Activity Monitor - missing added memory

Just dropped 4 1GB sticks in my PMG5 in addition to the 4 512MB sticks already in there.
ASP correctly sees the sticks and reports total RAM as 6GB. But the "System Memory" tab in Activity Monitor still reports as there being only 2GB total memory.
I've seen this come up a few times before, and although some kind-meaning souls have posted multiple links to long discussions describing in detail the differene between Wired, Active, Inactive amd Free Memory in Activity Monitor - completely failing to understand the issue, there's never been any resolutions. It's affecting me in OSX 10.3, and there have been threads where this has happened in OSX 10.4.
Not seen any threads with it happening in OSX 10.5 - in fact my Mac Pro took the upgrade to 10GB and then 24GB in its stride under 10.5.
Anyone who has had this found a resolution ? I'm presuming that it's some sort of Activity Monitor cache, or System cache used by AM to get the RAM total.
I bet if I swapped around all the 512MB sticks with the 1GB sticks (still keeping matched pairs) it'd fix itself. But that's not the issue.

Perhaps the RAM isn't configured correctly for the PowerMac G5 model
you have; in that you may have to forgo the 512MB chips and try larger
in their place. And check the specifications on the RAM, too; just in case.
Max RAM: 4.0 GB (dual 1.8 GHz) or 8.0 GB (dual 2.0 GHz+)
Type of RAM slots: 4 (dual 1.8 GHz) or, 8 - PC-3200 (dual 2.0 GHz+) 2.5v,
unbuffered, 8-byte, non-parity 184-pin DDR SDRAM (matched pairs.)
One of the standard practices when changing RAM configurations, has
been to re-set the PRAM afterward, to be sure it registers correctly.
That it appears on one location while not fully in another, is some indicator
of some kind or another. Too bad there isn't more information on which
chips are being shown in the instance of only 2GB appearing. If there were
a way to know the slot locations of those 2GB, and study the chips in them,
something may be learned about this situation; or at least an additional clue.
In some of my old tower computers that could take many RAM chips, some
times there would be dust or fingerprint oils on the electrical contacts and
a careful cleaning and firm re-installation helped make better connections.
I'm wondering if some of the RAM you have may be sub-standard in a way.
There are some RAM utilities to check and test RAM; not sure which ones
are current nowadays, since I tried rember or some other one a few years
ago and it did not help me find a defective RAM. Multiple tasking forced a
bad chip to appear by acting up, when it would kernel panic under a load.
Hopefully someone with direct experience in this matter will reply.
Good luck & happy computing!

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Activity Monitor Dock Icon - Memory - Missing

Why is the Memory option for the Activity Monitor Dock Icon missing now in Mavericks?
Why would Apple remove this feature?
I was happily using this little pie chart for a Dock Icon to keep track of overall memory usage on my system.
Has anyone else found a solution to bring this back?

Yes, thanks for the confirmation. I did some googling and found more people with eight-cores who could not view more than one bar in the dock icon.
I understand that showing eight bars in the icon might've been unreadable, but I would have preferred that they show two bars for the dual processors, instead of leaving us with one bar. I'll have to look into some alternate utilities, but it's a shame Apple decided to regress functionality on their top-end machines.

Activity Monitor - Column Heading Memory Types

I'm chasing a memory issue in my MBP, and am using Activity Monitor to try to figure it out. I've found explanations for "Wired", "Active", "Inactive", and "Free". Makes sense to me, no problemo.
Now comes the interesting part, trying to map processes to memory use. I've added all the available memory columns to Activity Monitor, but cannot find any correlation between the column headings and the memory reported in the bottom area/pie chart.
How do the Shared, Real, Private and Virtual Memory column headings map to the Wired, Active, Inactive and Free categories at the bottom?
There are plenty of explanations on what to be concerned about with the various pie chart categories. However, I'm trying to determine when an particular process is getting out of hand, and would like to understand what each of the column headings really mean, and in particular, how they map to the pie chart categories.

As Kappy says, the virtual memory information is mostly meaningless except to developers, and most of them do not really care.
In this case the Java VM usage is most likely a math error on the part of either the operating system, or Activity Monitor (when a 64-bit number goes negative, but is then displayed as an unsigned value, it can look like what you are seeing; ignore it).
What you ARE interested in is "Real Memory" usage, and who is using it. Look at those numbers in Activity Monitor.
If you want to see if pageout activity is affecting your performance, then start Applicaitons -> Utilities -> Terminal and run the command "sar -g 60 100" which will report pageout numbers once a minute for 100 minutes (adjust the numbers to suit your tastes). Mostly zero means no pages outs. Occassional spikes generally occur when starting an app or switching to an app which has been idle for awhile. Sustained pageouts starts to indicate a problem. High sustained pageouts means you could benefit from either having more RAM or running fewer concurrent applications.

Activity Monitor shows virtual memory usage is way too high

35 Gb of virtual memory for Safari, Mail, iTunes, Activity Monitor and all running processes!
Why these numbers are so high compared to Tiger? Can someone please explain? Is it a bug or something or is it the new way introduced with Leopard?
RAM and CPU usage looks fine though but this VM usage seems too high to me. I will run out of disk space after a couple of days of runtime. And the Adobe Creative Suite is not even running. Jeez...
Message was edited by: flec65

Thanks for the hint Niel.
The /private/var/vm folder is actually only 64 Mb. I can calm myself now...
(via Go menu in the Finder, select Go to Folder and type /private/var/vm to access it)
But why is Activity Monitor behaving like this in Leopard?

Activity Monitor - Java Virtual Memory Use is 16,333.00 TB. How is this possible?

Activity Monitor: Virtual Memory column -
Java Real Memory @ 330 MB
Java Virtual Memory was 16,333 TB.
How could this be?
Running:
Safari
Mail
Pages
Activity Monitor open
Safari was incredibly slow today, as it has been a lot lately, but inconsistently. The other computers in the house had normal speed. I'm not a tech person. I attached a copy of the activity monitor - how it looks right now. I appreciate your thoughts and suggestions. Thank you.
bottom half

As Kappy says, the virtual memory information is mostly meaningless except to developers, and most of them do not really care.
In this case the Java VM usage is most likely a math error on the part of either the operating system, or Activity Monitor (when a 64-bit number goes negative, but is then displayed as an unsigned value, it can look like what you are seeing; ignore it).
What you ARE interested in is "Real Memory" usage, and who is using it. Look at those numbers in Activity Monitor.
If you want to see if pageout activity is affecting your performance, then start Applicaitons -> Utilities -> Terminal and run the command "sar -g 60 100" which will report pageout numbers once a minute for 100 minutes (adjust the numbers to suit your tastes). Mostly zero means no pages outs. Occassional spikes generally occur when starting an app or switching to an app which has been idle for awhile. Sustained pageouts starts to indicate a problem. High sustained pageouts means you could benefit from either having more RAM or running fewer concurrent applications.

Activity Monitor shows idle memory to be 80% or more

Hi. I'm using a 2009 model MacBook with 4GB of RAM and a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo Processor.
I've been having issues for quite a while now where even with just ONE program active, it will often lag, slow WAY down, or even flat out crash. Upon further inspection in the Activity Monitor, I discovered that the vast majority of the computer's memory -- at least 80% and up -- is marked as idle.
First: What does this mean?
Second: Is there any thing that can be done about the stated issues?
Thanks.

This Apple note will help with the definitions of each memory category: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1342
See these FAQ to help with stated issues:
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/performance.html
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/sbbod.html

Mavericks Activity Monitor Missing Functionality

I'm a developer who loves to keep track of application and system resources to be sure I'm making effective use of them both during the development process, but also to ensure that users of the software will have a good user experience and not be wasting RAM, CPU, etc, unnecessarily. So the Activity Monitor is a fantastic tool to stay on top of everything at all times. When I upgraded to Mavericks, I lost 3 key abilities that I use 24 hours/day and never shut off:
1) Ability to view memory usage in the Dock icon. I realize you can view it in the Memory tab on the main window, but the Dock icon allows you to display memory there, so you can use the main windows for network utilization.
2) Network utilization under Mountain Lion showed in very easy graphical representation the exact amount of KB/sec or MB/sec of network throughput as a line graph. Keeping that window open and tucking in a corner of one of your monitors allows for constant tracking of network bandwidth usage, so you always know how much bandwidth you're consuming at any given moment with a quick glance.
3) CPU utilization horizontal floating window. I realize they still have the vertical bar floating window representation, but where has the horizontal representation gone? I preferred that view as it takes up less screen realestate. This feature is gone in Mavericks.
With these 3 different views open and viewable at all times, you can keep close track of RAM, CPU, and network bandwidth. And all 3 of these views are gone in Mavericks! Can we please have them back? These are serious usability and efficiency tools that we've come to rely upon.

Yes, I have a similar question, but particularly wanting the VERTICAL CPU usage FLOATING bar back. (still relevant to the Horizontal CPU usage bar of course). Here is the link to my post/question:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5478195
good luck.

MacPro sees 16g mem but Activity Monitor Only Shows 8 Gig

I have 4 simms of 4GB mem in my 2008 MacPro. I always thought all was ok as "About this Mac" shows 16GB of mem. But when I run Activity Monitor, the System Memory pie chart says I have 8GB. Is there another way to confirm how much mem is being recognized by my MacPro?
I only discovered this when running "icleanmemory" from the app store, and noticing I only ever have approximately 3GB free at any one time. Looks like my Mac is not seeing at least 8Gig of mem EVEN THOUGH "About this Mac" clearly shows 16GB.

And not just a reboot, but boot in Safe Mode.
Sometimes a clean install or reinstall over what you have, because a few people (a fraction of a fraction) had a system problem
Some background tasks dont' uninstall, not easily.
They get added to launch services and have to be removed through launchd
Heat is always an issue with RAM
Not showing up all the time with what it should be.... call it defective, call it marginal, have the vendor exchange and let them use more robust testng
FBDIMMs get subjected to heat, and heat-cool cycle stresses electronics
Keeping them below 72*C is important - I use Smcfancontrol 2.x
Riser releated issues
All 4 on one Riser?
Ideal is one set on each Riser
Swap al the Ram to first one andthen the other (the top Riser has to be populated and can't be left empty
Try with one pair, then the other and insure you get 8GB eachtime.
Narrowing it down to a pair, to Riser, to placement.
A common thread, DIMMs show but half capacity. Defective, gone bad.

Stupid Rainbow Ball/Activity Monitor

My computer has really been getting hung up a lot lately and it is driving me nuts. I have a 1.33 ghz powerbook g4 with 768 Ram. I am really new to troubleshooting this mac, so I'm not sure what to do. I have performed the disc utilities and mac janitor (which seemed to help slightly). However, it still gets hung up. For example, it just got caught on running word, firefox and activity monitor at once. This doesn't seem like it should be such a big deal!
I don't know if this is relevant, but according to activity monitor, under system memory, there is around 85 mb 'wired', 342 'active' and 278 'inactive', leaving me with 60 free mb (obviously much less if I open one more program). Does the inactive actually affect performance? If so, how do I fix this? Is 768 no longer enough memory to perform basic operations?
Thank you.

This Apple note tells you about each type of memory: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107918
While in the activity monitor, on the system memory tab, note the page ins/outs. If page outs are 10% or greater of your page ins, you can use more memory for what you run. The numbers reset when you reboot.
I had issues with Safari using a gaggle of memory, so I switched to Firefox, which seems to be more behaved when using system resources.

Activity monitor memory numbers don't add up

Activity Monitor reports that I have 7.99 GB of memory in use. However, the numbers for individual processes don't add up to nearly that large of a number. What could be causing such a huge disparity between those two? Is there something I'm missing (and yes, I have it set to show all processes)?

For one the File Cache is not included in the process display as the use of the file cache is system wide. It is also not shown in the kernel usage.
At the moment Activity monitor for my system shows the Kernel using 1.019 GB of real memory, the File cache at 2.95 GB.
There may well be other memory allocations that are system wide function and services that are not readily attributable or allocatable to individual processes. If you look at the screen shot above:
Memory Used = App memory + File Cache + Wired memory.
I suspect that App Memory = the sum of the Proceess Real memory column

Activity monitor says I have 1 -3% of System Memory free, yet CPU usage shows less than 10% total of all processes

Activity monitor says I have 1 -3% of System Memory free, yet CPU usage shows less than 10% total of all processes

I think you should review what you wrote. There is no question, hence, my reply. I can't tell by the AM listing what applications are using memory. You need to click on the Real Mem column once or twice to display in descending order.
Aside from what you see in AM, what exactly is your problem or perceived problem. You are very low on Free Mem at the moment the screen shot was taken. Those displays are not depicting your computer's instantaneous memory usage.
About OS X Memory Management and Usage
Using Activity Monitor to read System Memory & determine how much RAM is used
Memory Management in Mac OS X
Performance Guidelines- Memory Management in Mac OS X
A detailed look at memory usage in OS X
Memory Usage Performance Guidelines- About the Virtual Memory System
Understanding top output in the Terminal
The amount of available RAM for applications is the sum of Free RAM and Inactive RAM. This will change as applications are opened and closed or change from active to inactive status. The Swap figure represents an estimate of the total amount of swap space required for VM if used, but does not necessarily indicate the actual size of the existing swap file. If you are really in need of more RAM that would be indicated by how frequently the system uses VM. If you open the Terminal and run the top command at the prompt you will find information reported on Pageins () and Pageouts (). Pageouts () is the important figure. If the value in the parentheses is 0 (zero) then OS X is not making instantaneous use of VM which means you have adequate physical RAM for the system with the applications you have loaded. If the figure in parentheses is running positive and your hard drive is constantly being used (thrashing) then you need more physical RAM.
Adding RAM only makes it possible to run more programs concurrently. It doesn't speed up the computer nor make games run faster. What it can do is prevent the system from having to use disk-based VM when it runs out of RAM because you are trying to run too many applications concurrently or using applications that are extremely RAM dependent. It will improve the performance of applications that run mostly in RAM or when loading programs.

Activity Monitor inaccurate memory

I just added 2x1GB Crucial sticks to my G5 dual 2.5 for a total of 5GB in 10.3.9. But activity monitor now shows incorrect values for free memory. The pie chart shows 1GB of total RAM instead of 5GB. The top command in terminal agrees with Activity Monitor for used RAM, VM, and pageins/outs but does show the correct free RAM as 4.5GB. So this would seem to be a cosmetic issue, but it does make acitivity monitor a lot less useful. Accurate values were reported with 3GB RAM installed before the memory upgrade. Anyone know a fix for this behavior?

Similar issues have been fixed by running the Repair Permissions feature of the Disk Utility. This may also be the result of the address space some applications use to store the amount of RAM installed not being large enough to handle a number over 4GB properly. In either case, the full amount of RAM will be available to the system.
(11910)

Activity Monitor Memory Pie Chart

I set the dock icon to monitor my memory usage as I do a lot of work in VM's that can chew through what's available. After updating the only icons are CPU, Network, and Disk usage. What happened to Memory?
And yes, I know there are other more informative resource monitors out there, but Activity Monitor had the best "at a glance" dashboard.

This is no longer an option, especially since Mavericks has new memory management routines (ie, memory compression) that make the charting of memory usage less straightforward. Apple has switched to a new "Memory Pressure" approach to viewing memory usage, which is available in the Memory section of Activity Monitor, but so far has not been added as a Dock icon option. Hopefully Apple will do so, as this would perhaps be one of the more useful Dock icon options.

Getting messages "startup disk is full" and activity monitor is showing "syslog d" is using a lot of CPU. I'm planning on getting more memory for my late 2008 model Macbook but wondering if there's something that is causing problems that I can also fix.

I had closed out of all of my programs but heard the internal fans running so I checked the activity monitor. It shows syslog d as the top process using the CPU right now. I have no idea what that means.
I read a thread about the startup disk being full and how you can free up memory. I have an airport extreme so TimeCapsule is backing up everything. I do have a bunch of pictures on iPhoto on the laptop; could move those to another location but I'm a little gunshy. I know they are on the TimeCapsule but I would like to save them to a second place before deleting from laptop just to be sure. I went through several things yesterday and emptied trash, etc. I wasn't able to locate the hidden files that the thread about the startup disk being full was referencing --- they were talking about large emails that were causing processes to happen taking up the CPU.... I wasn't able to find out if that was the case for me.
Also I'm going to look into getting another 2MB of memory and installing it on the Macbook, so I can upgrade to the latest OS. Anyone have an idea if that is worth the $$$ over buying a new laptop? Or anyone have ideas as to where to buy memory, etc.
Any ideas - help!

Go step by step and test.
1. Start up in Safe Mode.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11212
2. Empty Trash.
   http://support.apple.com/kb/PH13806
3. Disk space / Time Machine ?/ Local Snapshots
Local backups
   http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4878
4. Delete old iOS Devices Backup.
    iTunes > Preferences > Devices
    Highlight the old Backups , press “Delete Backup” and then “OK”.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
5. Re-index Macintosh HD.
    This will take a while. Wait until it is finished.
    System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy
    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2409

In OSX Activity Monitor, what's the difference between 'free' memory and 'inactive' memory

In OS X Activity Monitor, what's the difference between 'free' memory and 'inactive' memory. My daughters 2Gb MacBook Pro is very slow, it probably needs more memory but there is almost 1Gb of 'inactive' memory but no 'free' memory when an application is opened.
Thanks

Free RAM is the one that has not been used by any application since you started up your Mac, and inactive RAM is the one that was used by an application and it is not in use anymore.
1 GB of inactive RAM is a lot, and it may be the cause of the slowness. There are a lot of apps that allows you to turn inactive into free RAM. I use FreeMemory, but have a look at the Mac App Store.
If you are a developer, you can do that with a command you can type into Terminal:
sudo purge

Activity Monitor - missing added memory

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