What is the difference between a blue spinning wheel and rainbow wheel?

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Level 1

8 points

What is the difference between a blue spinning wheel and rainbow wheel?

Does a blue spinning wheel mean I have serious memory issues? (I sometimes get the rainbow wheel, but recently the blue spinnnig wheel is showing up).

I checke my Activity Monitor and it shows 41 GB pages in and 20 GB pages out. I only have 4GB of memory and my iMac is 5 years old. It shows I have 35MB to 100 MB of free memory as I'm watching the Activity Monitor. It's showing 3.81 GB used out of my 4GB memory (I have Power point open, firefox, email, calendar, itunes, Xcel). Is it time for a new computer?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8), 4GB memory

Posted on Apr 5, 2013 9:26 AM

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Answer 1

Apr 5, 2013 11:09 AM in response to BocaJulz

How large is you HD and how much space do you have left?

Have you read for possible solutions over in the "More Like This" thread over here?----------------------->

Check out: Troubleshoot the spinning beach ball/freezing & crashing

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Answer 2

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,102 points

Apr 5, 2013 12:00 PM in response to BocaJulz

In Activity Monitor how much "inactive Ram" do you have? If it is much, restart the mac and normally that should be better.

In general: 4GB of Ram should be enough, except for apllications that are very Ram hungry (FCP and...) .

35MB of free memory is way to low, I suppose that you meant 35GB of 100GB on the disk? If you reallly mean of the RAM (which is in line with your swaps on the disk), then go to Applications/Utilities and start Terminal:

in the Terminal window type

Purge

and thenhit Enter, wait till you see the cursor again, then in the Terminal menu choose Quit.

Look in Activity Moitor what the free Ram is.

Then look in Applications/Utilities and start SystemInformation:

In the left column click memory:

are both banks mentioned and the total is 4GB?

then click Serial-Ata and tell what disk size you have and how much Available you have.

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Answer 3

BocaJulz Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 5, 2013 7:28 PM in response to Baby-Boomer-USofA

I have 639 GB hard drive, with 255 GB free and 383 GB used.

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Answer 4

BocaJulz Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 5, 2013 7:46 PM in response to Lexiepex

Here's what I have:

Memory: 4GB (total banks - I have two 2GB)

Free RAM: 131 MB

Wired: 560 MB

Active: 1.71 GB

Inactive 1.63 GB

Used total: 3.89 GB

639 GB Hard Drive capacity

383 GB used

255 GB space free

Any thoughts?

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Answer 5

Apr 5, 2013 7:50 PM in response to BocaJulz

You've tried all of the solutions previously mentioned?

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