What is "wired memory" in Activity Monitor?

Instead of tacking onto old threads, start your own thread and provide details of your issue and equipment. If you want to know more about "wired memory" please see https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Performance/Conceptual /ManagingMemory/Articles/AboutMemory.htm…

I too have this problem. I'm using osx 10.7.5. I've noticed that this occurs if I'm doing a lot of streaming such as on Youtube. I have a feeling it is related to FLASH. This usually gets fixed if I reboot a couple of times. However, i get the spinning wheel when this happens. It spins for quite a while (several minutes), but then the problem is fixed. Any idea what the OS is doing to fix this? While it fixes the problem, it's a pain to have to wait so long to use my Mac.

Any way of freeing up the wired RAM without rebooting?

Here are the definitions:

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

What you need to do is set Activity Monitor to ALL PROCESES and %CPU to display values fro high to low. Post an image for inspection .

Ciao.

About OS X Memory Management and Usage

Using Activity Monitor to read System Memory & determine how much RAM is used

Understanding top output in the Terminal

The amount of available RAM for applications is the sum of Free RAM and Inactive RAM. This will change as applications are opened and closed or change from active to inactive status. The Swap figure represents an estimate of the total amount of swap space required for VM if used, but does not necessarily indicate the actual size of the existing swap file. If you are really in need of more RAM that would be indicated by how frequently the system uses VM. If you open the Terminal and run the top command at the prompt you will find information reported on Pageins () and Pageouts (). Pageouts () is the important figure. If the value in the parentheses is 0 (zero) then OS X is not making instantaneous use of VM which means you have adequate physical RAM for the system with the applications you have loaded. If the figure in parentheses is running positive and your hard drive is constantly being used (thrashing) then you need more physical RAM.

Adding RAM only makes it possible to run more programs concurrently. It doesn't speed up the computer nor make games run faster. What it can do is prevent the system from having to use disk-based VM when it runs out of RAM because you are trying to run too many applications concurrently or using applications that are extremely RAM dependent. It will improve the performance of applications that run mostly in RAM or when loading programs.

In Activity Monitor the red and blue graph lines are simply read/write or input/output. Nothing to do with something going wrong or gone wrong. The only place in Activity Monitor where that means something different is when a process listed is in red. That means the process has crashed or is no longer functioning.

You don't have any problems. Quit Activity Monitor. You don't use it unless you are troubleshooting.

I am referring to the list of processes, not the information listed in the status area. These colors are only for identification:

Wired:

Information in RAM that can't be moved to the Mac's drive. The amount of Wired memory depends on the applications you are using.

But, we haven't addressed your original concern about heat. First, please download and install iStat Menus 4.06 so we can get an idea of what the processor temperature is as well as your fan speeds. This will help to judge if the computer is running too hot, because the bottom of the notebooks always are hot. Second, here's what you really are looking for in Activity Monitor that would relate to the computer running too hot:

Open Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder. Select All Processes from the Processes dropdown menu. Click twice on the CPU% column header to display in descending order. If you find a process using a large amount of CPU time (>=70,) then select the process and click on the Quit icon in the toolbar. Click on the Force Quit button to kill the process. See if that helps. Be sure to note the name of the runaway process so you can track down the cause of the problem.