Macbook slow on startup and application memory warning, but 32GB free space?

[ellenyrox]

I have a late 2008 white macbook, which I have never had any problems with at all. It has 120GB hard drive, and 1GB RAM, etc... It was running low on hard drive, with about 4GB left out of 120, so I deleted applications, picutres videos etc that I didn't need, and got it up to 32GB of free space. I started it up the next day, and it was fine all day, then in the evening all I had open was safari and itunes, and it gave me a low application memory message and made me force quit safari and itunes. I haven't had that error again, but the last 2 times I've started it up, it gets to the apple screen, and comes up with a spinning timer and bar, and takes over 5mins to get past that then to blue screen then log in and then it's fine. I'm obviously worried I'm going to end up losing everything, but I opened disk utility and it is S.M.A.R.T verified so I don't think it's failing. I'm going to repair disk permissions, and I read somewhere you should start up in safe mode before doing that. Do I need to? I'm also going to run a software update and if it's still being weird I'll reinstall the OS. Oh I'm on 10.6.8 by the way. Is there anything else I can do? I don't understand why I got that error message with do much free space, plus it's not like I was using much RAM with only safari and itunes open, itunes wasn't even playing anything and I was only on facebook. Any help would be appreciated! It's strange how it's playing up since I cleared out stuff, could I have deleted something by mistake? Plus if it helps, when I still had like only 4GB it would run Photoshop and Illustrator fine at the same time without much trouble, I was planning to increase my RAM before this happened because I am going into second year at university and I study graphic design, so need the use of Photoshop etc. . .Thanks!!!

 

[chibiterasu]

I think your getting confused between ram and HDD memory. Your warning from your mac would of been about ram to only have 1gb in your system is not for even snow leopard consider upgrading to 4gb in two sticks. I think you will be surprised how quick 1gb of ram will be used, use something like istat to see whats going on with your machine. Apples minimum spec for snow leopard is 1gb so that really means you should have more than that.

 

[ellenyrox]

Yeh, my first thought was that it was to do with RAM, but I did some research and it made it sound like it was to do with hard drive space, saying that if you don't delete some stuff it could cause damage to the hard drive, so I'm a bit confused. But now I have noticed in finder that my free memory keeps fluctuating, and I haven't downloaded or emptied my trash. And I'm still having problems starting up. Sometimes I have to press the power button again because it starts to boot up then cuts out.

Just to add, I'm getting the same error message as this guy, and it seems to and issue with the HD:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/592587/

 

[chibiterasu]

Its ram, you said in your first post that you have 32gb free and thats plenty. 1gb of ram for SL is not much. So this will make everything slow like starting up, running applications and browsing the web.

edit: Looking at that link theres no definitive answer most of there HDD were full yours now isn't it may then also be wise to reinstall SL after a ram upgrade obviously backing up your data before you do. Defiantly repair disk permission as mention in that link though before doing anything big.

 

[ellenyrox]

Okay then thanks, it's funny I was thinking of upgrading my RAM before any of this happened, so I'll buy some at some point when I have money, and sort it out, and report back here, thanks again.

 

[chibiterasu]

Your welcome, well it was good that you were thinking about it then, yer ram isn't expensive but it isn't cheap really I was looking at 4gb for my old 2010 it it was quite pricy. Anyway yes post back and it will be nice to hear what happens (or if you need any more help quote this post)