mac mini almost unusable after a few weeks...memory issue?

I've had a mac mini for about 3 weeks now. I KNOW I should have upgraded the memory from the 512 but didn't realize it would be this bad. It worked great for the first week or so but now any task is cumbersome and results in the 'beach ball'. Is there any fix to this short of biting the bullet and getting more memory?

Thanks!

blackwaterdev said:

I've had a mac mini for about 3 weeks now. I KNOW I should have upgraded the memory from the 512 but didn't realize it would be this bad. It worked great for the first week or so but now any task is cumbersome and results in the 'beach ball'. Is there any fix to this short of biting the bullet and getting more memory?

Thanks!

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1GB is highly recommended, but other than that, the best thing you could do would be to reduce the number of widgets you have running (these eat memory) and any other aftermarket programs that start up automatically with the computer (i.e. anything in the Startup Items folder under the Users System Preferences).

In addition, you might want to try running an optimization with Onyx. This might help a bit.

I second what cwa107 said - take a run at OnyX. However, with such a new machine, I would be looking at the applications you have loaded, trying to find out what is starting up automatically and try to disable a few of these. Check your user preference panel and see what your userid starts automatically. If you can, disable a few. This will save memory. Also, per cwa107, go light on the widgets.

Finally, if you can, 1 GB is better. Your mini will breath a lot more easily with a bit more room to move around in. As I recall, the mini ALSO uses its memory for graphics (shared memory graphics) so if you only have 512, and the Mini is using 128 for graphics, you REALLY only have 384 to play with. This is just too little. More RAM really is the best answer, and not all that expensive either. Go for it if you can.