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Resolved iMac RAM drainage

T

tomiko

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 6, 2010
17
0
...just today i realised one thing: suddenly all my RAM starts running down like a countdown to around 18MB :(. and my computer becomes slow and irresponsive. i have 8GB of RAM. i try the "purge" command, and for a few minutes free RAM is like 5GB...then starts counting down again to about 18MB. i tried restart, shut down. nothing's working and i'm very sad. i love my iMac but it's started acting strangely.

did some googling and nothing useful...

can someone help me please?

current inactive RAM: about 6GB...why that much?
 
Last edited:
What version of OS X are you running?

If you're not at 10.7.5 or 10.8.4 do update and make sure to apply the security patches that show up after you do those updates.
 
Are you getting that number from activity monitor? Can you provide a screen shot?
 
yes of course. here's a screen shot:

a1067dbd96c5494540252ea5d4db5d64.png
 
I suspect something in either/both browsers are the cause. How many tabs are open in each? I see that FFox is weighing in at 1GB+, plus some number of Shockwave helpers. Chrome has a similar issue, You're probably on a site that is using flash/video, and that's probably the issue.
 
kohlson said:
I suspect something in either/both browsers are the cause. How many tabs are open in each? I see that FFox is weighing in at 1GB+, plus some number of Shockwave helpers. Chrome has a similar issue, You're probably on a site that is using flash/video, and that's probably the issue.
Click to expand...


That's more than likely the culprit. Of course, it would also help to quit apps and restart the computer every so often.
 
I don't see anything unusual with the RAM use. You've got almost no pageouts, and no swap to speak of. Your computer is using the RAM as it should. I suspect any incidents of unresponsiveness are caused by something else. Usually, it's a process that's using a lot of CPU. From that Activity Monitor screen, sort the list using the CPU column and see what pops up at the top.
 
i have been on a site doing video/audio tranmission. but the problem is this never happened before. i always had 2-3gbs RAM free. funny thing is even after i restart the problem still exists and i'm not sure anymore what's the cause of this:
this is the screenshot CPU-sorted processes:

3220a41cfacacf3f614cdc44fc97b3dd.png
 
tomiko said:
i have been on a site doing video/audio tranmission. but the problem is this never happened before. i always had 2-3gbs RAM free. funny thing is even after i restart the problem still exists and i'm not sure anymore what's the cause of this:
this is the screenshot CPU-sorted processes:

Image
Click to expand...


At this point, have you considered the nuclear option and clean installing OS X?
 
problem solved. it was because i was transmitting video/audio on some particular site that used flash. i stopped going to that site and everything seems to be normal now. i have lots of free RAM now. thanks a lot mates :)
 
tomiko said:
problem solved. it was because i was transmitting video/audio on some particular site that used flash. i stopped going to that site and everything seems to be normal now. i have lots of free RAM now. thanks a lot mates :)
Click to expand...

Flash, always Flash...
 
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