dreaded spinning disc

This is probably posted daily but need help. Constantly getting the spinning disc when on Safari. Not as common with other programs or on Chrome. Already tried resetting all permissions and did virus sweep with nothing found. I know many don't like Safari from other posts. Running MAC mini with 4GB RAM, Intel 2.5 i5 and OS X 10.9.5. Lots of space left on hard drive. Any suggestions.

ortho1121 said:

This is probably posted daily but need help.

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Not exactly daily...but pretty often. A search should definitely pull up a bunch of threads on this topic.

Some things you to try:

- Reboot the computer more often (since you only have 4gig of RAM).
- Install more RAM.
- Run the free maintenance app called "Onyx".
- Maybe have less apps open at one time.

HTH,

- Nick

p.s. Moved thread to better area.

ortho1121 said:

This is probably posted daily but need help. Constantly getting the spinning disc when on Safari. Not as common with other programs or on Chrome. Already tried resetting all permissions and did virus sweep with nothing found. I know many don't like Safari from other posts. Running MAC mini with 4GB RAM, Intel 2.5 i5 and OS X 10.9.5. Lots of space left on hard drive. Any suggestions.

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Hello Ortho.... - Nick has already given you great advice, so not much more for me to add, but this is not a daily posting and many of us, including me are happy using Safari; your limited RAM may be an issue, as already suggested; plus, let us know what 'lots of space left on the hard drive' means?

Also, when these 'spinning beach balls' appear, have you opened 'Activity Monitor' to see if Safari is 'not responding'? I've had this issue occasionally and that is often the explanation, so checkout this LINK (portion shown below in a screen capture) - see if any of the suggestions there may help - good luck and let us know. Dave
.

ortho1121 said:

Constantly getting the spinning disc when on Safari.

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I've created an entire Web page to help with this sort of problem:

Macintosh OS X Beachballs!
http://www.macattorney.com/rbb.html

The problem could easily be your anti-virus software. Just about all fully interactive anti-virus programs can destabilized your Mac.

Check out Item #4 on the page, it is specific to Safari (or other browsers.)

Please let us know what ultimately helps.

Thanks to all for the help, will try your hints.

Using only about 10% of my ahrd drive. Use the MAC for word processing, emails and web searches. No heavy storage.

and did virus sweep with nothing found

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How did you do that virus sweep? I ask because there are NO viruses for Mac and no need for Antivirus software. If you ARE using an AV software package that is resident all the time, that can slow you machine significantly for zero benefit.

ortho1121 said:

Using only about 10% of my ahrd drive. Use the MAC for word processing, emails and web searches. No heavy storage.

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Gave you suggestions/possibilities above.

- Nick

ortho1121 said:

Using only about 10% of my ahrd drive. Use the MAC for word processing, emails and web searches. No heavy storage.

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Did you check out the Web site that I referenced?

Macintosh OS X Beachballs!
http://www.macattorney.com/rbb.html

You will almost certainly find the answer there.

I have seen people refer to Activity Monitor toas a check. I did and this is what I found. Please bear with me.
Physical Memory 4.00 GB
Memory Used 3.44 GB
Virtual Memory 4.51 GB
Swap 0 bytes
App Memory 1.33 GB
File Cache 1.28 GB

In English what is going on? Am I getting the beach ball due to only having 4 GB of memory on the machine?

Ortho1121. Now that you started another thread about getting a new Mac-Mini...where do things stand? Are you getting a new Mac-Mini because you are having problems with your current Mac-Mini...or are you getting a new Mac-Mini as a 2nd computer?

Regarding your current Mac-Mini. Have you tried rebooting the computer (you haven't told us). Yes a RAM upgrade could help.

If you're still getting the spinning beach balls after this...maybe your hard drive is failing. This would only cost about a $50 to replace if you did it yourself. And another $50 for an 8gig RAM upgrade.

No need to spend big bucks on a brand new computer if you don't need one.

- Nick

Was getting new machine because I am fed up with beach balls. Will an Apple store do these upgrades or should I find a private repair shop? Is it that hard to do these upgrades. I know I am all over the place, that speaks to my ignorance. Thanks for your patience.

No, an Apple Store will only do repairs on machines and devices that are in warranty or out of warranty provided the machine or device is not considered obsolete. They do not do upgrades. Upgrades can be done at a private repair shop or at an authorized Apple repair service dealer who does that sort of thing. Some upgrades can be done by yourself depending on which machine you have. Most Macs nowadays are not designed for DIY repairs.

ortho1121 said:

Was getting new machine because I am fed up with beach balls. Will an Apple store do these upgrades or should I find a private repair shop? Is it that hard to do these upgrades. I know I am all over the place, that speaks to my ignorance. Thanks for your patience.

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If you might be interested in trying the repair yourself, check out ifixit.com for repair manuals and tear down guides. The guides are excellent and have pictures for each step of the tear down. If the upgrades look like they might be too much for you to attempt, then you can always contact a local mom & pop shop.

So carrying this forward, can anyone suggest a quality SSD drive for a MAC mini? Cost?

ortho1121 said:

So carrying this forward, can anyone suggest a quality SSD drive for a MAC mini? Cost?

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Shop at OWC (macsales.com) or newegg.com

- Nick

Check at OWC (macsales.com) for a compatible drive for your machine.

ortho1121 said:

Was getting new machine because I am fed up with beach balls. Will an Apple store do these upgrades or should I find a private repair shop? Is it that hard to do these upgrades. I know I am all over the place, that speaks to my ignorance. Thanks for your patience.

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I strongly suspect that upgrading the RAM in your older mini would be a waste of money. While having too little RAM in a Mac that is being asked to do a lot of heavy lifting, such as 3D graphics, or video editing, or running six or seven major apps at the same time, might cause a bit of beachballing while it did a virtual memory swap, it wouldn't normally cause such a persistent beachball problem that you would become "fed up."

I have in my office a 9-year old iMac with only 4GB of RAM installed. I use it to run a couple of legacy programs that no longer exist for the Mac. that require OS X 10.6 (because OS X 10.6 was the last version of OS X that included Rosetta). I also dual-boot this machine into El Capitan. Running either Snow Leopard or El Capitan, this iMac has excellent performance, and I never see a spinning beachball, despite the fact that it only has 4GB of RAM installed.

You state that your mini has a 2.5 GHz i5 processor. That means that your mini is what...only about 4 years old? That's too new a Macintosh for you to have to purchase an entirely new one.

I'm willing to bet that your older mini's beachball problem could be easily resolved, and that it can regain its like-new performance, but you have to work with us a bit. Did you have a look at the Web site I suggested?

Macintosh OS X Beachballs!
http://www.macattorney.com/rbb.html

Did you try the things suggested there? If you got hung up with any of the suggestions, please tell us which one, and what about it confused you, and we will try to help.

Of course, if you don't want to deal with this problem on your own, if you have a brick and mortar Apple Store nearby and make an appointment, they will do a diagnostic on your mini for free that will only take a minute or two. You don't need to be covered by AppleCare for them to run a quick diagnostic on your computer, and then at least you will know exactly what's wrong with it.

I strongly suspect that upgrading the RAM in your older mini would be a waste of money. …

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Nice straight summary.

One thing that's seldom mentioned with such slowdowns etc., especially when doing such things as "web research" it the ISP service and/or settings and some of the slow sites being accessed.

Some can be slow even when using the potentially newest and fastest computer available.

Then there's all the connecting equipment and all their settings that can add to the slowdown list. And yes, it can take some snooping and proper setups to get things running properly. Even some old routers etc. may need replacing first and mat even be the cause of any slowdowns, plus the number of users accessing the same stuff at the same time, and even the old ISP's nodes sitting on the poles that should have been replaced years ago. And on and on…. as Randy says, let us know some of the details of your situation…




- Patrick
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pm-r said:

Nice straight summary.

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Thank you, Patrick!

I just realized that I should issue a qualifier....

If one has a persistent beachball problem, if your RAM is failing, or your hard drive is failing, replacing them *will* solve your beachball problem. Not for the reason that most folks are suggesting, but it will solve the problem.

That's why I offer a way to test the health of both on my "Macintosh OS X Beachballs!" Web site.
I always like to figure out precisely what the problem is before throwing money at it. That way I'm not likely to throw money away for no reason.