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Beachball...WHY!?!?!

E

evanrousso

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 28, 2006
267
0
I have a macbook and an imac both running the newest OSX update. Both machines are running a 2.0ghz core 2 duo processor and 1gb of memory. I am constantly getting the beachball when working with applications. People have told me that I need to up my memory to 2gb but I really think that OSX should run fine with 1gb of memory. I have run Onyx to delete all the clutter from both machines but I am still getting the beachball.

Any suggestions?
 
Use Activity Monitor to see how many things are running and how much CPU each one is taking. If there are no surprises, what (and how many) things are you doing when you get the beachballing?
 
If you open Activity Monitor and check out your memory, look under page outs. If there are a lot of page outs then it is a lack of RAM issue if I remember right.
 
emptyCup said:
Use Activity Monitor to see how many things are running and how much CPU each one is taking. If there are no surprises, what (and how many) things are you doing when you get the beachballing?
Click to expand...

It usually happens in Firefox or iTunes.
 
evanrousso said:
It usually happens in Firefox or iTunes.
Click to expand...

Are Firefox and/or iTunes the only things you have open at the time? Also keep in mind that widgets can take up memory even when you aren't accessing dashboard.

Also, do you have ample space left on your hard disk for the virtual memory files?
 
emptyCup said:
Use Activity Monitor to see how many things are running and how much CPU each one is taking. If there are no surprises, what (and how many) things are you doing when you get the beachballing?
Click to expand...

Don't get distracted, follow emptyCup's advise. If your going to get to the bottom of this you need to start at the begining.
 
cube said:
You can see it well on NeXT.
Click to expand...

True. (see my 'tar....)
Also on earlier builds of 10.

But nowadays people speak of the "dreaded spinning beachball".

But, that's a bit off topic ;)

The OP is right that 1 GB of RAM is sufficient for normal every day home use, and shouldn't give these spinning beachballs (or CD's).

Good idea to check out Activity Monitor to see if the app is demanding alot of CPU time. If you are comfortable in the Terminal, then using "top" will also give you vaulable data, i.e. RAM consumption (check out the page-outs!), and CPU time per app.
 
I have been using activity monitor for the past few days trying to see what it is that is stealing my memory, and it seems that my browser on my imac, Flock, uses a lot compared to the other apps (I use firefox on my laptop).

Does anybody here use flock?
 
How often do you restart your Mac?

Forget the article. Most of those suggestions for speeding up OSX are just plain silly. (Empty the Trash? Who is he kidding?)
 
I've heard Dashboard is quite a resource hog. If you don't use Dashboard, in Activity monitor quit the widget processes. This should help, though you really shouldn't need to go through this trouble.
 
if you're only running firefox and itunes and not much else, it's not a ram issue. If you want number 1 answer, back up your files and reformat your computer and install only os x and the programs you want. leave out all the trail crap, the printer drivers, the fonts, and the translations, they just take up space...this not only will open up HD space, it'll fix your beachball problem because there's something off in OSX. If you don't want to do that, load from the boot disk and run a permission repair and a disk repair, basic but it works sometimes.
 
Whatever you do, don't reformat, and especially not as first resort. The chances of this being the best solution to your problem, assuming you even have one, is close to nil.

First things first. How often do you restart the Mac?
 
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