Unibody MBP Ram gone in 7 hours?

[mbpnewbie]

Ok, I've noticed lately that if I leave my computer alone playing music (usually while I'm sleeping) that it runs really slow after I get up, so I checked iStat after a restart and came up with these readings

After about 7 hours of running itunes, mail, and Utorrent I got this

Can anybody explain why almost 3 of my 4 gigs of ram is inactive... it's really annoying me

 

[iBookG4user]

When apps stop using RAM, instead of freeing it they make it inactive so incase it is needed again it can be accessed quicker. There is quite a bit of inactive memory in your case so you might consider an app called ifreemem which will free up a lot of the inactive memory. It has a trial period to see if you like it, I don't know of any free apps that do this task though.

 

[mbpnewbie]

When apps stop using RAM, instead of freeing it they make it inactive so incase it is needed again it can be accessed quicker. There is quite a bit of inactive memory in your case so you might consider an app called ifreemem which will free up a lot of the inactive memory. It has a trial period to see if you like it, I don't know of any free apps that do this task though.

So it's still accessible to something like Photoshop? If so, then noting to worry about... I restart seem to clear the issue for a few hours, but that can get old quick

 

[vandozza]

could be a memory leak with utorrent or divx?

i can't help much as i use transmission+perian/vlc for all my media needs.

maybe try using transmission instead of utorrent, or vlc instead of divx, and see if you can recreate the problem.

uTorrent for mac is still in development, and transmission seems much more stable. and i've always disliked the divx app for some unknown reason

 

[pesc]

So it's still accessible to something like Photoshop? If so, then noting to worry about... I restart seem to clear the issue for a few hours, but that can get old quick

Inactive memory is as accessible to photoshop as free memory. Don't worry about it. In your case, I guess the active memory caches the songs you played through the night. If you were to play a song again, the computer can save disk accesses.

Don't worry about it. Think of available memory = free memory + inactive memory.

 

[crazzyeddie]

Taking a screen shot of your Activity Monitor (sorted by RSIZE) would help in seeing if you have any apps with a memory leak. I suggest trying Transmission instead of uTorrent to see if that clears it up... uTorrent is still a beta, after all.

 

[mbpnewbie]

Taking a screen shot of your Activity Monitor (sorted by RSIZE) would help in seeing if you have any apps with a memory leak. I suggest trying Transmission instead of uTorrent to see if that clears it up... uTorrent is still a beta, after all.

Appologies for the delay... Spent most of the day looking for apartments in London, so this is the first time I've been on for about 12 hours... Anyway, is this what you wanted to see?

 

[creator2456]

All the blue (Inactive) can be used by anything that needs it. I have always thought that Inactive should be counted as Free and not Used since it is accessible by anything.

Also, can you please edit your posts to use

 

[mbpnewbie]

Also, can you please edit your posts to use tags?[/QUOTE]
What are those? I'm new to this site and to macs in general, so I have no idea what you are talking about...

 

[Niiro13]

Yeah, Inactive is just like Free in terms of other programs using it.

The reason why it's separate is because technically they're not the same. Free isn't being used by any application.

Inactive memory is memory from an application that's no longer running. This is so that not every application is cold started every single time (imagine if you accidentally closed iPhoto, then wanted to reopen it...would eventually get annoying if it was a cold start every time and you had like a million photos). This can be used by any application just as if it was free...it's just not labeled free since it's not really free.

Active memory is memory used by running applications which can still be used by other applications if inactive and free are used up but the memory gets written to virtual memory before it gets traded.

Wired is the memory that the OS uses. No way to use this memory for anything other than the OS.

Though not the best analogy, think of free as if someone threw away their stuff. Grab what you want.

EDIT: Inactive is like if it's in their garbage can in the kitchen...it's still theirs until they throw it out...at any point if they wanted it again they can dig through the trash.

 

[mbpnewbie]

Yeah, Inactive is just like Free in terms of other programs using it.

The reason why it's separate is because technically they're not the same. Free isn't being used by any application.

Inactive memory is memory from an application that's no longer running. This is so that not every application is cold started every single time (imagine if you accidentally closed iPhoto, then wanted to reopen it...would eventually get annoying if it was a cold start every time and you had like a million photos). This can be used by any application just as if it was free...it's just not labeled free since it's not really free.

Active memory is memory used by running applications which can still be used by other applications if inactive and free are used up but the memory gets written to virtual memory before it gets traded.

Wired is the memory that the OS uses. No way to use this memory for anything other than the OS.

Though not the best analogy, think of free as if someone threw away their stuff. Grab what you want. Inactive is if it's like an item at a garage sale. They're not using it, but they still own it until you buy it.

That was a really good explanation... very helpful. Now, what is

 

[creator2456]

That was a really good explanation... very helpful. Now, what is tags?[/QUOTE]

Thumbnail IMG tags. Just decreases the size of the image while linking to the full size. Makes it so a large image doesn't take up the whole screen.

THIS
[img]http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a45/creator2456/1680x1050-28.jpg

vs. THIS

Took away since you have changed yours.

Thanks

 

[mbpnewbie]

Thumbnail IMG tags. Just decreases the size of the image while linking to the full size. Makes it so a large image doesn't take up the whole screen.

THIS

vs. THIS

Took away since you have changed yours. [/I]

Thanks

Decided to screw around with the IMG tags as I thought that was what you meant