running slow. need more ram ?

hello
i'm not an advanced osx user so i will describe my problem simply

using macbook pro 2.4 with 2gb ram
running (from the startup, so i wouldn't waste time running them later) about 20-23 apps from simple converters to photoshop cs3
but as i understand it's not the amount of apps running; it's how intense you're using them
anyway, sometimes (especially after waking up the machine or after not using it for a long time (a few hours)) it is running quite slow for 10-15 minutes or even more
a single click on the tab in safari takes 5-8 seconds to process and so on
all i see is a rainbow circle spinning everywhere
it might get better in a while, but sometimes i need to restart my laptop
i don't know if it needs more ram, but i'm planning to buy 2 more gigs
now i have 10-20 MB of free memory and about 700-900 MB of inactive
one of my questions is do i really need to buy more memory for my laptop or is it only needed when i actully run out of memory ? cause as far as i'm concirned, os will use some of the inactive memory if it needs to
will installing more memory boost up the speed in any way ?
what does installing more memory exaclty give ?
i've heard that osx loves more ram, but at the same time i see that i have some more memory in reserve (inactive)
the thing that seems strange to me that now, for example it is going good, it's not slow or anything
but some time later it is going to be slower than a turtle with the same ram/cpu usage according to the activity monitor...
why is this so ? activity monitor details when it is ok and when it is really slow are the same. using same amount of ram, the cpu is pretty much the same as well, the temperature stays about 50-60 C max in both ways
but the process speed is really different

what would you recommend ?

ps. i'm also considering reinstalling the os cause there's loads of rubbish
i consider myself as a new user and i've been experementing with many programs
and even after deleting them i sometimes still find some files from those apps (music software mostly)
if i format, there's gonna be loads and loads of work configuring and adjusting all the settings so i wouldn't really want to do that
so i was wondering if there's any other ways (putting more memory, for example) ?
thanks and
looking forward to hearing from you

I went from 2G to 4G and did see a differance right away, rams cheap, give it a shot!

I re-installed the OS and it really seemed to help mine out.

A good, clean install should do the trick. If you're using a lot of your hard drive space for storing files and such, I strongly urge you to get an external hard drive.

Don't reinstall the system that is a windows trick and OS X just doesn't, it needs cleaning. Like Jaguar said buy a decent sized external HDD and use that for movie storage etc. This will help a lot. Also a great clean of unneeded files will do the trick too. Just sort you hard drive out a little. For example, I have two movie files on my MBP and they are both under 29mb, the rest are on my external attached to my router. Also uninstall that apps you don't need with something like appdelete app. It is basically a program that deletes apps for you. The advantage is that unlike when you drag it to the recycle bin it deletes all the files connected to that apps (no saved documents etc but drivers and the random little files everywhere).

If it still slow after a clean up and a reboot then post again here and we will discuss it more but I think that will do the trick.

B&O said:

Don't reinstall the system that is a windows trick and OS X just doesn't, it needs cleaning.

Click to expand...

Oh really? Well it was Apple Care who suggested and walked me through re-installing the OS, so I disagree with your statement. It also solved the problem I was having as well.