 AM

Reply

Answer 1

BobHarris

Level 9

56,945 points

May 27, 2012 10:13 AM in response to ja.kz

Virtual Memory values are meaningless. They are only of interest to software developers.

Having too little free disk space can force lots of file fragmentation. The Mac should either free up some space, or have a larger disk installed.

OmniDiskSweeper (free download)

<http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/7402/omnidisksweeper>

can help finding where all the current disk space is being used.

Reply

Answer 2

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

May 27, 2012 10:37 AM in response to ja.kz

Good advice so far, just to add, Pageouts are the important thing about VM...

12 GB Free isn't enough free space by the way.

So we know more about it...

At the Apple Icon at top left>About this Mac, report the version of OSX from that window, then click on More Info, then click on Hardware> and report this upto but not including the Serial#...

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: eMac

Model Identifier: PowerMac6,4

Processor Name: PowerPC G4 (1.2)

Processor Speed: 1.42 GHz

Number Of CPUs: 1

L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB

Memory: 2 GB

Bus Speed: 167 MHz

Boot ROM Version: 4.9.2f1

Open Activity Monitor in Applications>Utilities, select All Processes & sort on CPU%, any indications there?

How much RAM & free space do you have also, click on the Memory & Disk Usage Tabs.

In the Memory tab, are there a lot of Pageouts?

Reply

Answer 3

ja.kz Author

Level 1

0 points

May 27, 2012 8:32 PM in response to ja.kz

We deleted some more things so she now has 25GB free on her 128GB Mac HD. CPU usage looks normal to me. Nothing continuously running high.

I had heard that you should keep ~10% of your hard drive free. Should it be more than that? 25GB is closer to 20% now. Anything else we can do? I guess we'll wait and see if the extra 13GB of space helps the performance.

Reply

Answer 4

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

May 27, 2012 9:37 PM in response to ja.kz

Looks good with no pageouts, let's see how it goes now.

Reply

Answer 5

ja.kz Author

Level 1

0 points

Jun 9, 2012 5:02 AM in response to ja.kz

So it's been a little bit, and the computer still runs sluggishly. I checked Activity Monitor and noticed it having high pageouts like BDAqua asked about (at least I'm guessing this is high).

So what does high Page outs mean? I assume that if I can improve this the computer will run better?

Reply

Answer 6

BobHarris

Level 9

56,945 points

Jun 9, 2012 5:46 AM in response to ja.kz

Start as Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal session. Run the following command:

sat -g 60 100

This will report pageouts every minute for 100 minutes (adjust to suit your tastes)

Now use you Mac as you normally would.

If you notice slowness, check the terminal and see if you are seeing high pageouts during the period of slowness, that would say the app(s) you were running are RAM hungry.

This would indicate all the apps you are currently using need more RAM than you have and the OS is pushing stuff to disk to make room.

You either need to run fewer concurrent apps, or get more RAM

Note: zero or an occasional short low value burp is nothing to worry about. It is sustained high values you are looking for, and associating the time period with the work you were doing using which apps. That is what you are looking for.

Reply

Answer 7

_DerekC_

Level 1

4 points

Mar 18, 2013 4:14 AM in response to BobHarris

I guess you meant "sar -g 60 100" ...?

Reply