Will more RAM stop my machine from hanging

amardilo · Jun 21, 2007

Hi there -

I bought a refurb Black 2.0GHz MacBook (it has a 120GB HDD and 1GB of RAM).

Since I have had it hangs when I run a few apps and then takes a few minutes to sort itself out and respond again.

I have iTunes on all the time (downloading podcasts and ripping CDs) and when I run Thunderbird, Firefox and a 4th app things start to slow down and it takes a while to respond. When I try to run Front Row with the other 3 apps Front Row takes ages to respond to remote presses.

It also hanged a few times (screen goes black and does not do anything) although this has only happened a few times and is somewhat rare.

Would increasing my RAM to 2GB (I think that's the max my MacBook is allowed) help with running several apps at once. As I would love to run more than 4 apps at their normal speed at once.

cwa107 · Jun 21, 2007

amardilo said:
Hi there -

I bought a refurb Black 2.0GHz MacBook (it has a 120GB HDD and 1GB of RAM).

Since I have had it hangs when I run a few apps and then takes a few minutes to sort itself out and respond again.

I have iTunes on all the time (downloading podcasts and ripping CDs) and when I run Thunderbird, Firefox and a 4th app things start to slow down and it takes a while to respond. When I try to run Front Row with the other 3 apps Front Row takes ages to respond to remote presses.

It also hanged a few times (screen goes black and does not do anything) although this has only happened a few times and is somewhat rare.

Would increasing my RAM to 2GB (I think that's the max my MacBook is allowed) help with running several apps at once. As I would love to run more than 4 apps at their normal speed at once.

Are you actually out of physical memory when you run these apps? Have you ever opened Activity Monitor to look at memory utilization when this situation occurs?

1GB should be more than sufficient to run these basic applications. I would try Activity Monitor and look at the System Memory tab when this condition occurs. That should tell you how much memory is free at the moment. If the pie chart is mostly green, you're OK on memory and it's another problem.

amardilo · Jun 21, 2007

Thanks I'll try that out.

amardilo · Jun 21, 2007

With Firefox, Thunderbird and iTunes running I have 50MB-60MB free.

Is that enough RAM?

Rounded off this is a rough break down.
Wired = 228MB
Active = 310MB
Inactive = 438MB
Free = 50MB

cwa107 · Jun 21, 2007

amardilo said:
With Firefox, Thunderbird and iTunes running I have 50MB-60MB free.

Is that enough RAM?

Interesting, yes as long as you have free physical memory, you're not having to dig into virtual memory. However, I do find it odd that you have that little free. Are you sure you have 1GB and there are no other programs running?

Glenners · Jun 21, 2007

Are you actually quiting the apps or are you just closing them? If alot of the icons in the dock have little black arrows on them then theres your problem.

amardilo · Jun 21, 2007

Yep I am quiting apps. The only things with arrows in the doc are Dashboard, Finder, Thunderbird, Firefox and iTunes I also had connect360 running which was using 21MB.

When I check "About This Mac" it says I have 1GB.

cwa107 · Jun 21, 2007

amardilo said:
Yep I am quiting apps. The only things with arrows in the doc are Dashboard, Finder, Thunderbird, Firefox and iTunes I also had connect360 running which was using 21MB.

When I check "About This Mac" it says I have 1GB.

Much of that memory is inactive, which I believe is memory that was in use, but is no longer actively in use. I think that memory would be available if there was a need for it.

Either way, I think your needs are fairly modest and 1GB should be suitable. If you're having problems with hanging and slowness, I think the first order of business would be to run some of the maintenance tools built into Onyx. Give that a try, run the Complete Optimization and let us know how it goes after that.

cjay · Jun 22, 2007

Ripping cds really takes up resources especially if your running other apps. Ditto for frontrow. All that eyecandy can be demanding.

As the others have suggested running a program like Onyx may help. Also did you do a fresh install of the OS when you got your machine? It's something I would do, especially with a refurb.

kgeier82 · Jun 22, 2007

cjay said:
Ripping cds really takes up resources especially if your running other apps. Ditto for frontrow. All that eyecandy can be demanding.

As the others have suggested running a program like Onyx may help. Also did you do a fresh install of the OS when you got your machine? It's something I would do, especially with a refurb.

good advice for a refurb, but not neccessary for a new machine (as stated). You never know what kinda garbage is still on a refurb, even from apple.

like someone else said, give ONYX a google.

amardilo · Jun 22, 2007

Thanks for the tips guys.

I just got all my apps, documents and photos onto my MacBook (and I did not backup the installers) so I'll leave the reinstall of OS X as a last resort for now.

But I'll give Onyx a go over the weekend.

cjay · Jun 25, 2007

amardilo said:
I bought a refurb Black 2.0GHz MacBook (it has a 120GB HDD and 1GB of RAM).

bryphotoguy · Jun 25, 2007

I would say you need to upgrade your RAM. What you have open isn't super intensive, but having multiple programs open is. 50MB free is nothing when you have 1024MB installed. Having one more program open will send it into virtual memory which will slow down the computer significantly.
You can install 2GB for $100 these days.
Bryan

amardilo · Jun 27, 2007

I bought 2GB of RAM from crucial and everything is running OK. Although changing the RAM was not as easy (although it was no major effort) as I thought as those screws are so small.

I now have 900MB of free RAM. I think I can run a few more apps now.

Thanks to everyone that helped me out I really appreciate it.