Mac pro 4,1 2009 every OS but the Snow Leopard takes 6gb of RAM just on boot? Yosemite unusable

Problem description:

Yosemite takes up 4.5-6gb of ram just on boot compared to the 1.5-2 gb that Snow Leopard takes on the same system

Mac pro 2009 4,1 quad.

EtreCheck version: 2.1.8 (121)

Report generated 3 Apr 2015 19:51:26 GMT+2

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Hardware Information: ℹ️

Mac Pro (Early 2009) (Technical Specifications)

Mac Pro - model: MacPro4,1

1 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon CPU: 4-core

12 GB RAM Upgradeable

DIMM 1

4 GB DDR3 ECC 1066 MHz ok

DIMM 2

4 GB DDR3 ECC 1066 MHz ok

DIMM 3

4 GB DDR3 ECC 1066 MHz ok

DIMM 4

Empty

Bluetooth: Old - Handoff/Airdrop2 not supported

Video Information: ℹ️

NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 - VRAM: 512 MB

LED Cinema Display 2560 x 1440

System Software: ℹ️

OS X 10.9.5 (13F34) - Time since boot: 0:10:33

Disk Information: ℹ️

HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GH41N

OCZ-VERTEX PLUS R2 disk0 : (61,86 GB)

EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB

System (disk0s2) /Volumes/System : 61.51 GB (17.77 GB free)

WDC WD15EVDS-63V9B0 disk1 : (1,5 TB)

EFI (disk1s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB

15 (disk1s2) / : 1.42 TB (103.13 GB free)

Recovery HD (disk1s3) <not mounted> [Recovery]: 650 MB

Untitled (disk1s4) /Volumes/Untitled : 83.00 GB (62.76 GB free)

WDC WD6400AAKS-41H2B0 disk2 : (640,14 GB)

EFI (disk2s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB

OSX (disk2s2) /Volumes/OSX : 639.79 GB (66.55 GB free)

USB Information: ℹ️

Western Digital My Book 1 TB

My Book (disk3s1) /Volumes/My Book : 1.00 TB (253.61 GB free)

Apple, Inc. Keyboard Hub

Logitech USB Receiver

Apple, Inc Apple Keyboard

WALTOP International Corp. Media Tablet

Apple Inc. Display Audio

Apple Inc. Display iSight

Apple Inc. Apple LED Cinema Display

Apple Inc. BRCM2046 Hub

Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Configuration files: ℹ️

/etc/sysctl.conf - Exists

/etc/hosts - Count: 29

Gatekeeper: ℹ️

Mac App Store and identified developers

Kernel Extensions: ℹ️

/System/Library/Extensions

[loaded] com.nvidia.CUDA (1.1.0)

/Volumes/OSX/Applications/Capture One.app

[not loaded] com.Leaf.driver.LeafFwXDriverMatcher (1.2.0d1)

/Volumes/System/Applications/iShowU HD.app

[not loaded] com.Cycling74.driver.Soundflower (1.3.1)

Startup Items: ℹ️

CUDA: Path: /System/Library/StartupItems/CUDA

Startup items are obsolete in OS X Yosemite

Problem System Launch Agents: ℹ️

[running] com.blackmagic-design.DaVinciResolveTangentPanelDaemon.plist [Click for support] - WHAT is this??? I installed Da Vinci resolve from the Da Vinci site, it's a free app for single core use and an industry standard, how can it be problematic?

Launch Agents: ℹ️

[not loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist [Click for support]

[loaded] com.adobe.CS5ServiceManager.plist [Click for support]

[running] com.canon.MFManager.plist [Click for support]

[loaded] com.nvidia.CUDASoftwareUpdate.plist [Click for support]

[running] com.penpad.penpadtablet.plist [Click for support]

[failed] com.waltop.waltoptablet.plist [Click for support]

Launch Daemons: ℹ️

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

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

[running] com.edb.launchd.postgresql-8.4.plist [Click for support]

User Launch Agents: ℹ️

[loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist [Click for support]

[loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist [Click for support]

User Login Items: ℹ️

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

iTunesHelper Application (/Volumes/OSX/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesHelper.app)

Activity Monitor Application (/Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.app)

FKeyHandlerX Application Hidden (/Applications/FKeyHandlerX.app)

Internet Plug-ins: ℹ️

Silverlight: Version: 5.1.10411.0 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]

FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 11.9.900.170 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]

Flash Player: Version: 11.9.900.170 - SDK 10.6 Outdated! Update

QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3

JavaAppletPlugin: Version: 14.9.0 - SDK 10.7 Check version

Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9

3rd Party Preference Panes: ℹ️

CUDA Preferences [Click for support]

Flash Player [Click for support]

Growl [Click for support]

Time Machine: ℹ️

Time Machine not configured!

Top Processes by CPU: ℹ️

5% WindowServer

1% fontd

0% mds_stores

0% Activity Monitor

0% Google Chrome

Top Processes by Memory: ℹ️

283 MB Finder

193 MB Google Chrome

168 MB mds_stores

168 MB com.apple.IconServicesAgent

52 MB WindowServer

Virtual Memory Information: ℹ️

9.50 GB Free RAM

1.65 GB Active RAM - WRONG, I ONLY WISH, it's more like:

834 MB Inactive RAM

892 MB Wired RAM

653 MB Page-ins

0 B Page-outs

Diagnostics Information: ℹ️

Apr 3, 2015, 07:39:26 PM Self test - passed

Basically, 5GB of my RAM is gone just because I turned my computer on, and ok this is on HHD, but even then Snow Leopard is completely functional one minute after I push the power button, Yosemite takes that long too boot, too, but then it takes it another half hour to stop spinning the hard drvie for it's unused apps and actually let me load non-system apps and files and start working.

I THINK I FIGURED IT OUT! How do I stop the system from cache-ing recent files?

Well, I admit, I am too dumb to do anything on a computer, but all I did was pull the RAM out to get rid of the dust, and pop it back in. 😊 It worked fine.

I use another SSD as a boot drive, and change the HHDs a lot. Anyway, I find that "Recent files cache" never get's emptied, and that it bites into my RAM, I know it supposed to be cleared for actual current processes, but it never is, I tested over and over again. It holds system files of the apps I never use, like I mentioned WIFi etc, but never my recent documents or apps.

I really would like to go for a Photoshop CC, but performance is just lag-y on Yosemite even on my CS5.

More RAM would solve my problem with the system eating up 6gb of ram just to boot up, but not the actual boot up time.

What happens is because it's taking all the time to read those 6 gb and implement it into ram, the system is real sluggish for the first 10 minutes to half an hour upon a startup, now imagine restarting the computer 2 times a day, that's an hour of productivity or fun just gone out of the window.

Oh well, I guess there is no solution, I'll just stick with Snow Leopard for now.😕

It boots in 12 seconds and is ready to go on Snow Leopard.

My System and programs are on SSD, nothing else. HDDs I fill up quite easily because my PSD files are big (1-2gb a file is the average per image) + all the raw files from every shoot, and I don't delete anything, so I shelf them and replace them with new ones until those get filled up and so on. I had two HHDs in the tray because I couldn't remember what was the one I had the Yosemite on😁 and didn't want to go through the download process all over again.

It never let's other apps use that "cache" space, it keeps it unavailable to apps, and instead forces the system to go into virtual memory to give apps the RAM they need. That can't be normal, I've used the Mac book Air with 4gb of ram that runs perfectly and system only uses 1.5gb, so how come it takes Yosemite 5gb to run on a much more powerful machine.

There must be some setting I'm missing.

P.S. Yes, first I went with the Lion, and the issue started, I tried mountain Lion and the same thing was still ongoing. So I forgot about the whole deal and thought maybe now they finally managed to get this fixed in Yosemite. But no. Or maybe I just don't know how to work around this glitch.

Let's say I get more ram, I can't wait for the system to load some random files into the ram memory(and is there a limit to how much it's cache-ing?) every time I boot up. If the system took 30% of my 12 gb for this cache that I'm not using, that means it would be loading 12 gb every time I boot up once I update my ram to 32gb, so what an hour of booting up? I'm just confused.

Only because I have opened up nothing.😉

Example:

I open a certain file/s in Snow leopard, it's taking a lot of the memory, but I'm not using my virtual memory.

I open the same file in Yosemite, oh it's already going into virtual memory, while "cache" stays intact.

Same PS CS5, same everything, no other apps running.

I've already gotten used to having "inactive" memory build up on Snow Leopard, and it can't be purged, so I reboot once it starts taking like 40% of RAM, but Lion and above just takes that away from the start. There has got to be a way to stop this cache-ing from occurring???😕😊

This is the issue, as many have described: RAM memory filling up soon on my iMAC, after upgrading to OS X 10.9 Mavericks..

Seems like it has to do with this memory management not working right, I mean there are people with 2014 Mac Pros and 32gb complaining about sluggish systems with no apps running.

I guess I'll have to try out Lion and see if it works, but as far as I can remember that issue started with Lion, or Maybe I went straight to Mountain Lion, can't remember right now.