Will adding memory help with this?

So my computer has been running pretty slow lately. It's not just programs that are necessarily taking a while to start up, but also when I am on the internet it seems like if I click between tabs on my browser it takes longer to switch, scrolling down a page is delayed a lot sometimes, clicking on a link is delayed sometimes, etc..

I've noticed that when I shut down my computer and then start it backup that it will run well for a little, but then things start to move slow again (even if I only have one program open...usually it's firefox).

Anyway, I wasn't sure if this is something that adding more memory could help or if maybe my hard drive is just dying on me...or if my computer is just old.

Some other details:

-Mac OS X Version 10.6.8
-2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
-Memory: 4GB 1067MHz DDR3
-500GB HD with 42 GB available
-Computer is probably 4-5 years old, but kept in great condition.

I should also mention that I replaced the Mac HD with a larger one when I first got the computer and I then replaced that one with a newer one once it had started to die on me.

Thanks so much for any help! I really appreciate it.

Thanks for any help, I really appreciate it.

Your problem is the hard drive is too full.

A minimum of 15% free space to work anywhere near efficiently, and some suggest up to 20-25%.

Kinda agree with Harryb2448. Get the amount of free space on your drive somewhere around 15 - 20% minimum. If the performance still isn't satisfactory reboot the machine and open Activity Monitor. If you notice the page in /pageout numbers climbing then additional memory might be in order.

Awesome! I'll give that a try. Thanks so much for the help.

You're welcome. If you'll post back with the data from Activity Monitor I'm sure the guys can provide a better idea of how much additional memory will improve performance.

Another thing do you 'Quit' applications from the File Menu or simply hit the red button? The latter just closes the window without quitting the application.

Slydude said:

You're welcome. If you'll post back with the data from Activity Monitor I'm sure the guys can provide a better idea of how much additional memory will improve performance.

Click to expand...

Okay great! I've attached a screenshot of Activity Monitor but I am not sure what other data you would need. Let me know! Thanks again for the help!

[/IMG]

harryb2448 said:

Another thing do you 'Quit' applications from the File Menu or simply hit the red button? The latter just closes the window without quitting the application.

Click to expand...

Yes I do actually quit out of the programs. Thanks!

@zachg18 It can be difficult to find definitive suggestions about just when Activity Monitor's results suggest the need for more memory. Here's some additional thoughts on the matter to put things in perspective.

I'd like to see some of the other guys chime in on your numbers but to me they don't look too bad. The total size of the pageouts is relatively small. How long had it been since reboot when you took that screenshot?

Unless you routinely open several applications at once or that screenshot was taken shortly after reboot I'm not sure you would notice much difference by adding additional memory. I upped the memory in my 2008 MB Pro from 4GB to 8GB recently. In most tasks I don't notice a significant improvement. I do notice it for some video and photo tasks.

Additional memory would not give you that big of a boost in speed. A larger hard drive would or deleting files on the current drive would. The drive could also need defragging - yes, I know Macs rarely if ever need to be defragged due to the way the OS writes files but if you wish to try it here is an article on how to: https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4032

My choice would be a larger drive if I didn't want to delete a bunch of files.