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Macbook Pro 15" 2.33ghz memory issues.

Obsidian6

Obsidian6

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 29, 2006
683
3
Laguna Niguel, CA
So I have my old Macbook Pro back (the 15" 2.33ghz model.) I just recently upgraded the hard drive to a WDC 320GB 7200rpm model and it definitely helped with the performance a lot!

However, I popped the ram from my 13" macbook into there (4GB DDR2 667mhz) because I expected that the dual channel benefits would outweigh the 3GB limitation.

Strangely enough it will get down to as little as 45mb of free memory when running just safari and mail. (even worse if I'm running aperture or final cut)

Does anyone think that could be caused by the 4GB vs 3GB of memory?
 
yeah I took a look. there is a lot of strange things going on as far as usage goes.

Also. I'm running on a FRESH install of OS X. Just done less than a week ago.

3724684436_6c39ea2224_o.png


I just took that right now, when i'm not really using anything. but yesterday when actually trying to get some work done, it slowed down to an absolute crawl.
 
wow, I'm stumped, although it looks like that mail app is eating close to a whole gig. try closing that process. I've heard these merom machines are supposed to address 3.3 gb. you could also try restarting and resetting "pram" (hold cmd+alt+P+R keys before grey boot screen; hold until second "bong")...could have some effect.
 
I thought the pre-Santa Rosa C2D machines could only address 3.3GB. Anyways, sometimes on mine Safari/Mail uses a lot of RAM at a period of time, then when I am done with the program, the memory is never recovered (doesnt even go to inactive or free). Terminating the process might not even work, I would just do a restart.
 
I think resetting the PRAM helped, I totally forgot to do that!

I will keep an eye on it, but I think that solved the problem.
Thanks so much guys!
 
Well the memory issues were not solved after all. I couldn't stand it so i switched back to the 3GB that was originally in it. I noticed better performance actually, however it's starting to max out the ram again with little to no app usage.

I really can't figure out what the heck is going on. For instance, not even an hour ago I had only safari open and I was down to 14MB of free memory.

This is just really strange to me. I've never encountered so many memory issues before.
 
Only when necessary. I typically just sleep the computer. I shut my mac pro down periodically if I'm not going to be using it, but I find myself so frequently using my MBP that I never shut it down.

Is that causing a problem? I've never experienced that before on any mac i've owned.
 
it is a memory leak. It is not a hardware problem but the program that seems to be eating up all your memory does not release the memory it does not need anymore thus it just keeps building up.

it mostly occurs in badly programmed programs like new mmo games that have not been fully debugged. but since it seems to be happening in the os i would recommend reinstalling it. As you say you have already made a fresh install less than a week ago so maybe something in that install was corrupted.
 
Ugh. That's going to suck. I might just wait to do a erase and install until Snow Leopard comes out. Shouldn't be TOO much longer. right?
 
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