Hello I am a huge newb at macs and computers/mac. I got my first and only 4gb MBP not even 2 years ago and it has worked great until now. I am a basic browser and only download music and videos (onto a separate external hard drive.) i dont play games or do anything intense. I feel like slowly yet suddenly I get the spinning beach ball ALL THE TIME now. It comes up with everything I do now. ...When opening new safari windows, running new apps , etc. ANYTHING causes the beach ball to come up early and often. I looked and I only have 2/4 gb used up. Is that a lot ? Can anyone please give me advice how to fix this problem or where I can go to get help! Do I need more memory?? All help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
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Spinning Beachball of Death!!!
- Thread starter sportsfan1234
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Have a look at Activity Monitor (Applications / Utilities /) and select All Processes and sort by CPU to see what the culprit may be.
Also check the "System Memory" tab to see what your "Page ins:", "Page outs:" and "Swap used:" are.
image below uses sorting by CPU as an example
![Acitivty_Monitor.png]()
Further reading:
______________________________________________________
Have a look at Activity Monitor (Applications / Utilities /) and select All Processes and sort by CPU to see what the culprit may be.
Also check the "System Memory" tab to see what your "Page ins:", "Page outs:" and "Swap used:" are.
image below uses sorting by CPU as an example
Further reading:
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Have you used Activity Monitor to look for the RAM usage, as you report here?
Does that mean, you have 2 to 4 GB used up, or only 2 GB used up?
Your RAM usage seems okay, but what about your CPU usage as shown in my first reply?
You can use the following applications to benchmark the speed of your HDD / SSD, to see, if it is the culprit:
You haven't sorted by CPU, as shown in the screenshot.
And if you do that, you should include the actual process (listed under the "Process Name") in your screenshot.
And what about the HDD benchmarking tools?
"How to maximise your MacRumors troubleshooting experience" created by mad jew in 2006
CPU usage seems okay too, but maybe take a look at Activity Monitor while opening PowerPoint.
These.
Maybe these can help too: Performance Tips For Mac OS X