[duoikari]

i have a white macbook 2.0 Gz. I've hand it for a while now, but a recently downloaded istats pro and it says that i have 5MB of my memory free. I honestly don't know what is eating up all this memory it didn't used to be like this. So i was wondering if there is any software out there that would clean up the memory or something.

btw the current memory is 512MB and i wanted to know what would happen if i bought new memory for it. If i bought another 512MB memory, would that make the Ram in the laptop 1G?, or would i have to replace the 512MB and buy a 1G memory?

[richwig83]

Free memory is wasted memory. Mine says ive got 14 free!!! My system runs fine on 1gb apple installed ram

If you want to upgrade your setup (presumably 2x256MB) you'd have to get rid of both modules and get either 2x512 or 2x1gb. Since ram works best in mached pairs!!!

[Big Mac]

Richard is right. You should do a search because this topic has been covered many times, but in short, modern OSs keep code cached in case it needs to be used again in order to promote faster performance. That's what you see labeled as "Inactive" memory. If you only have about a third of the pie taken up by inactive memory, then you have too little RAM (in my experience). I put in an extra GB of RAM in my G5 and now inactive memory takes up a little less than 2/3s my memory during normal load; I no longer experience the paging slowdowns I used to see with the same usage.

[mfbernstein]

About This Mac->More Info->Memory will tell you what your current memory config is (ie 1x512 or 2x256).

A better gauge of whether you need more memory is swap usage: if you open Activity Monitor, the second number after "page ins/outs" is high (ie the "page outs"), it's a sign that you may need more memory. You can then go through and see which apps are taking the most "real memory".

[MrMacbookMan]

If you have a macbook with 512, you have 2X256. I would suggest to buy a 1 gig stick to replace one of the 256 sticks. Thats what I did on my macbook and I noticed a huge speed improvement in everyday use. It may be better if you have a matched pair of ram, but it's not necessary and this way is better than getting 2x512 because if you ever want to upgrade again, you don't have to buy two 1 gig sticks, you will only need one more.

[wilsonng]

I think it's a good idea to quit your web browser every once in a while.

I can't remember where I read it, but I think previous version Firefox and/or Safari were memory hogs. Quitting and relaunching your web browser should also clear up some memory that otherwise got tied up. I don't know if that's the case nowadays but I remembered reading about it somewhere. There used to be some programs that wouldn't let go of memory (probably due to bad programming techniques) unless you quit said programs.

[post_break]

If you cannot afford 2 512 sticks then just purchase one. 764 is better than 512 even with unmatched pairs. Get the second stick when you can take the plunge.

[mfbernstein]

Despite the hype, more RAM will have a much greater positive impact on performance than matched pairs. VM is slow. A single 1GB module is not only cheaper than 2 512MB modules but it'll leave your machine with 1.25GB RAM instead of 1GB. Plus, if you ever decide to upgrade to 2GB, you won't have to throw out both your 512MB modules.