I added 4 gigs of Ram to my 5 gig Mac Pro and it is slower?

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Level 1

4 points

I added 4 gigs of Ram to my 5 gig Mac Pro and it is slower?

I was making a very large and heavily edited 4 hour DVD in iDVD and was having glitches after the CD was burned and after saving a Disc Image. Some of the chapter markers were missing and some of the audio was 2 seconds behind. I've studied a problem with my blue MultiMediaImporter.Oxygene folder that bounces in my apps bar when I hit play, but am still confused.

I assumed the problem was not enough ram, 5 gigs. So, I put in 4 more gigs. Now, my Mac Pro is running even slower than before? I thoought editing my DVD and other apps would be racing along now, but I am waiting for them to open and waiting for my edits while watching the rainbow disc spin.

thank you,

Paul Neathery

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), IMovie 6 / iDVD 6

Posted on Apr 19, 2013 8:32 AM

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Answer 1

The hatter

Level 9

60,980 points

Apr 19, 2013 8:52 AM in response to paulneathery

Which model? 3,1? how many processors and cores? what type of memory?

How To Install and Remove Memory Mac Pro

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT4433

2x2GB FBDIMM DDR2 667MHz @ $29

http://www.amazon.com/BUFFERED-PC2-5300-FB-DIMM-APPLE-Memory/dp/B002ORUUAC/

More a factor of disk drive(s) and processors, how much free space, the type of disk drives even.

5GB was probably 'low' and ideal is 4x1GB or 4x2GB (the first is minimum for Final Cut to have symmetrical memory performance in 1,1 or 2,1). For 2008, the ideal is to fill all 8 DIMM slots to achieve max memory bandwidth 17% improvement over using less.

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Answer 2

paulneathery Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 19, 2013 2:53 PM in response to The hatter

I have a Mac Pro 1,1 Dual Core Intel Xeon. 2.66 GHz.... 2 Processors, 4 Cores.

I don't understand why my iDVD is running so much slower when I look through chapters to verify things. The rainbow disc sits on the screen for 5-10 seconds. Before I added the ram it was 3-5 seconds.

If the Ram I put in, or any of my ram was bad, wouldn't the Mac let me know? But, it reports that I have 9 gigs of ram now.

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Answer 3

The hatter

Level 9

60,980 points

Apr 20, 2013 5:30 AM in response to paulneathery

iDVD needed a large unfragmented FREE SPACE of 24GB or more for best burning on the boot drive.

Free space is not something that is usually an issue if you have 50% free, if you keep the boot drive to OS and applications and just the smallest home folder's ~/Library

As I said, 4 DIMMs is ideal (4x2GB) or 8 DIMMs, but the higher latency of 6 or 8 DIMMs would be minor but there.

Me, I put my system on fastest SSD I can (Samsung 840 120GB or similar) which might seem wasteful but 30GB used and 85GB free, put my media on another drive(s).

iDVD is old. Are you sure it is even supported in Snow Leopard...

http://www.apple.com/support/idvd/

Support TILs are now archived, no longer supported.

Forum for iDVD is your best - did you look there first?

Related Discussions

Support Communities

iDVD 7 supports 10.6.8 and later

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1414

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/iDVD_6_Getting_Started.pdf

Amazon iLife 11 (Old) but supports 10.6.3+

http://www.amazon.com/Apple-MC623Z-A-iLife-VERSION/dp/B003XKRZES/

http://www.apple.com/ilife/video-showcase/

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Answer 4

paulneathery Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 20, 2013 11:48 AM in response to The hatter

thank Hatter, yes I put this in the iDVD forum, no one seems to know what is wrong. I have burning many DVDs since I updated to Snow Leopard. I really wish I knew what was wrong with my iDVD?

I looked through your links but didn't find an answer as to why iDVD won't burn a glitch free DVD?

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Answer 5

The hatter

Level 9

60,980 points

Apr 20, 2013 12:50 PM in response to paulneathery

1. contiguous free space that is not fragmented. Hard to know, less likely now with larger drives, but still 24-32GB and the more burns you do the less likely it remins contiguous unfragmented free space.

2. you are using older software on a newer OS so one of the things comes to my mind is why not upgrade to later versions.

3. Go to Toast or another commercial supported program.

That is at the heart of my 'reading' those threads and support links.

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