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urban · Jun 2, 2004, 03:58 PM

When I first bought my 12" pb about 9 months I noticed my comp was kinda slow. ppl suggested I should add more RAM. so I did, I added another 256MB to bring up to total 512MB. As I am checking Activity Monitor right now, I can see that VM size is 5.67GB and Page ins/outs is 396338/394584. I suspect this is not normal..My computer has a uptime of 5 days.

Is this a RAM issue still or is there something else going on?

btw, I notice something strange to me
when I type in uptime in terminal, this shows up
"16:56 up 5 days, 16:59, 2 users, load averages: 2.75 1.78 1.33"

I am the only user, why does terminal say otherwise??

Thanks

Applefreak01 · Jun 2, 2004, 04:14 PM

My VM size is 2.91GB and my page in/out are 32901/3115. My uptime shows two users also. I would say the two users are the root user and you. Everything looks ok to me.

Babar · Jun 2, 2004, 04:23 PM

I suspect something is wrong with my setup also. I have a brand new Pbook 15' 1.5ghz with 10.3.4.

My uptime is 19hours and the vm is 6.99gb

Page in / outs : 82718/64243

I have 512mb of ram.

I notice some abnormal slowness sometimes, I sometimes even wonder if it is faster than my 667dvi. I have currently 162mb of free ram and the page in/out is climbing at a couple every 3-5 sec.

Is this normal ?

hldan · 04:32 PM

The reason for the page ins/outs is due to the amount of ram being used up for the kind of programs that you are running such as Virtual PC or multitasking excessively for example.
When you close out the current program you are running sometimes the ram used to run that program ends up in the "inactive" state instead of going back to the "free" state resulting in less available ram for the next program you run.
Now when you run a heavy app or multitask there may not be enough physical ram to run the program so the computer will use virtual memory which is slower and so the page outs are the result of this.
The Unix system usually clears this out each night if the computer is left on overnight so plenty of ram is available each day but many people don't run the computer all night and if you have a notebook then Unix can't run these nightly tasks.
Remedy:
Go to http://www.versiontracker.com
and download "cocktail". This program does several tasks including cleaning out memory stuck in the inactive state and repairing permissions. You can schedule these tasks or do it manually.

You will need to restart your computer to zero out the page outs and this will also clear out the inactive memory. Page ins don't matter.

dodo_nutter · Jun 2, 2004, 06:24 PM

Wow...as the last poster said, download a program that reschedules the tasks unix runs at 3-5am.

personally i use MacJanitor and just did a little test.....
first opened activity monitor and it showed 78MB of FREE RAM (the green stuff!) i then ran the daily task and there was no change....so i ran the weekly task and suddenly i have 200MB of free ram!! so it looks like it does something every week that sorts the RAM out...i have 512 btw and as soon as the money appears (we can always hope!) in my bank im going to buy a gig stick to up it to 1282 (i think thats 1024 plus 256!!)

jessejlt · Jun 2, 2004, 07:02 PM

OS X uses demand paging, which means that pages are only swapped out / in when a new / used page is requested. This is why "inactive" memory stays in RAM instead of being swapped out or overwritten. It's actually "quicker" this way. IF the OS preempted paging, you would notice a "significant" performance decrease. Actually, X does use a bit of preemption in that it keeps an analysis log of paging activities for each program and pages in what is likely to be needed in the near future. But I digress... Not only does X use demand paging, but it also has dynamic page allocation trends on a per application basis. Meaning, even if you have, for example, 200 mb of FREE ram, the OS still may choose to evict pages because the requesting program has already reached its max page quota. This is a good thing. I guess I'm giving a bit too much information on this... Let me bottom line it. Don't worry about your paging activity. It's functioning per its algorithm, and the algorithm is sound. There is no need for these retarded "ram defragmenting" programs or for forcing the OS to page out all inactive memory. Even if you do so, the OS will quickly consume it.
jesse ;-)

urban · Jun 2, 2004, 07:05 PM

Originally posted by hldan:

The Unix system usually clears this out each night if the computer is left on overnight so plenty of ram is available each day but many people don't run the computer all night and if you have a notebook then Unix can't run these nightly tasks.

Is a computer put to sleep considered on?

Applefreak01 · Jun 2, 2004, 09:22 PM

Originally posted by urban:
Is a computer put to sleep considered on?

Well the hard drive is set to a locked off position. I would say it's on because techinally it is. Even while in sleep some power is used.

tkmd · Jun 2, 2004, 11:21 PM

Originally posted by urban:
Is a computer put to sleep considered on?

Remeber that if your Mac is in sleep none of the logs get cleared from the HD. It must also be remembered that clearing out these logs does not increase the amount of memory that is tied up on your mac. The logs are are just data that iswritten to your hd after you connect to the internet.

hldan · Jun 3, 2004, 12:04 AM

Originally posted by urban:
Is a computer put to sleep considered on?

No, unfortunately not. Sleep is just like human sleep. That's why Macintosh notebooks never get the nightly tasks done by the Unix BSD subsystem. This is why these (so called retarted as another poster put so eloquently) programs like Cocktail and Macjanitor were created to help with this issue.

I hate to say it and "bite my tounge" but the most effective way to have cleared out memory and pages is to do it the Microsoft Windows way and shut down the computer after each use.
Nobody really shuts down their Macs because the OS is so efficient at sleep that unlike Windows, Macs will run just fine without shut downs but at the least once a week a shut down or restart will be a good maintance and service to your Mac.

Detrius · Jun 4, 2004, 11:24 PM

Originally posted by Applefreak01:
My VM size is 2.91GB and my page in/out are 32901/3115. My uptime shows two users also. I would say the two users are the root user and you. Everything looks ok to me.

Actually, the two users are your GUI login session and your terminal login session. If you open a second terminal window, the number changes to three.