More Ram making mini 2010 slower?

[xnview]

Hi

I have a mac mini 2010 server with 4 GB of ram. I just installed 8 GB of RAM to se if it could be just a little bit faster. I don't know if it's just me but it actually feels a little bit slower, and it seems to have too work harder at simple tasks with 8 GB than with 4 GB.

Is it possible that it actually preforms better with 4 instead of 8 GB Ram?

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Open Activity Monitor AFTER a day of typical usage and go to the System Memory* tab and look for Page Outs and Swap used and report back.

Using Activity Monitor to show you CPU and RAM usage​

* Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor​

 

[newdeal]

Hi

I have a mac mini 2010 server with 4 GB of ram. I just installed 8 GB of RAM to se if it could be just a little bit faster. I don't know if it's just me but it actually feels a little bit slower, and it seems to have too work harder at simple tasks with 8 GB than with 4 GB.

Is it possible that it actually preforms better with 4 instead of 8 GB Ram?

if you weren't using the full 4 then 8 would provide no benefit. if the 8 was slower ram then potentially it could then slow things down. Or if you have a drive that is close to being full the sleep image would be twice the size and so lack of free disk space due to the 8gb sleep image instead of 4gb could make it slower as well (may be a problem if you have a almost full drive)

 

[philipma1957]

the 2010 mac mini is very picky about using 8gb or more ram. while you may think it is working it may have issues. try loading this ram test.


http://www.kelleycomputing.net/rember/

do all ram and run 3 passes. it will take a long time.

 

[newdeal]

if its picky its about the ram brand, my 2010 mini came from apple with 8gb of ram so it was even available as a stock config

 

[philipma1957]

if its picky its about the ram brand, my 2010 mini came from apple with 8gb of ram so it was even available as a stock config

no it wasn't, iirc. I may be wrong they did do a firmware patch to allow it so later 2010's may have come with 8gb

 

[newdeal]

no it wasn't, iirc. I may be wrong they did do a firmware patch to allow it so later 2010's may have come with 8gb

Not sure but I do know I just bought a 2010 mini used the other day and it came with 8gb of ram and I checked the box and the box said 2x4gb as well

 

[xnview]

First of all, thank you for the help

Open Activity Monitor AFTER a day of typical usage and go to the System Memory* tab and look for Page Outs and Swap used and report back.

Using Activity Monitor to show you CPU and RAM usage​

* Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor​

Ok so have been using the mini for a couple of days now, and it says Page outs and Swap used = 0, on both. I usually don't use that much RAM, but someone told me that I might be able to ease the burden of the CPU a little bit for some of the tasks by adding more RAM.

if you weren't using the full 4 then 8 would provide no benefit. if the 8 was slower ram then potentially it could then slow things down. Or if you have a drive that is close to being full the sleep image would be twice the size and so lack of free disk space due to the 8gb sleep image instead of 4gb could make it slower as well (may be a problem if you have a almost full drive)

I have run the test as you told me to (it really did take a awful lot of time) and it says everything is as it should with both RAM modules. Maybe it's just me feeling it's a bit slower.. But the mini do handle harder tasks easier now than before, and without getting as hot as before (figure that it might have been one of the reasons it decreased in performance on heavy tasks after some hours)

no it wasn't, iirc. I may be wrong they did do a firmware patch to allow it so later 2010's may have come with 8gb

The 2010 mini did came with a possible 8 GB RAM option, but later on a firmware update made it compatible with 16 GB of RAM.

 

[paulrbeers]

Ok so have been using the mini for a couple of days now, and it says Page outs and Swap used = 0, on both. I usually don't use that much RAM, but someone told me that I might be able to ease the burden of the CPU a little bit for some of the tasks by adding more

RAM has no affect on CPU. It will make the system run faster if you are experiencing page outs since RAM is faster than your hard drive (if you add more), but it will not ease any CPU burden.