Macbook 4GB RAM.

Probably the best idea I've ever had. Safari used to constantly lock up as I ran out of memory (I'm not even a particularly heavy user most of the time! Xcode, safari, spotify and a PDF in preview) It was absolutely doing my head in and completely ruined my otherwise lovely mid-2010 Macbook.

Anyway, I realised that my laptop could take up to 4gb, and that it apparently doesn't void the warranty to change it, so I grabbed a set of ram from crucial I think it was, slapped it in and she's running perfectly since. Memory usage is hovering between the 50 and 75 mark most of the time - showing that all I needed really was that little extra boost. 2GB is, as far as I can tell, just not _quite_ enough for normal usage.

So yeah, if you're still rocking 2GB in one of the newer models which can take 4GB, do yourself a massive favour and spend 30 big ones on a nice pair of matched 2gb sticks. That said, how the **** does Apple justify the upgrade price when you order the machine? I can just about agree with the pricing for what I think is a quality bit of hardware, but to charge so much more for a very cheap uprade smacks of greed.

Apple is pretty renowned for slapping a huge premium on HDD and RAM which as you have pointed out are user-replaceable, does not void warranty and is a whole lot cheaper to do yourself. As for why they do it? Probably for the huge profit margin it generates.

Glad you did it yourself as it really is easy to do and it is what I recommend to most people when they are asking about buying a new machine and whether they should get the RAM etc upgraded.

- Simon

audigex said:

Probably the best idea I've ever had. Safari used to constantly lock up as I ran out of memory (I'm not even a particularly heavy user most of the time! Xcode, safari, spotify and a PDF in preview) It was absolutely doing my head in and completely ruined my otherwise lovely mid-2010 Macbook.

Click to expand...

While I won't disagree that upgrading ram to 4gig isn't without it's benefits...I've been using 2 gig of ram in my MacBook Pro for years...and I have no problems at all with Safari.

I have a feeling that you may have had too many applications open at one time...and this was more likely the cause of the reduced Safari performance. Restarting your computer every now & then helps things as well.

- Nick

Just FYI, I noticed the other day that Safari had really begun to act sluggish. I typically don't reboot my MacBook, just put it to sleep until I need it again. I pulled up activity monitor and discovered that Safari was tying up 2GB of RAM all by itself - and no web pages were open. Possible that Safari or a plugin has a memory leak that will eat up all your RAM after a while. I quit Safari and it went back to it's normal RAM consumption. Anyway, something to keep an eye on if you're troubleshooting sluggishness.

No one mentioned. trying.

Uh, Would it be wise to:

Clear the browser history?

fix files with something like Onyx?

Make sure one has a enough space left on the hard drive?

As of a few weeks ago, seemed that Google Chrome was faster than Safari. Not sure about the latest updates.

Wonder if the issue might have to do with the DNS? I set my DNS to be the one at Google, rather than my ISP's. However, I do not much check out what would be better. Can anyone offer an opinion about what is the faster DNS?

Edit: I tried to research the DNS thing, and found this.

http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/find-fastest-dns-server-your-computer.htm

https://www.techsupportalert.com/content/best-free-security-diet-plan.htm

http://www.techsupportalert.com/free-dns-benchmark.htm

http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/quick-way-change-or-check-your-dns-setting.htm

http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/new-smart-caching-opendns-see-websites-when-theyre-down.htm

Clearing browser history can help in certain circumstances, and it's good to do if you are privacy minded, but I end up going back to my history once or twice a week to find a page I looked at days earlier. Personal preference.
Onyx is good so long as you stay up to date with the current OS. I wouldn't run an old version on the current OS. It's especially helpful if your computer isn't on overnight, and the normal scheduled maintenance tasks don't get to run.
Definitely want to make sure you have at least 5-10% of your hard drive free for swap space. Once you encroach on that, performance will tank quickly.
Try different browsers and see what you like. Chrome is fast, but the new Firefox 4.0 is too. Some browsers just work better on some pages than others.
DNS can make a difference, but typically, I use the ISP, as it's going to travel the shortest distance usually to resolve hostnames. I use Google if my ISP is being obstinate.

pigoo3 said:

While I won't disagree that upgrading ram to 4gig isn't without it's benefits...I've been using 2 gig of ram in my MacBook Pro for years...and I have no problems at all with Safari.

I have a feeling that you may have had too many applications open at one time...and this was more likely the cause of the reduced Safari performance. Restarting your computer every now & then helps things as well.

- Nick

Click to expand...

This was my initial thought as well. I ran my MBP on just 1 gig of RAM until last December (a little over 4 years) and never had any problems that I can think of...and I even ran Snow Leopard on it for 4 or 5 months before upgrading to 2 GB.

My computer is a little zippier with 2 GB, but if my 4 year old MBP ran programs fine on just 1 GB, I'm surprised the OP was having problems on a relatively new MBP with his original configurement (I assume 2 GB).