Macbook pro 13" - memory problems

[rlindc]

Constant memory problems since upgrading to Mavericks. Have 4GB installed, regularly running down to 10-12MB and the whole thing grinds to a halt - even with only Safari and Adobe Reader running. Also Adobe Reader running like a dog since the upgrade. Have to run Memory Clean every few minutes or can't do ANYTHING. Help please!!!

 

[pigoo3]

Constant memory problems since upgrading to Mavericks. Have 4GB installed, regularly running down to 10-12MB and the whole thing grinds to a halt...

This 10-12MB you mentioned…is this ram or hard drive storage space?

- Nick

 

[rlindc]

I believe is said memory. RAM of course! I have 50GB storage free!

 

[pigoo3]

I believe is said memory. RAM of course! I have 50GB storage free!

Ok…we'll assume it's ram.

Long story short…you probably need to reboot the computer more often. There are a couple things rebooting helps with…and both relate to "slow computer".

- Nick

 

[rlindc]

a) shouldn't be necessary and b) doesn't make a **** bit of difference

 

[MacInWin]

a) agree, but it is and b) how big is the HD that has 50 GB free? Actual free is not as important as percentage free, so 50 GB on a 200GB drive is fine, but 50 GB on a 1TB drive is not.

 

[pigoo3]

a) shouldn't be necessary and b) doesn't make a **** bit of difference

Ohh really?? I'm trying to help you…and that's the way you respond??

I've probably answered questions exactly like yours hundreds of times…I do know what I'm talking about.

Have a good one.

- Nick

 

[rlindc]

Never said you didn't know what you're talking about, just telling it how it is. It didn't help

 

[rlindc]

Jake

I actually have 79Gb free on 500Gb drive. Ought to be enough, surely.

 

[Ltrain1029]

upgrade your RAM. I have a late 2011 Macbook pro with only 4GB of RAM and I feel your pain. Its not as fast as it should be. I'm looking to up my RAM to 8GB or even 16GB, I might even put in an SSD to replace my current hard drive. I have a co-worker that made these upgrades to his Mac and you can see a world of difference.

 

[MacInWin]

Jake

I actually have 79Gb free on 500Gb drive. Ought to be enough, surely.

Just barely. OSX likes 15-20 % free. On your 500GB drive, that would be 75-100 GB. Beyond that level fragmentation kicks in as the major cause for slowdown.

Memory Clean is not needed in Mavericks. I uninstalled it as an unnecessary overhead. Mavericks has much improved memory management than the previous versions of OSX. Try getting rid of it as it may be working against you now. If you look at Activity Monitor and choose the Memory tab, you'll see the memory pressure and memory statistics. You can also see what's using memory. Click on the "Memory" column until the biggest user is at the top. Right now on my machine it's "kernel_task," which is sort of common, but it's only taking about 890 MB. If some application is running away with memory, you'll see it there and you can decide if you need to quit it or not.

You haven't mentioned any AV software, but I presume you aren't running any? you don't need AV and most of the "run all the time" variants are horribly inefficient.

 

[rlindc]

Ok I deleted Memory Clean and I checked Activity Monitor and the problem seemed to be with Safari. SO I have ditched Safari in favor of Chrome and things seem a bit better. IF that doesnt work I'll upgrade the RAM and move some more files to my external HDD.
Thanks

 

[MacInWin]

Safari does eat up memory if you are on sites with a lot of video, particularly Flash. I use Ghostery to block trackers, ads and Flash video unless I specifically want them. ClickToFlash is also pretty good, I've heard. You might try those with Safari. I personally don't like Chrome, but if it's working for you, that's good. Keep an eye on what's eating memory with Activity Monitor for a while to see if anything is jumping up that you don't need.