Mavericks and memory (Ram)

I think I may have found a fix for this

I have a mid 2009 Macbook Pro, with 4gb ram. After a clean install of Mavericks, I found that memory used was constantly around 3.95Gb of the total 4GB. Even after reboots. I used the sudo /usr/sbin/purge command to free reclaim some ram, the usage was down to 2.6Gb. However, this would only last until the next reboot.

I read somewhere that Mavericks saves the system state during reboots or shutdown, this is excluding the applications. (dont hold me to that)

I tried the following:

1. Close all applications and reboot ("Reopen windows when loggin back in" is not selected)

2. Once you have logged back in, only open Terminal and Type: sudo /usr/sbin/purge (It should prompt for your password)

3. Reboot and again, make sure "Reopen windows when loggin back in" is not selected

You should see that your memory usage has dropped. I also noticed a slight increase in responsiveness.

I am hovering around 2.78Gb when I close down all applications now.

Let me know if this works out for you

Donny

All: In closing. Just did a fresh, full install of Mavericks by erasing my HD, and it seems to have resolved problems experienced by the "upgrade" method. Be sure to save your files in order to pull them back over. (Wouldn't suggest the Time Machine.) Take care!

Chevie00 wrote:

All: In closing.

The Original Poster has already marked this as answered. It is not your thread to close. 😉

Pete

I don't think purging RAM fixes anything. It simply flushes the file cache that exists to make you Mac respond quicker. The OS will purge the file cache when it needs to do so. Free RAM is not doing anything for you.

Any issues you have are probably elsewhere (as just illustrated by Chevie00).

The memory compression is what you are preventing - http://www.apple.com/osx/advanced-technologies/#memory

If you want the memory system to work like OS's before 10.9 (where 'free memory' means something), install 10.8 or lower, you are simply preventing 10.9 working as Apple intended.

Go and try the 'Safari file cache' test…

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5470580?answerId=24041054022#24041054022

See what affect the purging has on it's startup time…

Come back & create a new topic when you are ready to do some actual troubleshooting, purging memory is just a stopgap solution, sorry it fixes nothing.

I really donno if you're right.

I went to an Apple Store today and I made one test.

In a Macbook Pro with 4gb of RAM the Mavericks was using 2,5 of 4 Gb of RAM. So I openned ALL the apps from Aplications folder and all (4 Gb) memory got used plus 700 Mb of Swap.

Then, I closed all the apps. The the memory use was reduced down to 2,5 Gb of RAM and everything got normal.

So, I think that the people who are having all memory used without doing almost anything has a problem.

"So, I think that the people who are having all memory used without doing almost anything has a problem."

Absolutely. There is a problem with Mavericks for many, myself included.

Although the fanboys will insist otherwise.

I have 8gigs of RAM on my mid 2011 iMac and after a reboot, my Mac is using 7.99gigs of RAM and 500mb of swap!

How in the silver bells is this normal?

It is not. Period.

iFan1701 wrote:

Absolutely. There is a problem with Mavericks for many, myself included.

Although the fanboys will insist otherwise.

I have 8gigs of RAM on my mid 2011 iMac and after a reboot, my Mac is using 7.99gigs of RAM and 500mb of swap!

How in the silver bells is this normal?

It is not. Period.

Running into swap after a clean boot isn't normal, so quit complaining, stop name calling and post a report with your symptoms in a new thread please. We are not able to see what is happening otherwise.

You'll notice that Caio Ferrari BR was running ALL installed apps to get a Mac with 4GB of RAM to run into swap, on a default 10.9 install (at least as default as the Apple Store uses).

iFan1701 wrote:

I have 8gigs of RAM on my mid 2011 iMac and after a reboot, my Mac is using 7.99gigs of RAM and 500mb of swap!

How in the silver bells is this normal?

It is not. Period.

On a 2012 Mini, two users logged in, I've got 16GB of RAM, only using 8GB, zero swap, and my uptime is 4.5 days.

Yes, you have something causing problems on your Mac. I doubt that it is Mavericks, but something else that isn't compatible with Mavericks. Too many other people are using Mavericks without any problems for it to be solely the fault of the OS.

Running into swap after a clean boot isn't normal, so quit complaining, stop name calling and post a report with your symptoms in a new thread please. We are not able to see what is happening otherwise.

Quit complaining? That's all you fanboys say. I have posted reports multiple times. Not going to do it again.

Really, it doesn't show in your history (I did look before too)

https://discussions.apple.com/profile/iFan1701?view=overview

Apologies if I wasn't clear, it's an EtreCheck report…

http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck

At least look at the output of the App, it shows what is running & being loaded at boot etc

Please start your own thread and give details of your mac setup, outline your problems and detail what third part apps you have running and what troubleshooting steps you have made. You are only thread jumping here and confusing someone else's thread which is confusing.

Thank you

Pete

iFan1701 wrote:

I have posted reports multiple times. Not going to do it again.

Really, where is that? I searched this entire thread and you haven't posted anything useable as to what apps are running with their CPU/Memory use, what exactly is running slowly, what third-party programs are installed and what they are doing, nor any list of throttling or respawn activity in Console.

Several people have posted those things and have gotten some resolution.

i don't understand why file cache is using up all the memory, my system has become really sluggish, what to do?

bellicose100xp wrote:

i don't understand why file cache is using up all the memory, my system has become really sluggish, what to do?

There is a ton of information in this thread about 10.9's memorry handling. Please go back through the earlier posts. (Take a look at http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/10/os-x-10-9/17/#compressed-memory).

The file cache is there to ensure that the most used files are stored inside the fastest part of the computer - your RAM. The file cache will be purged as soon as any other application needs the RAM.

You have a small amount of 'Swap Used' & almost no Compression, that means this system isn't close to running out of memory.

Your issues are likely to be elsewhere, please create a new thread & detail what you see, otherwise you get lost in all the noise here.

«P.S. Have a read of this you may see that 10MB of RAM free is not actually bad, compression will kick it as needed. http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/10/os-x-10-9/17/#compressed-memory»

This was a VERY helpful read. The way OS X manages, swaps, compresses and purges (i don't know if it's in that exact order) RAM on the fly helped me to understand what the Activity Monitor window is actually telling me. Having 8 GB of RAM and showing almost 8 GB of RAM being used is not necessarily bad. OS X will rid itself of unused RAM as needed to make room for your next click.

What i got from the article is, basically, keep an eye on Memory Pressure. If it's not headed towards red, OS X is managing everything fine. Nothing to be concerned with.

I hope i understood that article correctly. I'm not a technical guy, just an average Joe.

Thanx all,

Paul