Memory Problems - No Free Memory

Question

Memory Problems - No Free Memory

Thanks in advance for any help...

My Mac is struggling with the Memory. I recently upgraded to 4GB but the iMac is still incredibly slow.

For Example, if I run iPhoto to import some images it seems to consume all free memory. I am monitoring the memory with Activity Monitor.

With iPhoto running:

Free: 55MB

Wired: 436MB

Active: 1.88GB

Inactive: 1.64GB

When I run activity monitor it says the following when all aplications are shut down apart from Safari...

Free: 135MB

Wired: 505MB

Active: 1.74GB

Inactive: 1.62GB

Any ideas?

Doesn't seem right to me and it is running very slow.

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), iMac late 2007

Posted on Feb 3, 2013 1:10 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

steve359

Level 6

17,169 points

Feb 3, 2013 1:13 PM in response to Robert Borley

More important is the stats under "Applcations > Utilities > ActivityMonitor".

This is mine:

If PageOuts exceed 10% of PageIns you need more RAM. Also report "Swap Used".

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Answer 2

Feb 3, 2013 1:23 PM in response to steve359

Thanks for such a fast reply!

Here it is...

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Answer 3

steve359

Level 6

17,169 points

Feb 3, 2013 1:28 PM in response to Robert Borley

352 / 1120 = 31%. Time to upgrade.

macsales.com and crucial.com sell RAM at prices you will like. Both provide instructions to replace, as does ifixit.com.

Both sites will tell you how much RAM you can put in, but I am unfamiliar with iMac RAM slot configurations, so wait for others to report how many slots you have.

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Answer 4

Feb 3, 2013 1:35 PM in response to steve359

That is a bit of a problem. I already just upgraded from 2GB to 4GB which is apparently the maximum my iMac can take. I have an intel iMac mid 2007 model.

I purchased the memory from crucial.com

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Answer 5

Feb 3, 2013 1:36 PM in response to Robert Borley

Seems like you have enough RAM. The problem may be that you are misiterputing the types of memory usage reported by Activity Monitor. The reason I say you have enough memory is that you have over 1 GB of inactive memory. Inactive memory is RAM that your Mac has used for applications that are no longer running. All of the inactive memory is available to your Mac at anytime it needs it.

You can find out more here:

http://macs.about.com/od/usingyourmac/qt/os-x-memory-usage.htm

As for your Mac being slow, how much free space do youhave on your Mac's startup drive. It should be at least 15% of the drive space. And that is a minimum.

Tom

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