Do I need more memory for my new iMac?

[kalton]

In January of this year, I became the proud owner of a new 21.5" iMac. It has the 2 terabyte hard drive and 8 gig of RAM (four 2 gig cards).
Whenever I am syncing my iPhone with iTunes and during other times as well, such as when I'm using Google's Sketchup program, I get the "spinning wheel" more frequently now than when my iMac was brand new out of the box.

I am considering installing four 4 Gig memory cards to perhaps solve this annoyance.

Would the added memory take care of this issue? And if so....which sellers or manufacturers would be the best?

I'm not sure who makes the memory cards for Apple, but I have done a little looking on-line; the price for this upgrade from Apple is pretty spendy. There are other sellers that are cheaper, but I'm not really up on who would be the best and most reliable for my iMac.

I appreciate your input and suggestions.
Thanks,
Kevin

 

[bas-macfan]

No, you do not need more memory. After a while a whole lot of software problems will decrease your speed. It is not a hardware issue, more like a software issue.

I do not know if you use programs like techtool-pro, Onyx or something that will set things right on your Mac. If that does not work a clean install will do wonders But that is the last resort.

 

[MacRuler]

8 gigs of ram is MORE than enough, what you really should do is get a ssd, after installing that you will not see any spinning wheels, make sure to get a good one like the intel g2 or ocz vertex 2

 

[daibachin]

8 gigs of ram is MORE than enough, what you really should do is get a ssd, after installing that you will not see any spinning wheels, make sure to get a good one like the intel g2 or ocz vertex 2

That's very true
If I remember correctly, your 21.5" can only allow 8G of ram.. so you can't install more ram on it.

 

[aarond12]

Run Activity Monitor (Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor) to get a better picture of your memory usage.

Also check your Login Items (System Preferences > Users > Login Items) to see if applications have put themselves there. Known offenders are Skype, HP printers and scanners, and ooVoo; I'm sure there are others. Clean them out (leaving iTunes Helper if you have an iPod/iPhone/iPad).

-Aaron-

 

[TMRaven]

Run the console log, and it'll usually tell you what went wrong with your computer. Besides ram hog and/or software becoming unresponsive an causing a cpu hang, pinwheels are usually the result of the hard drive being slow-- in which case the cpu has to wait for the hard drive to catch up.

Sometimes pinwheels can be fixed with repairing disk permissions under disk utility.

 

[kalton]

Run the console log, and it'll usually tell you what went wrong with your computer. Besides ram hog and/or software becoming unresponsive an causing a cpu hang, pinwheels are usually the result of the hard drive being slow-- in which case the cpu has to wait for the hard drive to catch up.

Sometimes pinwheels can be fixed with repairing disk permissions under disk utility.

TMRaven, Thanks very much for the advice.

As you suggested, I ran a check on the 'disk permissions' and it found several items that were out of sync. I ran this a couple of times to see if there were any differences or changes each time. JAVA was in the list both times I checked. And there was a WARNING: SUID file "System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent" thing that said it had been modified and would not be repaired. Is this something I should be worried about?

You seem to know about Mac's so any feedback would be appreciated. I love my Mac...will never own another PC...and I want to keep it working like new.

Thanks again,
Kevin

 

[kalton]

That's very true
If I remember correctly, your 21.5" can only allow 8G of ram.. so you can't install more ram on it.

You can install a maximum of 16 gigs in the 21.5" and the 27" iMac's. But I didn't want to if it wasn't really necessary....at least for the time being. Someday in the future I probably will, just because.
Kevin

 

[mrsir2009]

Woah. 8 Gig is enough for anybody. Get a SSD instead. You'll get way better gain