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Anyone else getting the rainbow wheel a lot on your iMac?

mikelegacy

mikelegacy

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 5, 2010
1,138
0
Pittsburgh, PA
I think i need a memory upgrade. I run CS5.5 and some other design applications up to 4 or 5 open at a time, and I get the Rainbow wheel a HECK of a lot.

I have one of the new iMac's that were released on May 4th or whatever. It's the base model 27"er.

Would upgrading from 4 to 16GB of RAM help much? I think i'm gonna get that 4x4B package from Other World Computing for like $160. Well worth it if it clears up the rainbow ring problem. I never thought this quad-core computer would rainbow wheel more than my early 2008 MBP.

Any suggestions?
 
Last edited:
Before investing in more RAM or anything else for that matter, open up Activity Monitor (Applications/Utilities) and click the System Memory tab at the bottom to check that you are actually maxing out your RAM while using your applications.
 
Zwhaler said:
Lol I've never heard it called the rainbow ring.... get moar RAM !
Click to expand...
HAHAHA. Yeah, I need to change my post title. I called it the rainbow wheel in my actual post, which is much more fitting.

I definitely have been thinking about upgrading since the day I bought the iMac.

That said to another above poster, I have checked while I am not "maxing" my RAM, I am getting damn close to.

That is only when I am checking though. Most of the time when I am working on design projects, I won't even notice that I have 6 Adobe programs open, and that I am using them all simultaneously. That is when I get the beach ball and at that point, I am not checking my Activity Monitor.

When I am checking it, usually I just have photoshop and illustrator open, and depending on the size of the project, my monitor is showing pretty close to max.
 
mikelegacy said:
I think i need a memory upgrade. I run CS5.5 and some other design applications up to 4 or 5 open at a time, and I get the Rainbow wheel a HECK of a lot.

I have one of the new iMac's that were released on May 4th or whatever. It's the base model 27"er.

Would upgrading from 4 to 16GB of RAM help much? I think i'm gonna get that 4x4B package from Other World Computing for like $160. Well worth it if it clears up the rainbow ring problem. I never thought this quad-core computer would rainbow wheel more than my early 2008 MBP.

Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

Get more RAM - however $160 for 16 GB is way too much to pay. Newegg had a special for 2x4 GB sticks for $27 (sold out now). You should be able to get 16 GB for around $100. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...00032314&IsNodeId=1&name=204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM
Amazon was also having some specials on RAM so you might check there as well.
Even just going from 4 to 8 GB has eliminated beachballing on my 27 iMac while using CS5.
 
I had 8GB ram in my iMac and was seeing a lot of beach balling and a lot of paging activity (it wasn't unusual to see 5GB of swap space used). I upgraded to 16GB (£80 from Crucial UK) and since then it's been like a new computer without a single beach ball
Lion really seems to like lots of memory :)
 
Thats showing how you Mac doesnt have enough RAM for multitasking.
get more RAM and problem solved.
If it still continues thats a different problem then.
 
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