Will more ram do this??

I have 512 ram on my powerbook. When I open iDVD or iMovie it takes a little while to open and the spinning rainbow ball thing comes up. If I were to add more ram would it make this faster or is that a processor issue? Thanks

I'm no Mac expert yet, but from PC experience I'd say RAM if you have a lot open, or hard drive if you don't. Processor has some impact of course, and the motherboard (logic board in Mac terms) ties everything together... but those two are the major factor in start time.

yeah but the thing is everything else opens really fast. I have the faster of the two hard drives. Only those apps take a while to open even if nothing else is open.

Well, it's normal for large apps like iMovie and iDVD to take 4-5 seconds to open, partly because all the data needs to be loaded from the hard drive. Even if you max your RAM to 2gigs for a few thousand, you'll notice a difference of maybe 2 seconds. You can get 7200rpm hard drives now for laptops (almost 2x what your laptop hard drive is now), but they're pretty expensive and can't hold as much as the lower-rpm hard drives can.

I guess the bigger question is why do you care? It's a few more seconds to open a program, and even if you shell out big bucks it'll reduce the time by a few seconds.

My suggestion is just live with it unless it really bothers you. More RAM will reduce it by 1-2 seconds maybe, but it isn't really worth it considering the money you'll have to spend.

Cheers,
m1k

to m1k:
thanks yeah I just wasn't sure which component of the computer is responsible for that. I think I have the 7200rpm hard drive as I got the highest powerbook 15 inch, actually I think it's 5400. Yeah its not really a big deal. You think you can check out my other thread "question about iDVD" and help me with that? Sounds like you know quite a bit. Thanks.

Hey,

Actually, if you're ordering from Apple, the highest to-order option you can get is 5400rpm. But you can buy a 7200rpm drive (laptop versions recently came out) and get it installed by your local Apple tech shop. You'll notice quite an improvement in starting up and loading apps, but 7200rpm laptop drives are expensive.

I'll check the other thread, it's a pleasure to help you

What effect does a 7200 RPM drive have on battery life?

What effect does a 7200 RPM drive have on battery life?

Click to expand...

As far as I can recall, that question was asked in another thread. Some people thought it had an effect on battery life, some said it didn't have any effect *shrugs shoulders*