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To all those mac mini users out there!!!

M

miTunes75

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 29, 2006
280
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I have a 1.66ghz core duo with 512mb memory.

The issues I'm having are as follows. Sometimes, when I bring it back from screensaver, I have the little pinwheel that isn't moving. Then, it'll finally snap out of it. When I switch between users, the move doesn't seem smooth, but kinda jerky. Sometimes, when I try to minimize safari and maximize iTunes, I get the spinning pinwheel for awhile, then it'll finally do it.

Is my memory the problem here?

Please don't tell me this is a stupid question. I'm seriously new to the macworld and am unsure on how macs are supposed to operate. My dashboard tells me I have 5mb memory free. Is THIS my issue.

Thanks to all of you for the help in advance.
 
Free memory isn't important...it's free + inactive that matters. Also, look at your page ins and page outs in Activity Monitor.

But it seems like you're low on RAM...512 MB is really the bare minimum to run OS X. I'd expect some occasional "beachballing" in that case.
 
I dont know what that means but I would say even another 512 dose of memory would help reduce the beachballing. If you could upgrade it to 2gb even better.
 
miTunes75 said:
total in: 759MB
total out: 58 MB

What's this tell us?
Click to expand...

Where are you looking? The page ins/outs are in the "System Memory" pane down at the bottom. There aren't any units listed for them, and I'd imagine they'd be much higher than that unless you just rebooted.

For instance, I'm running an old iBook that's been running for a while since it's last reboot, but it has 90717 page ins and 30665 page outs.
 
I was looking at iStat Pro 3.0 widget. I don't have a system memory pane at the bottom of my screen - just the dock itself.
 
Have a look at Activity Monitor...it's in Applications --> Utilities.
 
I see a lot of people with almost 1:1 page in/out ratios. But in my experience I'm almost never lower than 2:1. I have a mini with 512mb also. Last time I looked at my pages in/out a few days ago it was 1mil+ page ins, 400,000-500,000 page outs, so about 2:1. I think my mini is painfully slow at times, I couldn't imagine if I was getting a 1:1 ratio.

Maybe the reason others are getting a 1:1 ratio is they aren't closing apps out?? I never run any widgets, only usually run itunes, camino (which I close out at least once a day), and activity monitor. Anything else I need I open, use, then close to free up that ram.

I keep waiting and waiting on that gskill memory at newegg to drop but it hasn't in over 2 weeks. In fact as of this morning it was the highest I've seen, 84.99 for a 1gb stick. I really missed the boat a couple weeks ago, it was 71.99 with free shipping, but just a few hours later it was back to 74.99+4.99 shipping. I know, I'm squabbling over a few bucks, but I don't really NEED the ram, I just want it. And if it falls low enough I can justify it to myself that it was just too good to pass up.
 
Most times people say RAM RAM RAM, and I'm like wtf guys, don't just say ram and move on, but yes... you need ram. badly. Closing open programs not in use might help too. I have 512 megs or ram and have a 1.4:1 ratio (although I'm also on Panther), but that tells me you've probably got a LOT of open apps...
 
It's also possible that you aren't closing apps, but rather just closing the app windows. Check that you've quit apps you aren't using. But in any case, 512MB with any Intel Mac seems like a bad idea.
 
I have a macmini as well with the same specs, i.e., coreduo with 512MB RAM.

It was slow and beachballed a lot. Closing all apps I wasn't immediately using helped somewhat.

I upped the RAM to 2GB and it's a different machine now. Different. The RAM speeded up aspects I didn't know it would.

So I would HIGHLY recommend upgrading RAM. I don't think 2GB is really necessary. I just went for it. 1GB is what I'd recommend as the minimum for decent system performance. 512MB is to just get you going.
 
Just as a point of comparison, on my iMac, which is currently at 3 days 21 hours uptime, I have 197483 page ins, 15115 page outs. That's with 1.5 GB of RAM. When page outs occur, it means the OS is taking data in RAM and writing it out to the hard drive, which results in a bad speed hit. You want to keep that number low. If it's high, especially in relation to the number of page ins and/or uptime, you need more memory.
 
thank you all for your help. it sounds like the memory is the solution.

You guys have been very helpful, and I appreciate it.
 
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