Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Unexplained RAM usage

M

macgeek2005

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 31, 2006
1,098
0
Okay, a few minutes ago I noticed my comptuer was running really slowly, so I went into activity moniter (it took about 10 bounces to open) and it says I have 8mb of free ram. I have 768mb in the machine, and all I had open was iTunes, Safari, Limewire and Activity moniter. Safari was taking up over 100mb of ram, so I decided to quit that, and see what happends. THE FREE RAM STAYED THE SAME!!!!! It went up to 80mb for a second, and then it went right back to 8.64mb free or sumthin like that.

I restarted the computer.... 550mb free ram! *whew*. I open up itunes, and safari and limewire... things start to bog down..... all of a sudden theres 757mb of INACTIVE ram in the activity moniter, and i'm back to 8mb free.

I just shut down the computer completely, and started it up again, zapped the P-ram, and i'm watching what activity moniter does every time I do something, and it seems that every time I open an application it adds a HUGE amount of ram to "Inactive" and never gives it back. For instance, when I opened iTunes "Inactive Ram" went from 90mb to 132mb, and when I quit iTunes, it's not gonna go back to 90mb. Is a virus eating up my ram? Or do I have bad ram?
 
Blue Velvet said:
*GASP* Over-reacting, attention-seeking, fuss-over-nothing, alarmist hype.
Click to expand...

You sound like you know what the problem is. Would you be so kind as to tell me?
 
Seems unlikely to be a virus, thought there was just that one concept one around? Have you tried the verify permissions thing. Installed anything new recently. Bad safari plugin with memory leakage?
 
I dont think its a virus
I have a powerbook 12' and I used the exact same programs as you did and it really slowed down my pb. But what I figured out, it was all limewire. If I were you I'd delete limewire and get something else.
 
*sigh* Inactive RAM is, for all intents and purposes, free RAM. When you close iTunes, the RAM it was using is inactive because it is still storing the iTunes data in case you want to open it again soon. If you ever need it at any point for a different application, it will give it back.

Currently, I have 28 MB of free RAM out of 1.5 GB...but I have 766 MB of inactive RAM just waiting to used by something new.
 
The only new thing I installed was Limewire, the problem started when I started using Limewire... but now when I open it.. it doesn't drain the ram immediately. The ram just kinda dwindles down by itself over 15 minutes, and then I have to restart the computer.
 
WildCowboy said:
*sigh* Inactive RAM is, for all intents and purposes, free RAM. When you close iTunes, the RAM it was using is inactive because it is still storing the iTunes data in case you want to open it again soon. If you ever need it at any point for a different application, it will give it back.

Currently, I have 28 MB of free RAM out of 1.5 GB...but I have 766 MB of inactive RAM just waiting to used by something new.
Click to expand...

28mb of free ram? And you're computer isn't bogging down?
 
macgeek2005 said:
28mb of free ram? And you're computer isn't bogging down?
Click to expand...

No, because of all the inactive RAM. In reality, I have 800 MB of "free" RAM.
 
Limewire is a RAM hog. I'm not a Limewire user, but I've seen lots of reports of people having slowdowns because of it.
 
Alright, I got rid of limewire, and things are starting to look better. Thanks for the help. :)
 
WildCowboy said:
Limewire is a RAM hog. I'm not a Limewire user, but I've seen lots of reports of people having slowdowns because of it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, Limewire kills performance. Not sure as to what it is about it, but get rid of it and you should see improvements.
 
OSX is not like OS9
It manages memory totally differently - you cannot correlate the lack of free RAM to any performance hits. The thing to look for is PageOuts, if you are accumulating 100,000's of pageouts between restarts then that;s an indication of insufficient memory or an application with a memory leak.

PLEASE do not
1) claim you have a virus or
2) assume that your machine is having problems simply because you don;t understand the RAM data you are looking at.

That said, I recommend you delete Limewire entirely, if you have perfomance issues after installing it. That would seem to be the smoking gun here...

For one thing I am fundamentally opposed to unauthorized duplication and publication of copyrighted materials (and the 0.001% of P2P users who actually use it for transmission of their own creations and public domain materials may consider themselves exempt from my opposition) AND I simply cannot understand why people set up firewalls, worry about viruses, and then turn around and install something that explicitly invites anonymous users into your machine. And (at least at one time) delivered a stealth adware program together with the application.
 
Don't say you have a virus, it expodes all over the internet, and no one wants to read that crap. You have downloaded limeire which rapes all computers. Don't be an idiot and download things illegally. Thanks.
 
Was having the same problem and was about to make the same post! lol, good thing I looked in Search. :) Or else everyone would have wanted to kill me ;)
 
The alarmist thread title (*GASP* I have a VIRUS!!!) has been changed to avoid confusing/worrying other members.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back