beach ball with mail and safari and other apps

[rglatter]

Hello Everyone,
I have the macbook pro 2.0 Ghz with 2 gigs of ram and I thought it was a preaty fast machine when I got it and I had no problems with it at all. But now my machine is starting to get the spinning beach balls alot more. It has happend a lot just today while I was scrolling through mail and opening up an RSS feed in safari. It has happend a few times in photoshop but when I do the same thing on a new imac at work it dosent get a spinning beach ball. The computer comes back able for me to use but it takes it a few seconds mabey 15 for the beach ball to go away and me able to use the computer agian. This and my imac are my first macs so if their is any mantinece or anything I should be doing to keep my computer in tip top shape or if their is some fix that im not doing please let me know. Thanks for any help.

 

[Woody56292]

have you tried restarting it? restarting normally cures slowness.
if not you may need to defrag it. ( or whatever the mac equivalent is )

 

[Killyp]

have you tried restarting it? restarting normally cures slowness.

Only if it hasn't been restarted in a few weeks should it be slow. Macs don't leak RAM like PCs do.

if not you may need to defrag it. ( or whatever the mac equivalent is )

Dude, this is the 21st century. Most computers don't need defragging, only PCs do


I'd suggest that you are leaving apps open. On a Mac, if you click the X in the top right of a Window, it doesn't actually close the app like it (usually) does in Windows.

You have to press Apple Key (also known as command) and Q at the same time to fully quit a program. If you have loads of icons with little black arrows underneath them along the bottom on your Dock, then it means you have lots of Apps open at the same time.

Go through and close some of them (by using Command + Q). This should speed up your computer.

 

[aristobrat]

Macs don't leak RAM like PCs do.

Isn't Firefox (even the Mac version) known for leaking RAM?

 

[Woody56292]

Only if it hasn't been restarted in a few weeks should it be slow. Macs don't leak RAM like PCs do.



Dude, this is the 21st century. Most computers don't need defragging, only PCs do
oh my bad.


I'd suggest that you are leaving apps open. On a Mac, if you click the X in the top right of a Window, it doesn't actually close the app like it (usually) does in Windows.

You have to press Apple Key (also known as command) and Q at the same time to fully quit a program. If you have loads of icons with little black arrows underneath them along the bottom on your Dock, then it means you have lots of Apps open at the same time.

Go through and close some of them (by using Command + Q). This should speed up your computer.

are you serious? glad to know that now rather than later. ( haven't gotten my mac yet )

 

[Woody56292]

Isn't Firefox (even the Mac version) known for leaking RAM?

can you explain what leaking ram means?

 

[Killyp]

Isn't Firefox (even the Mac version) known for leaking RAM?

Well yes but that's cured if you re-open Firefox.

Safari has also been accused of that, but I've had it open for 4 days now and it's running perfectly.

 

[rglatter]

I have restarted my computer multiple times and I ususaly quit safari once or twice a day. And usualy when these beach balls happen it is usualy whith only safari ichat and mail open. which is why I think this is very strange.

 

[Killyp]

I have restarted my computer multiple times and I ususaly quit safari once or twice a day. And usualy when these beach balls happen it is usualy whith only safari ichat and mail open. which is why I think this is very strange.

Are you quite sure you have quit them properly?

It could possibly be faulty RAM...

 

[aristobrat]

I have restarted my computer multiple times and I ususaly quit safari once or twice a day. And usualy when these beach balls happen it is usualy whith only safari ichat and mail open. which is why I think this is very strange.

Why don't you launch Activity Monitor, click Window > Show Floating CPU Window > Vertically. Drag that little window down to a corner where it's out of the way. You can close any other Activity Monitor window, if you want.

Next time you start to get beachballs, look at that monitor and see if your CPU usage is high.

If not the CPU, check to see if it's something with memory (although with 2GB, I doubt it). A quick way to do that is to click on the window that shows your CPU usage. When you click there, the menu bar at the top of the screen should switch to Activity Monitor. When it does, hit CMD (apple) 1 ... that brings up the main Activity Monitor window. Click on the System Memory tab and see if the Pages in/out numbers are going up quickly.