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Take a hammer to my mini?

M

miTunes75

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 29, 2006
280
0
I have a core duo 1.83mhz (I think that's right...1.83--i'm not at home to check) with 512 ram, 80gb hdd w/superdrive.

I always have iTunes running. 100% all the time. When I run Safari, every so often when I am on various pages, the mac will beachball and I will have to force quit the program. This happens with firefox too. It gets very irritating. I get the beachball at least 3-4 times/day. So, do I need to back up my programs and reinstall (like WINDOWS) or buy more ram.

What do you think will solve my problem?
 
I don't know how "large" is large - I have about 2000 tracks on there. less than 100gb
 
miTunes75 said:
I don't know how "large" is large - I have about 2000 tracks on there. less than 100gb
Click to expand...

its certainly not huge. but with having it open all the time its cycling tracks through the ram and using up a bunch of it i'm sure. opening a web browser creates more need of ram and then it'll start writing to the disk which if its doing that a lot then thats where you can start to see stability issues.

in activity monitor you can see your page in/page outs and if you're page outs are vastly higher than your page ins then you'd definitely see a benefit from more ram.
 
More RAM as already suggested by PoD. You have to keep in mind that 64MB of that 512 is also being used for video as well. Drop 2 1Gb sticks (DDR2-PC5300) in there and say goodbye to the beachball.
 
I get the occasional beachball on my core 2 1.83ghz mini w/ 1gb of ram, but that is usually only when iTunes is detecting and listing my iPhone.

The extra ram makes a big difference :)
 
Andrmgic said:
I get the occasional beachball on my core 2 1.83ghz mini w/ 1gb of ram, but that is usually only when iTunes is detecting and listing my iPhone.

The extra ram makes a big difference :)
Click to expand...
My core solo (1.5ghz) mini flies with 1.5gb ram. Memory is definitely the bottleneck in your system.
 
miTunes75 said:
I have a core duo 1.83mhz (I think that's right...1.83--i'm not at home to check) with 512 ram, 80gb hdd w/superdrive.

I always have iTunes running. 100% all the time. When I run Safari, every so often when I am on various pages, the mac will beachball and I will have to force quit the program. This happens with firefox too. It gets very irritating. I get the beachball at least 3-4 times/day. So, do I need to back up my programs and reinstall (like WINDOWS) or buy more ram.

What do you think will solve my problem?
Click to expand...


You can solve the problem by sending it to me :D

Don't smash it, send it over here :cool:

Seriously, though, I would agree with the others that memory is going to make a big improvement. I haven't tolerated a Mac with less than 1 GB for the last 2 or 3 years.

The only system I have with less than 1 GB is my old iMac G3 with 288 MB. All the others have between 1 GB and 3 GB of RAM.

I actually consider 2 GB the minimum starting point for my own uses. But, some of my systems will only take 1 or 1.5 GB, so those I settle for their max.

I would put as much memory as you can possibly afford (and which will fit) in your system.
 
Cave Man said:
Quote:
Drop 2 1Gb sticks (DDR2-PC5300) in there and say goodbye to the beachball.

Best advice anyone can give to someone having troubles with a mini.
Click to expand...

I can vouch for this. Just upped the ram on a Core Duo 1.83 mini to 2GB and there is no comparison. The firefox beachballs disappeared completely (usually happened to me when quitting, which necessitated a force-quit).

Firefox, and other applications, open up much quicker. In short, it's almost like a new computer ;)
 
Fleetwood Mac said:
My core solo (1.5ghz) mini flies with 1.5gb ram. Memory is definitely the bottleneck in your system.
Click to expand...

err.. my mini DOES fly at least to me. I only see a beachball when iTunes is detecting my iPhone :)

I plan to upgrade it to 2gb soon, though.. at $60-80.. double the ram sounds like a no-brainer investment.. I'll probably do it next week hehe.
 
Andrmgic said:
err.. my mini DOES fly at least to me. I only see a beachball when iTunes is detecting my iPhone :)

I plan to upgrade it to 2gb soon, though.. at $60-80.. double the ram sounds like a no-brainer investment.. I'll probably do it next week hehe.
Click to expand...


My mini can fly too. But, it wouldn't work afterwards :rolleyes:

It might be fun to watch though until it hit the wall :D Actually, that may be the best part ;)
 
FatSweatyBlldog said:
I can vouch for this. Just upped the ram on a Core Duo 1.83 mini to 2GB and there is no comparison. The firefox beachballs disappeared completely (usually happened to me when quitting, which necessitated a force-quit).
Click to expand...

I've got a Mini 2.0 with 2Gb RAM and I get the beach ball all the time in iTunes. I've had to trim my library to make it more manageable. With it down to 45 Gb, it is mostly usable. Now it only takes about a minute to load rather than 5.

Of course, currently I should say that in the past tense, as it will not turn on right now. The Mini shut off this morning as I was in Safari, with nothing else but Mail open in the background. Now it will not start up at all. Chatted with support already and taking it to the Geniuses later. Good thing I've got my trusty Powerbook...
 
Both Firefox and Safari are rather poor at managing their own memory. I'm not suggesting switch to another browser because they're (in my opionion) some of the best out there, but be conscious of possible memory leaks. I wouldn't be supprised if iTunes was giving you some grief in that department either - a 2000 song database is a bit unweildy.

Upgrading the ram would certainly give you a short term boost, but maybe you should look at why you need itunes open 100% of the time. If it's a server, you may want to investigate getting a dedicated iTunes server/player and keep your other day to day activities seperate. Perhaps a nice second hand G4 mini? That's what I've done and I haven't looked back. It's nice to be able to access your music from any computer as well.
 
I used to have this same symptom. I started using Firefox instead of Safari and have not seen an issue since. Of course, many use Safari with no problems. All I can say is that it that I made a change and the problem was gone. Also, my iTunes collection is right about 31,000 songs. The only time I find iTunes to choke on this collection is when it does the "gapless" check.
 
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