Intel Mac Mini SLOOOOOOOW...

[IJ Reilly]

I see that all the time with Safari, on two G5s (dual 2GHz), both of which have 512MB RAM.

I stick by my earlier advice, don't keep too many Safari tabs open, quit and relaunch it often, install more RAM.

Well, it must be clean living because I almost never see it, on much older and far slower Macs with less RAM.

One is a G4/800 iMac with a whopping great 320 Mb or RAM, which my wife uses all day every day. She doesn't get the concept of quitting applications. I sneak over to her desk about once a week to reboot it.

 

[milo]

Ignorant? Thank you so much.

Perhaps you ought to take another look at the initial post. Sure, all Macs will "see better performance" with more RAM. But this is not what we're talking about here. This user complains that it takes 15 seconds just to close a Safari window. This is not normal behavior for any Mac in any stock configuration, as I think everyone would agree. Try to find out what the problem is before throwing money at it, is my suggestion.

Ignorant: lacking knowledge, information or awareness about something in particular. Certainly seems to fit here.

15 seconds to close a safari window is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. I saw the exact same thing on my mini with 512. Upping the ram and making no other changes made the performance perfectly speedy. I'm not talking about a subtle improvement, I'm talking about going from snail to snappy just from upping the ram. With 512, I had operations that took MINUTES that became instantaneous with more ram.

This IS normal behaviour of the mini in stock configuration. Many people online have confirmed this. We HAVE determined what the problem is, and "throwing money at it" IS the solution in this case.

Have you used a mini with both ram configurations and compared? Have you?

Well, it must be clean living because I almost never see it, on much older and far slower Macs with less RAM.

One is a G4/800 iMac with a whopping great 320 Mb or RAM, which my wife uses all day every day. She doesn't get the concept of quitting applications. I sneak over to her desk about once a week to reboot it.

Are any of the machines you've never seen it on intel macs?

 

[citi]

this may have been asked before but I don't want to go through pages to try to help someone. Are you using widgets? Are they running all the time/in the background?

I noticed when I was running a lot of widgets on my pb 1.25 it slowed my mac to a crawl. After removing them it was speedy again and I have a gb of ram.

 

[danny_w]

I see that all the time with Safari, on two G5s (dual 2GHz), both of which have 512MB RAM.

I stick by my earlier advice, don't keep too many Safari tabs open, quit and relaunch it often, install more RAM.

Or just don't use Safari. I've tried it too many times now to give it another change. Too bad, I really wanted to like it.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Are any of the machines you've never seen it on intel macs?

If you're trying to tell that any Intel Mac is slower than a four year old iMac G4, with half the RAM besides, then pardon me if I remain incredulous.

As for the rest, I've already made my point clearly. This issue should not be half as controversial as some make it out to be, and I'm not going to respond to flames.

 

[milo]

If you're trying to tell that any Intel Mac is slower than a four year old iMac G4, with half the RAM besides, then pardon me if I remain incredulous.

As for the rest, I've already made my point clearly. This issue should not be half as controversial as some make it out to be, and I'm not going to respond to flames.

If you exceed the ram on an intel mini, it will get slow as molasses. So yes, I am telling you that. For comparison, I have an easier time getting a mini with 512 to seriously lag than a beige G3/333.

By your refusal to answer the question, I can only assume you never have used an intel mini (or likely any other intel mac). Feel free to correct that assumption if it's wrong. Maybe your incredulity would go away if you actually had some experience with the machine and saw it firsthand.

Your post isn't controversial, it's just flat out wrong. And my response to it isn't a flame, just pointing out that it's incorrect. I just wish you'd get the facts instead of insisting on spreading misinformation.

 

[macgeek2005]

I picked up an extra core solo intel Mac Mini (512mb) for light emailing (mail) and basic word processing (microsoft word under Rosetta), and despite the minimal strain on the machine, it is:

-Slow
-Stuttering
-Extremely unresponsive
-Beachballing me to death

etc. Switching between word windows can tie the machine up for up to ten seconds at a time. Closing safari windows can take 15 seconds. Saving a doc and switching between programs? I can make a hot pocket during the delay...

Is this people's normal experience with the machine, or should I be looking for something else wrong here? I know its not a powermac, and some of the apps are running under Rosetta, but still... this thing is barely chuggin along...

Any ideas for me?

I haven't read the whole thread, so if what I say now is irrelevant, please excuse me.

I don't find it weird at all. The Mac Mini's are slow pieces of trash, and running a rosetta app on TOP of that??? *shudder*. It boggles the mind, or more like, the hard drive.

If you think it's too slow, pay an extra grand, for a computer that's an extra grand faster. That's the mac mini. It's cheap, and it's ****.

 

[IJ Reilly]

If you exceed the ram on an intel mini, it will get slow as molasses. So yes, I am telling you that. For comparison, I have an easier time getting a mini with 512 to seriously lag than a beige G3/333.

By your refusal to answer the question, I can only assume you never have used an intel mini (or likely any other intel mac). Feel free to correct that assumption if it's wrong. Maybe your incredulity would go away if you actually had some experience with the machine and saw it firsthand.

Your post isn't controversial, it's just flat out wrong. And my response to it isn't a flame, just pointing out that it's incorrect. I just wish you'd get the facts instead of insisting on spreading misinformation.

Who's facts, yours? We've also had a post commenting that a dual G5 can also be seen to lag. I don't doubt it. Any Mac will, if swap files are allowed to build up. The first thing to try is still the first thing to try. Start free and easy and escalate only if necessary, not the other way around. This is Mac maintenance 101 -- and the point of my advice. It remains the point, no matter how hard you try to turn it into something else.

 

[milo]

I don't find it weird at all. The Mac Mini's are slow pieces of trash, and running a rosetta app on TOP of that??? *shudder*. It boggles the mind, or more like, the hard drive.

Actually, with most apps the mini duo keeps up pretty well with machines that are three times the price. The only time it chokes is with the stock ram, and I suspect the MPB's will do the same if you run enough apps and use all the memory.

Who's facts, yours? We've also had a post commenting that a dual G5 can also be seen to lag. I don't doubt it. Any Mac will, if swap files are allowed to build up. The first thing to try is still the first thing to try. Start free and easy and escalate only if necessary, not the other way around. This is Mac maintenance 101 -- and the point of my advice. It remains the point, no matter how hard you try to turn it into something else.

Mine and many others online. I've seen the exact same results from others on macintouch's user reports among numerous other places (but I'm sure you're probably not going to believe me unless I provide links, right?). I have personal experience to back my claims up, as well as others with the same results. Are you calling me a liar? Are you saying that even though I have the same machine as the OP with the exact same symptoms, the solution that worked for me can't possibly apply to him? (especially when he tells us he's had literally a *million* pageouts!)

And doesn't the fact that a G5 with minimal ram can be made to choke fairly easily support the idea that it's probably RAM?

Do you have any experience with the intel mini? What's your basis for your "facts" about the intel mini? Use of different machines with a completely different chipset and build of the apps and OS? You have no facts whatsoever, just speculation on your part, which in this case turns out to be wrong.

As I've already said, I agree with the idea of trying the simple, harmless things first. But in this case, even if fsck ends up fixing something, it's not going to fix the larger problem, which is that on the mini, running multiple apps, particularly ones that are memory hogs like safari, memory runs out fast and the machine completely chokes. The fix for this is easy, get more ram.

If you had simply stuck with "try the basics first" I'd have no disagreement. I'm certainly NOT trying to turn your point into something else. But to insist that the problem has nothing to do with ram is just uninformed speculation on your part, and you're just spreading misinformation by continuing to make that claim.


I'm dying to hear how the OP finally solves his problem. Did basic software utilities make a difference? Or did it take more ram to speed things up?

We'll see.

 

[Eric5h5]

Another point about performance and RAM: No matter how much RAM you've got installed, over time you will still build up virtual memory swap files, which will gradually degrade the system's performance to the point where you see constant beach balls. The cure is rebooting. Having more RAM essentially means not having to reboot quite so often.

I'm sorry, but this is wrong. Unix (and hence OS X) does not work like that. I almost never reboot unless the power goes out, and my system does not see performance degradation, with 1.5GB of RAM (on a PPC machine, so no Rosetta). The only thing that could cause something like that is a memory leak. Rebooting would cure the problem temporarily, but you'd want to get rid of it by not running the buggy program that has the memory leak. It's certainly not a "feature" of OS X.

I agree that "add more RAM" is thrown around too much (not as often as the almost completely useless "repair permissions"...how many people actually even know what permissions are, and why they might need repair, and what the effects of faulty permissions actually are? It's not "running slow," that's for sure). However, when you have someone exactly describing the effects of running low on RAM, it certainly makes sense to recommend adding more.

--Eric

 

[Krevnik]

Other stupid newbie question- page ins/out is at something like 3,000,000/1,000,000. Is that normal? Sounds kinda funny to me...

Still, these numbers do seem high. If you turn off the machine when it isn't in use, then this is really bad to see.

 

[mtoddy]

let me say this...

three times i have purchased new macs (two g4 powerbooks and a macbook pro), every one having the base 512mb RAM. i had the exact symptoms you describe.

looking at the activity monitor revealed a constant lack of "free" memory, so i actually upgraded the RAM on all three to at least a gig each.

every time, that did the trick. i almost guarantee that's the problem if you've not done anything to corrupt the system. but even if you did corrupt your system somehow (or another problem existed), your 512 will still be a nightmare guaranteed.

take my word for it

 

[livingfortoday]

I don't know why, but all the bickering in this thread made me think of the Simpsons:

"You know what you two need? A little comic strip called Love Is.... It's about two naked eight-year-olds who are married."

 

[milo]

I don't know why, but all the bickering in this thread made me think of the Simpsons:

"You know what you two need? A little comic strip called Love Is.... It's about two naked eight-year-olds who are married."

I've always liked that line.

 

[dr_lha]

I haven't read the whole thread, so if what I say now is irrelevant, please excuse me.

I don't find it weird at all. The Mac Mini's are slow pieces of trash, and running a rosetta app on TOP of that??? *shudder*. It boggles the mind, or more like, the hard drive.

If you think it's too slow, pay an extra grand, for a computer that's an extra grand faster. That's the mac mini. It's cheap, and it's ****.

You're a moron. The mini rocks as a fast Mac. It just needs at least 1Gb RAM to really fly.

 

[bigfib]

Can those that know not, shut up?

This is a sad little thread.
On the one hand, we have someone with a problem - a slow mac mini.
On the other hand, we have two groups of people. Those of us who have intel macs and know the answer, and those who just want to argue pointlessly.
That would be harmless were it not confusing for the guy trying to get advice.
If you care to look at the original intel imac thread you will see that the answer to this question is very simple.
The intel macs need a lot of ram, and rosetta needs *loads*.
The poor guy who is having problems needs *at least* 1GB. I would advise 1 1/2 or 1
Every single person who has received an intel imac with 512 has had these problems (including myself).
And we're all as happy as Steve Jobs himself now we have added memory.
Those that find it hard to believe, don't. You're just showing your ignorance.
The guy with the problems, go get some ram, and be happy. You have a fabulous little computer with not enough ram.

 

[IJ Reilly]

This thread reminds me of the threads that started and ran for days right after the Intel mini was released. The moment some people got ahold of the fact that they had shared vRAM, the argument was made that performance just had to stink on these systems. Then the benchmarks started coming out, and lo and behold, they didn't stink -- which lo and behold didn't stop some people from continuing to argue that performance just had to stink.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

Honest question, please don't flame.

Why is my mac mini (g4) able to get away with 512 megs of RAM, while an intel mac mini needs over a gig?

Right now I have 6 programs open, but I routinely have 7 or 8 up, and the only time I experience a slow down is when Safari has 10 tabs open (but usually Safari'll crash on me too).

Assuming a UB is really universal, why does the intel one require so much more RAM? My college provides Office 2004 to me for free, and I assume will offer 2007 as well (or whatever the next office version is), which will be a UB. Everything else I use is a UB...does this mean that I will stil lneed to get a gig of ram when I buy my macbook, or will 1/2 a gig work for me on an intel machine, as it works for me on a G4 machine?

P.S. Is the apple logo that macrumor slightly different today, or is it just me?

 

[dr_lha]

Honest question, please don't flame.

Why is my mac mini (g4) able to get away with 512 megs of RAM, while an intel mac mini needs over a gig?

This is a good question, and one I have pondered myself. One answer is obviously tha Rosetta has a large overhead, but even without Rosetta running (i.e. 100% Universal apps) Intel Macs appear to need more memory than PPC ones. This may be due to the size of Intel binaries (Intel binaries seem to be on e whole slightly larger than their PPC equivalents) or perhaps due to the still-somewhat-beta nature of the new Intel Mac OS X.

That said, I see you are running Panther on your mini. I have a 12" PB with 512Mb and I found it became unusable when upgrading to Tiger. I upgraded it to 768Mb and suddenly it was very happy again, my conclusion being that Tiger is a bigger RAM hog than Panther.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

I still run Panther on my mini, I just can't justify the $100 for dashboard- the only feature I would use (and beta testing lightbox).

I understand what you mean with UB's taking up more space, thusly more ram...but wouldn't OS X only read the part of the UB that it needs to run, and let the other half just "sit" there on the HDD and not do anything except take up space? at least, that's how I would think it would opperate..

Maybe I'm just not getting why anyone who does basic tasks would need more than 512 megs of RAM since I'm still on Panther...

 

[bigfib]

Yep, the main difference is Rosetta, the other one is Tiger.
My intel Imac was fine until I ran any non universal app. From that point on it was like using a windows PC in need of a reformat.
And my old G3 was fine until I installed Tiger. Then I had to add memory there as well.

 

[whooleytoo]

This thread reminds me of the threads that started and ran for days right after the Intel mini was released. The moment some people got ahold of the fact that they had shared vRAM, the argument was made that performance just had to stink on these systems. Then the benchmarks started coming out, and lo and behold, they didn't stink -- which lo and behold didn't stop some people from continuing to argue that performance just had to stink.

They are quite fast machines at processor-intensive tasks, slow at memory or graphics intensive tasks.

On top of that, the default RAM configuration in the Apple Store is woefully inadequate. ('round and 'round in circles we go.. )

p.s. and yes, I was one of those whose reaction to the specs was "bleaeaaaach!"

 

[citi]

Honest question, please don't flame.

Why is my mac mini (g4) able to get away with 512 megs of RAM, while an intel mac mini needs over a gig?

Right now I have 6 programs open, but I routinely have 7 or 8 up, and the only time I experience a slow down is when Safari has 10 tabs open (but usually Safari'll crash on me too).

Assuming a UB is really universal, why does the intel one require so much more RAM? My college provides Office 2004 to me for free, and I assume will offer 2007 as well (or whatever the next office version is), which will be a UB. Everything else I use is a UB...does this mean that I will stil lneed to get a gig of ram when I buy my macbook, or will 1/2 a gig work for me on an intel machine, as it works for me on a G4 machine?

P.S. Is the apple logo that macrumor slightly different today, or is it just me?

I believe it has to do with Rosetta and not the mini itself. Rosetta is a serious resource hog that you can't live without. The only way to combat this is more ram. The OSX apps for the G4 are optimised to work efficiently so the requirements are lower. Just one mans opinion. It's not intel...512mb on XP is fine for general work, surfing, word , etc.

 

[dr_lha]

They are quite fast machines at processor-intensive tasks, slow at memory or graphics intensive tasks.

Show me the evidence that they're slow at memory intensive tasks. Memory throughput benchmarks for my mini show it to be up their with the G5s.

 

[dr_lha]

I understand what you mean with UB's taking up more space, thusly more ram...but wouldn't OS X only read the part of the UB that it needs to run, and let the other half just "sit" there on the HDD and not do anything except take up space? at least, that's how I would think it would opperate..

Its not that UB's take up more space (they do) its that the equivalent Intel binary size is larger for most programs that PPC code.

However this doesn't actually appear to be true now I've looked into it! I just checked out the Intel code vs PPC code in iTunes and the Intel code is actually slightly smaller! There goes that theory.

Anyway - I think the difference between Panther and Tiger is a big part of the reason 512Mb is no longer good enough.