how much ram can I put in my MBP

[fjs08]

Hi,

I have a 2 yr old next month, Mac Book Pro. It has 2.33 and 2 GB ram. It's really slow. My wife has a new Vaio Vista box and it flys. I'm seeing the beach ball everywhere. Took 40 seconds to load Excel the other day. She was literally laughing at me. Asked me if I had a Mac or an Apple II???

My HD isn't even half full either.
I run Spaces, and have Mail/Safari/iCal/Excel open pretty much all day.
I've tried running only one program and it doesn't help. I've shut down Spaces and it doesn't help.

Safari is slow to draw, redraw, go to common sites. Yikes. Guy at Best Buy today mentioned that maybe I need more Ram instead of a new MBP.

Any suggestions.

Thanks.


Frank

 

[nick9191]

Hmm thats weird. That machine should be flying (faster than your wifes Vista machine anyway).

Sounds like you need to back up all your work and reinstall the OS.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1710

Are you running Tiger or Leopard?

Any other issues which might be hardware related?

Did you buy AppleCare?

 

[cherry su]

Safari is a RAM Hog. You should restart it every day or so.

I'm on a Core Duo MBP with 2GB RAM and it's fine (usually Safari + one other app open)

 

[KingYaba]

Hmm thats weird. That machine should be flying (faster than your wifes Vista machine anyway).

Sounds like you need to back up all your work and reinstall the OS.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1710

Are you running Tiger or Leopard?

Any other issues which might be hardware related?

Did you buy AppleCare?

Before you go suggesting a full blown reinstall, at least advise him to restart his computer, run disk utility, and possibly free up hard drive space if needed.

 

[fjs08]

>>Are you running Tiger or Leopard?<<

OSX 10.5.5. Not sure of the name

>>Did you buy AppleCare?<<

Yes.

>>Safari is a RAM Hog.<<

Happens with Firefox too.

You should restart it every day or so.<<

I shut down the Mac each evening.

>>at least advise him to restart his computer,<<

I do each morning.

>> run disk utility,<<

What should I run, Verify Disk, Verify permissions or repair permissions??

>>and possibly free up hard drive space if needed.<<

I'm not even half full. And I'm not running Windows XP or anything in addition. Just spaces and I've heard that doesn't really add any problems.

Thanks.

Frank

 

[rychencop]

max it out with ram. i believe the max on your mbp would be 3Gb. also make sure you have all the latest updates.

 

[Batt]

I don't think more RAM will make a difference. Start up from your install DVD and run Disk Utility. First, Repair Disk, then Repair Permissions then restart.

 

[CrazyScott]

I don't think more RAM will make a difference. Start up from your install DVD and run Disk Utility. First, Repair Disk, then Repair Permissions then restart.

Yeah i would have to agree with Batt. More RAM isn't going to make much of a difference. I have 1 GB of ram and most programs open up in a couple of seconds.

 

[Solo13]

As well as repairing disk/permissions, it's probably well worth downloading onyx, and using it to run all the scripts (believe it's under the "maintenance" tab). These would normally run in the wee small hours, but are likely not happening if you're shutting down each night.

No way it should be that slow, think this is more of a maintenance/software thing that won't be helped much by adding RAM. Let us know if it gets better!

 

[fjs08]

>>First, Repair Disk, then Repair Permissions then restart.<<

Repair Disk wasn't available, so I did Verify Disk. Everything was ok.

Did Verify permissions. Some couldn't be fixed it said. But I ran Repair Permissions. Same result. Most of those that couldn't be repaired had to do with Airport.

Downloaded Onyx and ran the Scripts. We'll see what happens from here.

Excel loaded in 30 seconds, which is actually an improvement<g>.

I'll let you know.

Thanks.

Frank
__________________

 

[nxent]

that sounds a lot like your hard drive is dying. my old powerbook 15" @ 1.25 was much faster than that... until the hard drive died. at the very least, take it to the apple store and have them look at it.

 

[Habusho]

The best bang for your buck would be 4gb of ram today. I think they're selling for $75 or so right now. Some people are trying 8gb but we're not sure if the OS can use more than 6gb of ram.

 

[Batt]

The best bang for your buck would be 4gb of ram today. I think they're selling for $75 or so right now. Some people are trying 8gb but we're not sure if the OS can use more than 6gb of ram.

His machine can't use 4GB of RAM. He can install it, but the computer will only utilize 3.3GB.