Question about MEMORY in OSX

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
I'm not sure if this is a memory question or not:



I have MS Word running on my iBook in OSX. It seems that every sentence or so, I get the spinning wheel, as if the program can't keep up with my typing speed. Now, I fancy myself a pretty quick typist, but this is ridiculous! Is it possible that I do not have enough memory allocated to MS Word? I don't even know if it is possible to allocate memory in the first place...



I have a similar problem working on iMovie on my G4 Tower-- it's a dual 800 with 512MB ram, and I'm working on a video that is about 20 minutes long (the raw footage in the clips page is about 2 hours long). The program seems to be working VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY sluggishly. Sometimes, I'll get the spinning wheel for like 30 seconds after simply trying to move the volume, or make a short edit.



Again, does this sound like a memory issue? Can I allocate memory to different programs or does OSX do this automatically??

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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    dfryerdfryer Posts: 140member
    OS X takes care of memory allocation, but if you run out of RAM it will start using virtual memory on the hard drive, which is slow. How much RAM do you have in your iBook?
  • Reply 2 of 7
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dfryer

    OS X takes care of memory allocation, but if you run out of RAM it will start using virtual memory on the hard drive, which is slow. How much RAM do you have in your iBook?



    768 MB RAM in the iBook. It doesn't seem that the hard drive is moving in either case, but I could be wrong...
  • Reply 3 of 7
    jlljll Posts: 2,713member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by AugustWest

    768 MB RAM in the iBook.



  • Reply 4 of 7
    Word and iMovie are both slugs compared to many other Mac OS X apps. Microsoft's apps especially are poorly optimized and ridiculously slow at times.



    For iMovie, make sure you're running the latest versions of both iMovie and QuickTime. The last minor updates have reportedly improved iMovie's performance quite a bit.



    For Word, turn off the sounds, live spellcheck, and live grammar check. For some reason, these features eat CPU cycles like crazy even when you don't have any documents open!



    When you suspect you're running low on memory and paging virtual memory to the hard drive (this can cause severe slow-downs), open up the terminal and enter the command "top". Pay no attention to things like the free amount and so forth because Mac OS X should *not* actually keep memory free. Long story. Most newbies freak out when they see they have only, say, 100 MB free after closing all their apps. Anyhow, at the end of the block of text at the top, look for pageouts. The number to the left of the parenthesis is the *total* number that has occurred since you rebooted. You can ignore that. What you should pay attention to, though, is the number in the parenthesis. This is the *current* number of active pages. If this number stays above zero for a length of time, you're definitely using up too much memory and forcing the system to use the painfully-slow virtual memory.
  • Reply 5 of 7
    pscatespscates Posts: 5,847member
    Wait a second...can you even have 768MB RAM in an iBook?







    Seems that most iBooks come with 128MB soldered and you can add a 512MB DIMM to get a max of 640. Am I wrong on this?



    How exactly did you get 768 on the iBook?



    I was under the impression that even models that come with 256MB stock (the 14" iBook), that's a soldered 128MB and a removable 128MB. Has Apple changed this and started putting a 256MB in the soldered position?



    Unless I'm completely out to lunch, THAT would be the only way to get an iBook to 768MB, right?
  • Reply 6 of 7
    augustwestaugustwest Posts: 157member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by pscates

    Wait a second...can you even have 768MB RAM in an iBook?







    The easiest way to get 768 MB ram into my iBook was . . . to delude myself and to have very poor brain power and math skills. You are correct, I have 640. I think it was just wishful thinking...



  • Reply 7 of 7
    pscatespscates Posts: 5,847member




    Whew...I thought for a minute "man, they finally got a clue and started selling them with 256MB soldered!"



    I wish!



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