RAM keeps going inactive (iMac)

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RAM keeps going inactive (iMac)

Hello!

A few hours ago i upgraded my iMacs RAM to 12GBs from the standard 4, and now the majority of it keeps going inactive for no apparent reason (well any i can find).

I just want to know why this happens and is there anything i can do to stop this? Also can i run programs when the RAM is reading a lot of inactive memory?

This is what my RAM is reading currently;

http://gyazo.com/a4e4557ddbeeba71a969a55195eeabcc

Can i get any support for this problem please, really confused how OS Lion works for managing memory

Thanks

Josh.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Jan 25, 2013 4:05 PM

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Answer 1

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stedman1

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Jan 25, 2013 4:07 PM in response to Josh 5511

This Apple article may help.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1342

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Answer 2

Niel

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726,935 points

Jan 25, 2013 4:09 PM in response to Josh 5511

This happens because some process uses and then releases the RAM; the difference between inactive and free RAM is that inactive RAM's contents are preserved to boost performance if the process that released it wants it back. If there isn't enough free RAM to do something, inactive RAM will be allocated to it.

(75240)

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Answer 3

Josh 5511 Author

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Jan 25, 2013 4:28 PM in response to Niel

Niel wrote:

This happens because some process uses and then releases the RAM; the difference between inactive and free RAM is that inactive RAM's contents are preserved to boost performance if the process that released it wants it back. If there isn't enough free RAM to do something, inactive RAM will be allocated to it.

(75240)

So i should be able to use intense applications like normal even if a large portion of RAM is reading inactive? Or am i getting that wrong?

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