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Just maxed my ram, but wtf? v2.16

SSpiro

SSpiro

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 30, 2007
605
17
Atlanta, GA
Just maxed my ram to 3GB today. Installed a Kingston 1x2GB chip.

I notice no difference in speed, and when I click on "About this Mac", it literally takes 45 seconds for the window to pop up.

When it pops up, it shows I have 3GB of DDR2 667 RAM, but it sure isn't acting like it. PS CS3, Firefox, etc all open at the same speed as before.

Any thoughts?
 
Not need more?

I have a 2.16 C2D MBP, and came with 1GB from Apple. I would think I should notice a difference between 1GB and 3GB??

If the system reads it, and doesn't given an error, then it couldn't be defective, could it?
 
Dude, adding more RAM isn't going to make Firefox load noticeably faster.

As flopticalcube asked: Did you actually need more RAM?

Until your system reaches the point of actually using all of it's RAM (which causes the OS to swap out to disk, and since disk drives are slower than RAM yadda, yadda, yadda) you're not going to gain "speed" by adding more RAM.
 
localoid said:
Dude, adding more RAM isn't going to make Firefox load noticeably faster.
Click to expand...
Exactly. If I were you I would run for a day on the 1GB of RAM and see what your page outs look like. That should tell you if you really needed the extra RAM or not.
 
Correct

I went from 2 to 4 in my MBP and notice nothing. Its because I really do not NEED 4Gb of ram as of right now. Maybe one day I will be able to max it out but for now I use mostly just under 2GB at most times. BUT I am a photo editor and use PS with 10-20MP files so maybe one day I will need it. Nice to know its there and since I got two 2 GB sticks for $160 its well worth it.
 
SSpiro said:
Just maxed my ram to 3GB today. Installed a Kingston 1x2GB chip.

I notice no difference in speed, and when I click on "About this Mac", it literally takes 45 seconds for the window to pop up.

When it pops up, it shows I have 3GB of DDR2 667 RAM, but it sure isn't acting like it. PS CS3, Firefox, etc all open at the same speed as before.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

The 45 second wait time for the window pop up seems to be excessive, I'm not sure as to why this would be. Did this change when you installed more ram or has it always been this long?

As for applications loading for the first time after a boot you won't notice much difference as the load is influenced by the disc access speeds. Once an application has been loaded then it will remain in memory until that memory is needed or it has been requested again.

The main benefit to more memory in this situation will be the ability to maintain more open applications simultaneously without the memory paging out. As well for some applications (and games) the more that can be held in main memory while running, the faster it will run.

Sopranino
 
There's a common misconception among computer users, that adding more RAM speeds up your computer. No it doesn't. As already pointed out in this thread, it will only help you to add more RAM if you actually max out this RAM. E.g. if you have a dozen apps running at the same time with too little RAM for those apps, some of that data will have to be swapped out on the harddrive in the form of virtual memory, which will then be read and written much, much slower than if you had added more RAM to accomodate those needs instead.

So, sorry SSpiro - your computer is not any faster now, than it was before. It will just make your Mac hold more data in memory before it has to use your haddrive than before. Your programs still have to be loaded into memory the first time from your harddrive, at the same speed as before.
 
Simon R. said:
There's a common misconception among computer users, that adding more RAM speeds up your computer. No it doesn't. As already pointed out in this thread, it will only help you to add more RAM if you actually max out this RAM. E.g. if you have a dozen apps running at the same time with too little RAM for those apps, some of that data will have to be swapped out on the harddrive in the form of virtual memory, which will then be read and written much, much slower than if you had added more RAM to accomodate those needs instead.

So, sorry SSpiro - your computer is not any faster now, than it was before. It will just make your Mac hold more data in memory before it has to use your haddrive than before. Your programs still have to be loaded into memory the first time from your harddrive, at the same speed as before.
Click to expand...

One side effect of holding more of the program or program data in main memory is that the program can run at its best possible speed because it doesn't have to wait while disc IO is done. The impression that this gives is that the program is running faster, (which is what I stated on a previous post) however it may be more correct to state that the program is now not being slowed down by disc IO.

Sopranino
 
To put it another way, adding more ram will not speed up your computer but it will help it not slow down when running many applications at the same time. Well, if you had too little ram to start with, it may have been slowing down already.

That is very curious/worysome why it takes 45 seconds to open the About This Mac screen though. Have you tried taking out the 2GB and opening the About again?
 
Imagine yourself as a factory owner, and you need to move boxes (go with me on this one :p ):

If you have 97 boxes, having 100 guys to move the boxes is going to be better than having only 50 guys doing the job, because with more guys, the job can be done faster. Hell, you'll have 3 guys to spare. They can sit and do nothing......waiting for you to give them a job to do.

Now imagine that there are 2 boxes sitting on the ground. In this case, who cares whether you have 50 or 100 guys? If you have 50 employees, you'll have 2 guys lifting the boxes, and 48 guys sitting around. If you have 100 employees, you'll have 2 guys lifting the boxes, and 98 guys sitting around.

RAM are just like workers. You didn't need a lot of workers to open Firefox or Safari, and so having more RAM didn't make any difference. Now, if there were 1162 boxes to lift, then obviously having 100 workers is going to be much better than having 50 workers.
 
Wouldn't it have made more sense to have two matched pair pieces of ram, rather than 1GB + 2GB stick in the notebook? Still though, there isn't any reason for it be the same after adding the ram. Try taking out the 1GB stick and just leave the 2GB stick in and see if the problems persist
 
I have 512 mb of ddr2 etc. etc. RAM... but I don't need extra RAM.. still have a bit left over even running videos plus web browser... not exactly a power user :rolleyes: but really... at any given point I still have 100 some MB of inactive RAM waiting to be used again.
 
Abstract said:
Imagine yourself as a factory owner, and you need to move boxes (go with me on this one :p ):

If you have 97 boxes, having 100 guys to move the boxes is going to be better than having only 50 guys doing the job, because with more guys, the job can be done faster. Hell, you'll have 3 guys to spare. They can sit and do nothing......waiting for you to give them a job to do.

Now imagine that there are 2 boxes sitting on the ground. In this case, who cares whether you have 50 or 100 guys? If you have 50 employees, you'll have 2 guys lifting the boxes, and 48 guys sitting around. If you have 100 employees, you'll have 2 guys lifting the boxes, and 98 guys sitting around.

RAM are just like workers. You didn't need a lot of workers to open Firefox or Safari, and so having more RAM didn't make any difference. Now, if there were 1162 boxes to lift, then obviously having 100 workers is going to be much better than having 50 workers.
Click to expand...

Shame on you for not using groups of 8! Shame shame shame!

My favorite analogy is as follows. RAM and hard drive space are both referred to (incorrectly and correctly) as "memory". Now, this confuses a lot of people who aren't computer gurus and sub/quasi gurus. To explain to them, us the following.

Hard drive space is like the cabinets in your kitchen. Its where you store your stuff when you're not using it. Its permanent storage. Your counter is where you put your stuff when your actually using it, and you can only have so much stuff out at once (assume that you have a lot more cabinet space than counter space). Now, having too much counter space isn't going to hinder you, you just have a lot of extra space, but having too little will.

Since you won't be able to put stuff on the counter, you will have to keep things in the cupboard until you need them, and at that point you will have to get the item out of the cupboard every time you want to use them (hard drive memory).
 
Fayler said:
Shame on you for not using groups of 8! Shame shame shame!

My favorite analogy is as follows. RAM and hard drive space are both referred to (incorrectly and correctly) as "memory". Now, this confuses a lot of people who aren't computer gurus and sub/quasi gurus. To explain to them, us the following.

Hard drive space is like the cabinets in your kitchen. Its where you store your stuff when you're not using it. Its permanent storage. Your counter is where you put your stuff when your actually using it, and you can only have so much stuff out at once (assume that you have a lot more cabinet space than counter space). Now, having too much counter space isn't going to hinder you, you just have a lot of extra space, but having too little will.

Since you won't be able to put stuff on the counter, you will have to keep things in the cupboard until you need them, and at that point you will have to get the item out of the cupboard every time you want to use them (hard drive memory).
Click to expand...

very good analogy. It would have helped me a lot when I was actually selling computers.

So in this analogy, what would the CPU's cache be?
 
mgargan1 said:
very good analogy. It would have helped me a lot when I was actually selling computers.

So in this analogy, what would the CPU's cache be?
Click to expand...

Your apron pockets. :D

An analogy I liked was one of an office. Your desk is the CPU, RAM is the filing cabinet across the hall and HDDs are long term storage all the way down in the basement. Things like bus speed can be explained as how fast you can go from your desk to the filing cabinet across the hall and back.


Lethal
 
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