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Early 2009 Base Mini is slow when running XP

How much memory have you assigned to your Virtual Machine? If you only have 1GB RAM and have assigned 1GB to XP it will perform awfully as OS X will be thrashing the hard drive due to paging. Try reducing the amount of RAM you have assigned to say 512MB and see if it performs any better. If its only light things you'll be doing in XP on the VM, then you could possibly turn it down to 384MB or even 256MB. Failing that - use Bootcamp and install Windows XP, then you would get the full speed benefits and more RAM, only down side is rebooting all the time :S

Is your Mac mini the one that has the GeForce 9400M? If so, 128 or 256MB of RAM is used for video memory (can't remember which). If so then yes that memory should fit your Mac mini fine

Hope this helps

pac
 
You need more RAM to run a VM. 1GB is not enough. 2GB is still cutting it close. 4GB is really the minimum RAM you want to run smoothly.
 
pacmania1982 said:
How much memory have you assigned to your Virtual Machine? If you only have 1GB RAM and have assigned 1GB to XP it will perform awfully as OS X will be thrashing the hard drive due to paging. Try reducing the amount of RAM you have assigned to say 512MB and see if it performs any better. If its only light things you'll be doing in XP on the VM, then you could possibly turn it down to 384MB or even 256MB. Failing that - use Bootcamp and install Windows XP, then you would get the full speed benefits and more RAM, only down side is rebooting all the time :S

Is your Mac mini the one that has the GeForce 9400M? If so, 128 or 256MB of RAM is used for video memory (can't remember which). If so then yes that memory should fit your Mac mini fine


pac
Click to expand...

I only have 1GB on my Mini and assigned half 512MB to XP.

I think the video memory is 128MB. I'm planning to switch the HD to 500GB and that should up the video memory to 256MB right?

And is that ram compatible to mini?

Thanks for all ur reply.
 
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So I checked the activity monitor and it's around 880MB used and still around 20MB free. Mac OS is usable but laggy. XP on Fusion is so slow that it's slower than a 5 years old PC. Takes about 3 min to open IE?

Do u think 4GB ram would fix this issue?

I've attached a screen shot of my activity monitor.
 

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Harryc said:
(5) people in this thread had said that you need more RAM for a VM. Now make it (6).
Click to expand...

Haahaa,.... point taken and Ram bought! Just waiting for them now. I'm just worried it has nothing to do with RAM but XP software itself.
 
hohohong said:
Haahaa,.... point taken and Ram bought! Just waiting for them now. I'm just worried it has nothing to do with RAM but XP software itself.
Click to expand...

after reading all post, just one quick question, do you want to change the RAM at your own?
 
Krafty said:
Indeed. Read the reviews, people talk about installing it in their mini's.
Thats the same ones i'll be ordering soon.
Click to expand...

That's why i ordered it. Coz if review of Mini. But then, i think there're 2 different type for mini. DDR2 and DDR3. Then there's 240 and 204. And 8500 vs 10666......

But i think i ended up ordering the right one.
 
hohohong said:
That's why i ordered it. Coz if review of Mini. But then, i think there're 2 different type for mini. DDR2 and DDR3. Then there's 240 and 204. And 8500 vs 10666......

But i think i ended up ordering the right one.
Click to expand...

Got o your Menu Bar -> :apple: -> About This Mac

Look at the memory and it should tell you.
 
I run XP via Fusion on my 2009 mini with 4GB RAM, I have 1GB assigned to XP, both OS run well like this. Upgrade your memory to 4GB, it is worth it.
 
I have the older mini and 4GB of RAM (3.x usable) and VM Fusion is faster than my work laptop (which is 5 years old and scheduled to be replaced any year now). So add another vote for more memory.
 
All I can say is WOW! IT'S FAST!!!

When I installed XP, I only had 1GB ram so Fusion automatically assigned 512MB ram to XP.

Now that I have 4GB ram, should I up XP to 1GB ram? At 512MB now, XP is already fast.

And I install iStat, when I'm running everything, safari, XP VLC I still have around 700MB free,.... does that sounds right?
 
I've got 1GB (of my 4) and 1 virtual processor assigned to XP in Fusion, I ran XP and opened Firefox. Meanwhile on my Mac I am browsing MacRumors, ripping a CD and have Mail open. Here is my iStat:
 

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XP on Fusion is so slow that it's slower than a 5 years old PC. Takes about 3 min to open IE?
Click to expand...

Yeah, but you're forgetting - VMWare Fusion places about a ~500MB overhead for each running virtual machine, on top of the memory you allocate it.

That means you're using almost 1GB just to run XP - which means your machine will be paging back and forth continually to keep it all going - hence why it was so incredibly slow. Evidence of this is visible on your activity monitor screenshot - see "Page ins" and "Page outs". That's a huge amount* in/out (normally paging to hard disk - which is the bottleneck) which is why performance was so terrible on just 1GB of RAM. Also, look at 'VM Size" - that's how much of your hard disk space was being use as virtual memory! (Because it couldn't physically fit it into actual memory)


*PI/PO amounts can rack up during normal use if your uptime is very long. But I assume this isn't the case - I mean this machines uptime is 7 hours and it only just broken the 800MB mark for page ins
 
dubhe said:
I've got 1GB (of my 4) and 1 virtual processor assigned to XP in Fusion, I ran XP and opened Firefox. Meanwhile on my Mac I am browsing MacRumors, ripping a CD and have Mail open. Here is my iStat:
Click to expand...

Hi,
it's not my bussiness, but don't you think that your HDD is boiling?
 
No, not at 56°
Click to expand...

The maximum safe operating temperature for effectively any hard drive on the market right now is 60C - and anywhere between 50-59C should only be exceptional / heavy load temperatures. 56C is not a normal running temperature, and you should try and cool it down, otherwise its lifespan will be significantly reduced.

In fact... your whole machine is boiling hot. 76C for the northbridge? 60-70 is tolerable, but I think approaching 80C is getting into dangerous territory. I would get your whole machine checked out if I were you - if your NB goes pop, you could be rather screwed.
 
dubhe said:
No, not at 56°
What made you say that? It is a 7200rpm drive so might be a little hot :confused:
Click to expand...

it's like DavidR91 wrote, I have also 7200rpm HDD in my other MM '09, and the values are max 44° C, usually 41-42° C.
I saw that your fan spins only at 1647 rpm, which maybe very pleasant - without any noise, but as you can see, the flip side of that nice silence is the temperature. Don't you use something like FanControl?
 
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