High RAM usage when system is 'idle' (EtreCheck)

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Level 1

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High RAM usage when system is 'idle' (EtreCheck)

Hey guys,

First timer here. Ok here's my question :

I recently bought a secondhand Macbook pro 15 inch. For me it's a huge upgrade coming from a 2009 13 inch Macbook pro. Because a friend of mine wants to buy my old one I was doing some diagnostics on the 13 inch, which has 4 GB of RAM, and found out it had a lot of inactive RAM usage and wired usage, almost 2 GB, due to a lot of launchdaemons etc which were hogging the RAM. I used terminal to kill these agents and deamons and now that system is running smooth again. Maybe it's wise to mention that the 13 inch runs on ML.
3 days ago I did a clean Yosemite install on the 15 inch, swapped the HDD for a SSD. And already the activity monitor shows a whopping 4,28 GB of RAM usage while I'm typing this with just safari open. I thought I could do the same trick as I did with my 13 inch but it didn't help, had some java deamons and helpers and deleted those. In terminal I looked up everything via launchctl list and there's nothing unusual going on as far as I can see. I had VirtualBox for one day but uninstalled it using their uninstaller. I have no clue what's eating all this RAM. Please help me out so I can be a proud owner of my second macbook for atleast 5 years to come. Thanks in advance.

EtreCheck version: 2.1.8 (121)

Report generated 15 februari 2015 08:45:30 CET

Download EtreCheck from http://etresoft.com/etrecheck

Click the [Click for support] links for help with non-Apple products.

Click the [Click for details] links for more information about that line.

Hardware Information: ℹ️

MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2012) (Technical Specifications)

MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro9,1

1 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 4-core

8 GB RAM Upgradeable

BANK 0/DIMM0

4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok

BANK 1/DIMM0

4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok

Bluetooth: Good - Handoff/Airdrop2 supported

Wireless: en1: 802.11 a/b/g/n

Battery Health: Normal - Cycle count 685

Video Information: ℹ️

Intel HD Graphics 4000

Color LCD 1680 x 1050

NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M - VRAM: 1024 MB

System Software: ℹ️

OS X 10.10.2 (14C109) - Time since boot: 0:52:24

Disk Information: ℹ️

Samsung SSD 840 EVO 500GB disk0 : (500,11 GB)

EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB

Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted> [Recovery]: 650 MB

Macintosh HD (disk1) / : 498.88 GB (457.96 GB free)

Core Storage: disk0s2 499.25 GB Online

HL-DT-ST DVDRW GS31N

USB Information: ℹ️

Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)

Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver

Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

Apple Inc. BRCM20702 Hub

Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Firewire Information: ℹ️

Iomega eGo HDD 800mbit - 800mbit max

disk2s1 (disk2s1) <not mounted> : 32 KB

disk2s2 (disk2s2) <not mounted> : 29 KB

disk2s3 (disk2s3) <not mounted> : 29 KB

disk2s4 (disk2s4) <not mounted> : 29 KB

disk2s5 (disk2s5) <not mounted> : 29 KB

disk2s6 (disk2s6) <not mounted> : 262 KB

disk2s7 (disk2s7) <not mounted> : 262 KB

disk2s8 (disk2s8) <not mounted> : 262 KB

Iomega_HDD (disk2s10) /Volumes/Iomega_HDD : 319.94 GB (30.10 GB free)

Thunderbolt Information: ℹ️

Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

Gatekeeper: ℹ️

Mac App Store and identified developers

Launch Agents: ℹ️

[unknown] com.oracle.java.Java-Updater 06.40.36.plist [Click for support]

Launch Daemons: ℹ️

[loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist [Click for support]

[unknown] com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool 07.05.30.plist [Click for support]

User Login Items: ℹ️

iTunesHelper Programma (/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesHelper.app)

Internet Plug-ins: ℹ️

FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 16.0.0.305 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]

Flash Player: Version: 16.0.0.305 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]

QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3

JavaAppletPlugin: Version: Java 8 Update 31 Check version

Default Browser: Version: 600 - SDK 10.10

3rd Party Preference Panes: ℹ️

Flash Player [Click for support]

Java [Click for support]

Time Machine: ℹ️

Time Machine not configured!

Top Processes by CPU: ℹ️

4% WindowServer

1% fontd

0% sysmond

0% AppleSpell

0% notifyd

Top Processes by Memory: ℹ️

198 MB com.apple.WebKit.WebContent

172 MB Safari

94 MB mds_stores

86 MB WindowServer

43 MB Dock

Virtual Memory Information: ℹ️

4.07 GB Free RAM

2.79 GB Active RAM

816 MB Inactive RAM

904 MB Wired RAM

1.25 GB Page-ins

0 B Page-outs

Diagnostics Information: ℹ️

Feb 15, 2015, 07:53:01 AM Self test - passed

Feb 12, 2015, 09:53:18 AM /Users/[redacted]/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Live_2015-02-12-095318_[redact ed].crash

Posted on Feb 14, 2015 11:49 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,694 points

Feb 15, 2015 12:26 AM in response to Ichido

This machine has not run out of RAM.

Virtual Memory Information: ℹ️

4.07 GB Free RAM

2.79 GB Active RAM

816 MB Inactive RAM

904 MB Wired RAM

1.25 GB Page-ins

0 B Page-outs

The page outs indicate the OS has not recently swapped any memory to disk.

Apple made changes to 10.9 that are the same on 10.10. Memory will be used as much as possible. It is the fastest storage on the system, keeping it free is a waste of your time - data loads fastest from RAM.

This is a good explanation…

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/10/os-x-10-9/17/#compressed-memory

The system also frees 'cache' memory when another process has more need to use it. Eventually it will swap to disk (which is slow) so the OS also compresses memory before swapping is needed.

Please avoid killing launchd jobs, many will simply restart or relaunch again later. Eventually you may kill one that hangs the OS & corrupts the disk via a forced shutdown.

I do suspect you may see issues when RAM does get low, but there is no evidence of that here. The memory pressure graph will show red when swapping - every other colour is fine. Wait until you see red & then note the top memory users.

If you don't want java installed you need to find removal instructions & get it all off the system, simply stopping the update checks will leave Java in an old state - terrible for security.

Also do you know what 'Live' is? It crashed recently, if it keeps doing that it may be worth a look, however it may just be one if the things that was effects by the killing spree 🙂

Reply

Answer 2

Ichido Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 15, 2015 12:48 AM in response to Drew Reece

Ok, so I might have a distorted view on the RAM count due to my 2009 standards perhaps 😉. On my old 13 inch, which only has 4GB, 2 GB of usage is a lot in my perspective, now it uses 4 GB for doing 'nothing'. I use this machine mainly for audio production, hence the Live app, so RAM for audio buffering is a must. I haven't tested it yet how it will hold up but this RAM thing was just a concern.
So I can leave the java launchers where they were, no memory hog?
Thanks for your reply 🙂

Reply

Answer 3

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,694 points

Feb 15, 2015 1:12 AM in response to Ichido

Yup 2009's perspective on memory causes trouble now 😟

The OS will cache in proportion to the available RAM too, so you can't compare easily, more RAM means more gets cached making the OS look greedy when it is just being efficient with what hardware is available.

What version of Ableton?

Older ones have issues on 10.10, this site can show if other users have found it worked, also check Ableton for the spec, they should say if it works.

http://roaringapps.com/app/ableton-live

Java confuses me, I'm not sure what version it is from the updaters but the system prefs pane would be a good place to start 🙂.

Note: Adobe or other apps may require Java so think about why you might have it (it's not installed by default now).

Reply

Answer 4

Eric Root

Level 10

685,753 points

Feb 15, 2015 1:32 PM in response to Ichido

For your older computer.

Selling old Mac

Selling old Mac (2)

Selling old Mac (3)

Selling old Mac (4) Apple support

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