RAM goes to swap often

I have a late 2011 macbook pro with 8GB RAM and a samsung SSD. Pretty good little machine!
I do a lot of reasearch stuff for school.
I work Safari pretty hard with many tabs open for a while while I sort out what I use and do not use.
Having Mail, Safari, Word, and maybe Xcode open can blow through my RAM pretty quickly.
I tend to keep it to a dull roar by usually only having Safari, maybe Mail and Word open gathering data for the various papers I write.
Having only those three open routinely runs me out of RAM and sends me to swap. Like I said, I have 8GB. Does anyone here think I should be using 16GB? I haven't even gotten around to virtual machines this semester or anything which is lucky, but might in the future semesters. So far I've always found a native Mac alternative to get me out of the VM scenario.
I just wonder because I go to swap so often, and amounts like 800MB or more pretty much everyday during a school week. I know it sounds excessive when I put it that way, it's just I have a lot going on pulling data together and this is how I use my computer. My machine works, but I'm just wondering if it would be better, or maybe be a little easier on the battery having more RAM for what I do.
What do you guys think?

Yosemite does a much better job of memory management than the previous versions of Mac OS X, but still will run out of space with a lot of applications open. You would probably benefit from more memory since you have only 8 GB...that machine should be able to go to 16 GB without issues. See reliable sources for ram such as OWC, http://www.macsales.com or Crucial, http://www.crucial.com for ram that is guaranteed to work. Avoid bargain ram as that is not likely to work in a Mac.

Similar Messages

Weblogic5.1 VM goes to swap on startup

I'm running Weblogic5.1 SP4 on Solaris7 64bit with the Sunsoft
JDK1.2.2-05a, I have 1Gig of memory installed, yet when I start a
weblogic VM with min heap size of 256M and a max heap size of 300M, it
immediately goes into swap space.
Memory: 1024M real, 821M free, 351M swap in use, 1506M swap free
Before starting the VM only 10M of swap is in use, and after starting
the VM as you see above, it appears that the VM hits swap immediately.
Anyone else notice this problem? How might I force the VM into physical
memory instead of swap?

Thanks for the links and pointers to utilities... I really appreciate having
learned something about investigating this further on my own.
Charlie Therit wrote:
Please make sure that you understand the complete meaning of the swap
numbers being reported. "/etc/swap -s" will show you the total amount of
swap space allocated (actually being used) and the amount reserved (pages
identified as anonymous memory that have not yet been backed by swap).
Even if you don't supply Solaris with any swapFS, the system will still
have and use swap space as Solaris swap space includes all allocated
swapFS partitions and available memory.
As long as the amount of allocated swap space (swap -s) doesn't exceed the
amount of disk space allocated for swap (swap -l), your system will have
the maximum use of its available RAM. If the amount allocated exceeds the
amount of swapFS then your system has begun locking pages in RAM and this
could lead to memory shortages. Paging should not be feared and is a
normal part of Solaris VM management. Unless the scan rate (vmstat 'sr'
column) reports higher than 300 in a 30 second period you aren't losing
performance because of memory management.
If you are interested in learning more about Solaris VM and swap
allocation, please read:
http://www.sunworld.com/swol-12-1997/swol-12-insidesolaris.html
and
http://www.sunworld.com/sunworldonline/swol-01-1998/swol-01-insidesolaris.html
Hope this helps,
Charlie
PS - If you really want to understand your JVM process, try using
/usr/proc/bin/pmap to view all segments, their sizes, and type. Also keep
in mind that each page in the JVM is backed by either anonymous memory
(swap) or the file system (UFS). Solaris reserves anonymous memory as the
process is created and allocates anonymous memory as the pages are
accessed and modified.
The views expressed in this posting are solely those of the author, and
BEA
Systems, Inc. does not endorse any of these views.
BEA Systems, Inc. is not responsible for the accuracy or completeness of
the
information provided and assumes no duty to correct, expand upon, delete
or update
any of the information contained in this posting.
Bryan O'Sullivan wrote:
w> Before starting the VM only 10M of swap is in use, and after
w> starting the VM as you see above, it appears that the VM hits swap
w> immediately.
I wouldn't come to this conclusion. The stats you are looking at tell
you how much swap is in use on the machine, not who's using it. You
should be using something else, such as ps, to see what the resident
set size of the java process is. That is the important number that
gives some indication of VM performance.
I would bet that idle processes are being swapped out on your system,
not the VM. If it turns out that those processes are not idle,
though, then you'll probably see bad performance as those processes
and the VM get into a food fight over who gets to be in physical
memory, with lots of thrashing.
<b

Why So Much RAM Going to "File Cache"

Hi,
I seemed to be maxing out my RAM in my 5,1 Mac Pro when I had Adobe Lightroom, PhotoShop, and DxO's OpticsPro 10 open, which are the 3 apps I use in tandem quite a bit. So, I bought 8 GB's more RAM (not a great deal but as much as I can afford at the moment), popped it in on Saturday, and was happy to see that I seemed to have plenty of RAM when the 3 apps were open. By the end of yesterday, however, almost all of my RAM was being chewed up. I opened Activity Monitor this morning and saw that almost 12 GB is being used up by "File Cache". Is this normal? Right now - after installing the 8GB's and after 1.5 days almost being back to where I was before I bought the additional memory, it feels like I'm in a Memory Black Hole. Any insight?
Thanks,
Robert

Yes. OS X uses the file cache to store frequently used code and files in order to make the computer run a little bit faster instead of spending a lot of time loading and unloading data from disk. It improves memory management. It's a good thing.
About OS X Memory Management and Usage
Using Activity Monitor to read System Memory & determine how much RAM is used
OS X Mavericks- About Activity Monitor
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.

Is my MacBook (mid 2010) with an Intel Core 2 Duo (2.4 GHZ) with 2GB of Ram going to run smoothly when I purchase OS X Lion?

I dont know if a 2.4 GHZ Core 2 duo with 2GB of RAM and a mid 2010 model of my Macbook will run smoothly with Mac OS X Lion. Can anybody help make my decision either i should upgrade from snow leopard to lion?

My advice... DO NOT BUY.... otherwise you will be like me... frustrated and horrified.... I am suffering .... and im the last person to be on such discussion forum... but now I am here... you may be able to guage my furstration. Snow Leapord is zillion times better than Lion... they should call it pu**y instead of lion.
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Imac G4-400 w8m ram-Going OSX?

I have a blueberry G4 and am about to upgrade to 10.3 from 9.2 with my specs, I am gonna run Adobe Creative Suite. This is just for rainy days when I have to work at home.
I know it will not be super fast but
...1-will internet be decent?
...2-will I be able to "go back"? uninstall OSX? or do I need to reinstall 9 and start over?
...3-lastly, is this a bad upgrade, is it too much software for my machine? I will get a new comp but not for a year or so...
thanks any suggestions will help.

Jonathan -
I suspect that your iMac is a G3, not a G4. Since it is a slot-loader, it is essential that you upgrade its firmware to v. 4.1.9 before even thinking about installing OS X 10.3. See this announcement. Do not attempt to install 10.3 until the firmware is updated.
It's unclear how much RAM is installed in your iMac. You need 256 Mb just to host OS X satisfactorily and the software you're contemplating adding will require more.
Schadow
FP iMac 800, 9.2.2/10.1.5; eMac 800, 9.2.2/10.4.3; iMac 266, 8.6 Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Which Ram goes where?

We recently upgraded the ram on my 2.5GHZ Quad from 2.5GB to 6.5GB. I was talking to somebody who told me I should ditch the two 256 sticks that came with the mac and just run the 6 1GB sticks. He said this is better for the computer. Is there any truth to this? Right now the 256 sticks are in slot 1, and the 1GB sticks are in slots 2-4.

Hi Brandon Parris-
Unless he has some specific evidence after troubleshooting your machine then I would tend, as you have, to be leery of such a generalization.
It is always possible that they could hamper the performance, but unless you have specific reason to believe that they do then why bother with something that works?
FWIW I have left the original 2X256 RAM in both of the G5's here and it doesn't bother me any (:>)
Luck-
-DaddyPaycheck

FF3.6.12 goes off line often when searching

When searching on line, FF posts "working off line" )or something similar) and I have to go to file and click on working off line which is
clicked.

Thanks very much! The "Reset Printing" command did the job. Reminds of the magic of PROM clearing in olden times. The Apple support article leaves out one final detail here: after reset, you have to re-select the printer in the setup utility (it seems at first that you may need to reinstall it - not so.)
This is one of the first "Cosmic Duh!" events I've had printing with OSX, hopefully there will not be many more. It's uncomfortably like working with Windows! Any idea why this happened in the first place?
By the way, I did download the Printer Setup Repair (5.1.1) utility from Fixamac, but this didn't clear the problem. (Wasn't your eyes, I didn't mention it earlier.)
Finally, the printer is accessed at a fixed IP address - first three of the router address numbers plus a high number (180s to 190s) in the fourth place. Again, I don't use DHCP because Windows computers can lose track of the IP address if it gets reassigned after a restart, and many addresses will never be used for anything else in such a small network.

Ssh packet MAC corrupt, USB interference, RAM swapping fixes... Why?

I swapped memory in my 2010 mid Macbook pro. The RAM is labeled PC3 10600, just as the RAM that was previously in the machine is labeled.
However, with the new RAM in the machine, ssh is unstable - which makes Time Machine fail, for instance - as well as having interence on USB audio. Swapping back fixes the issue.
But no amount of RAM tests find fault in the new sims.
It's very frustrating! Has anyone else had this issue? Time Machine failing with new RAM?
-Crissa

I swapped memory in my 2010 mid Macbook pro. The RAM is labeled PC3 10600, just as the RAM that was previously in the machine is labeled.
However, with the new RAM in the machine, ssh is unstable - which makes Time Machine fail, for instance - as well as having interence on USB audio. Swapping back fixes the issue.
But no amount of RAM tests find fault in the new sims.
It's very frustrating! Has anyone else had this issue? Time Machine failing with new RAM?
-Crissa

Memory usage going crazy!!

I have a MBP with 4GB of memory and constantly see that amount being 99% used. It goes into swap all the time! I don't have too many apps running, just Mail, Safari, iTunes, and Word. Does anybody know what's happening? Thanks!

irowharderthanyou wrote:
Safari tops the list @330MB, but nothing else looks too excessive. page-in/page-out ratio is 10:1 now, but can be MUCH lower. Sometimes it's around 1:1. The current memory breakdown is:
Free: 13MB
Wired: 737MB
Active: 1.17MB
Inactive: 2.10MB
Used: 3.99GB
OK - Out of the memory shown here approximately 2.23GB is still available for use, and should be called upon by the computer when necessary. (The 2.10GB of "Inactive" RAM is RAM which was previously in use, by one of the current applications or by ones which you have now quit, but which retains its original contents in case the earlier use is required again. It is not really being "used" and is available for other apps to call on if necessary.
The Wired and Active ones are the RAM that is really currently in use.
I wouldn't be expecting a lot of "Pageout" activity in the present situation.
It may be, though , that one of the apps you commonly use isn't regularly "releasing" RAM at some times, or that it behaviour becomes nastier when using a particular "plug-in" for example. I'd keep an eye on the figures while you work for a while and check out any activity that significantly changes things.
How often do you restart your computer? (a guaranteed way of "freeing up" RAM, of course).
Cheers
Rod

System Slows Down and Freezes a LOT - Memory? Swap? Hard Drive? AV?

I have a 2.4 GHz 24" dual core iMac (identifier: 7,1). It worked fine for a good while and lately I've been having problems that seem to be getting worse (sometimes it seems to get better, then worse again). I have 4 GB of memory and I'm waiting for more RAM to upgrade it to 6 GB, since I hear that's the max anyone's run successfully in this model.
I've often had a number of programs running at once. Usually I have Firefox, Apple Mail, the KDE's Konsole and Kate (from MacPorts), Calendar, Stickies, MacIago, and Pysol running. (Yes, it helps to have a few games up for breaks when I'm working.) I know that's a lot, but for well over a year, I was working with that setup without problems, without getting stuck for long times with the pinwheel of death or anything like that.
I'm not exactly sure when it started, but now I have times where I will do something and the program will freeze and I get the pinwheel of death. I wait and after 30-60 seconds I can do something, but sometimes I still get hesitations and a start-freeze&stop-go mode for a bit. Sometimes this freezes the whole computer for up to 30-60 seconds and I can't even check another space with Command-Arrow.
I've been trying to backtrack to see if I could figure out what is causing this. Sometimes killing Firefox helps, so I switched to Chrome and watched for usage on Activity Monitor and Chrome uses FAR less CPU time. I have FlashBlock and AdBlocker Plus on Chrome (had it on Firefox, and before that, used NoScript for blocking). But I've seen this happen even without a browser open.
I suspect this could be an issue with swap, since recently I was watching and saw spikes in disk usage around these times, but I'm not sure of the correlation yet. Sometimes it seems like whenever I switch to a different program, whenever I use a new feature, I have to wait (as if it's loading library code or something).
Again, this is a recent issue.
I've upgraded from 10.6.5 to 10.6.6, so I don't know if that could effect this.
I've also started using the free version of Sophos Anti-Virus (which is apparently impossible to quit once it's running) and thought it might be doing scans.
What's also puzzled me is seeing that, with 4 GB of memory, Activity Monitor continually shows 1 GB free, but still indicates 2 GB swap files. So is there a reason 25% of my RAM is not being used?
I've also checked and found my drive to be heavily fragmented. I bought iDefrag, but it can't defrag it because there seem to be some bad blocks. Rather than mark them as bad every time it hits that spot, it just tells me it can't access that part of the drive.
My guess is that OS X, for some reason, leaves a set amount of memory free to use for various reasons and that, due to fragmentation, what was once an easy task of accessing something in a swap file is now time-consuming.
Is that on target? What else could be causing this problem? This is beginning to make my iMac unusable. If it's just swap file issues and defrag problems, I'm thinking of cloning my internal 320 GB drive to a 1 TB drive and replacing the original, then running iDefrag for good measure and continuing from there. (It seems like in OS X finding bad blocks is difficult, from what I've seen.)
What can I do and does anyone have any idea what the problem is? I'll be glad to give more details if that helps, but I've tried to include as much as I can already.
Thanks for any ideas or help.

Considering how I've solved this, I'm pretty much shocked that nobody had any answers for this.
I upgraded my drive from the standard 320 GB drive (which had about 79 GB free on it). I used Carbon Copy Clone to copy my system drive to a 1 TB drive, then swapped out the 320 GB for the 1 TB. When I booted it up and started working, I noticed it was back to the way things used to be: I could go from one program to another to another with NO problem at all. No pinwheels of death and I even added a few more more running programs and still had no issue.
I have no idea why, but before, even when there was a 2 GB swap file, 1 GB (out of 4 GB) of RAM was always unused. I don't know if the OS looks at what it can access and figures read/write times and uses that to figure out how much memory it can effectively handle or what, but now I'm using almost all of my 4 GB of RAM and the swap file is smaller than it was.
So upgrading to a larger drive made a HUGE difference. I'm willing to bet that defragging the old one would have made a difference as well, but there were problems with some files and iDefrag could not read them, which also makes me suspect that drive was on its last legs and close to failure. (That and bad sectors could also have slowed down swap, along with fragmentation issues.)
The solution was a bigger drive, but I suspect defragging the old drive might have helped (if it weren't for possible bad blocks). I know deleting files from the old drive did not help too much.

NForce Killing RAM? The Mother of all Crashes

Last week the problems started. My PC just shut down mid-session with a stange and very fast shut down. Trying to reboot just got me a superfast video beep code and blank screen. Beeep, beep, beep. Only in milliseconds. The D-Bracket showed, Early Chipset Initialization.
I started dinkin around with my two RAM sticks (Crucial PC2100 128MB) Finally, after shifting things around a bit, I figured out that one stick was bad. The PC would boot with the other stick in Slot 1, but no boot at all as long as the 'bad' stick was in any slot. OK, I figured, bad RAM stick, I'll just run on one while I RMA the other and be done with it.
NOT SO FAST, Mon frere. Within about 3 three days, my PC won't boot at all. This time it's Early Chipset Initialization again, only this time its accompanied by an eerie beep code that shouldn't exist. Award (Phoenix) says the only beep code they have is the video: Beeeep, beep, beep. MY beep code is a long beep, within a second on pushing the ON button, and a series of long beeps at about 3 second intervals.
So I'm thinking, no way. One bad RAM stick I can see. But not two within three days of each other. And especially not two CRUCIAL RAM sticks. But what am I to do?
I swapped out the PS, same probem.
I removed every PCI card in the system, same problem.
I disconnected every drive except HDD, same problem.
I switched and re-switched my two RAM sticks in every possible configuration: nada.
I reset the BIOS jumper.
I took the battery out for 8 hours.
I even replaced the CPU! Beeeeep....(3sec).....Beeeeep....(3sec).....Beeeeep and Early Chipset Initialization on the LED's.
In desperation I RMA'ed both RAM sticks today. And the clock is ticking...... my brain is telling me that it CAN'T be two sticks of RAM going bad within three days of each other, my motherboard must be possessed...
So there you have it folks. The worst nForce crash of all time, and nowhere to turn except faithful NewEgg and an RMA of BOTH RAM sticks. But can this be??? nForce killing RAM? BTW, my settings were 133, 266, 66

It's possible that the problem wasn't related to your RAM at all, and it's unfortunate you RMA'd them both back. I once witnessed the Early Chipset Initialization error, as a result of increasing my FSB too far.
It could be fixed by correctly clearing the CMOS, which is actually one of the hardest things to get right with this motherboard. I've tried so many different ways, I can't quite recall the exact procedure, but I believe it went something like this:
1. Make sure power supply is switched off, power cord unplugged, AGP card removed, and monitor cable plugged into onboard video.
2. Move CMOS jumper to clear position, then remove battery, for say, I don't know, at least an hour.
3. While waiting, move the FSB jumper to safe mode at 100MHz.
4. Place battery back in after the hour, with the CMOS jumper still on clear, wait a few minutes, then put the jumper back to the Run position.
You should now be able to plug the power cord back in, switch on the power supply, and boot with the onboard video. If this is the case, you can shutdown and move the FSB jumper back to User Mode, or 133MHz.
This procedure may not be the only way to clear the CMOS effectively, but this motherboard is sensitive, and it must be done right. I'm pretty sure these steps will work, but it has been a while since I've had to clear my own CMOS so I can't confirm this.
Let us know when you get your RAM back, then we can see what the problem really is.
-Skippy

Suspend to ram Dell insipron 6000 (probably easy)

Hey,
I'm having some basic problems with the whole suspend to ram operation. As a new user to configuring this by hand, I'm a bit lost at where I should start. So this is what I have so far.
I have installed Klaptop, and it has the suspend option, but after suspending, it doesn't resume. (It powers back on to a black screen only where I can't do anything)
I have installed pm-utils. pm-suspend suspends the computer and then on resume just goes to the same black screen like klaptop does.
My daemons are
DAEMONS=(syslog-ng cpufreq !network netfs crond kdm dbus hal dhcdbd networkmanager autofs keytouchd)
and my modules are
MODULES=(b44 mii acpi_cpufreq cpufreq_stats cpufreq_powersave cpufreq_conservative cpufreq_ondemand cpufreq_userspace ipw2200 ac97_bus snd-mixer-oss snd-pcm-oss snd-page-alloc snd-pcm snd-timer snd snd-ac97-codec snd-intel8x0 snd-intel8x0m soundcore i8k)
I don't think I've configured enough files or something like that. Are there any files in /etc/ that I should be modding to get suspend to ram to work properly? Is there anything wrong with my daemons or modules?
Thanks in advance for any help you can give,
e^1

I've got suspend and hibernate to work with pm-utils (and kpowersave-devel) on a Dell Inspiron 6400 about 80% of the way, and I'm appending my install notes on this. Perhaps they'll help you. This new power management scheme looks like a convoluted mess to me, and I'm still flailing with it.
Also see http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=37493
--- How to configure Arch for power management on Dell Inspiron 6400 ---
1. Install acpid, pm-utils and cpufrequtils, i.e. # pacman -S acpid pm-utils cpufrequtils
Add 'acpid' to the list of DAEMONS in /etc/rc.conf. If you already have hal specified in your DAEMONS, there is no need to add acpid. HAL will automatically detect and load the acpid daemon.
Both pm-suspend (suspend2ram, low power state) and pm-hibernate (suspend2disk, system powered down completely) are usually called from HAL, e.g. initiated by the desktop applet kpowersave.
They can be run in several ways:
a. Via buttons or shortcuts (e.g. Fn-ESC for Standby, Fn-F1 for Hibernate)
b. From KPowersave in task bar
c. Or, without using HAL and other frameworks, call pm-suspend or pm-hibernate from the command line as root:
# pm-suspend
# pm-hibernate
2. Configure pm-hibernate (suspend2disk):
When the machine is placed into hibernation, it will move all data from RAM to the swap partition (swap size must be >= RAM). Edit the kernel line in /boot/grub/menu.lst by adding 'resume=path_to_swap_partition', e.g.
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda2 resume=/dev/sda5 ro vga=791
3. Configure cpufrequtils:
a. Add the driver "acpi-cpufreq" to the MODULES list in /etc/rc.conf.
b. Load a governor(s) (a pre-configured power scheme, loaded as a kernel module) by adding 'cpufreq_ondemand' or 'cpufreq_powersave' etc. to the MODULES list in /etc/rc.conf.
c. Edit /etc/conf.d/cpufreq to include valid governor(s) and the proper freqs for your CPU (get these values by running $ cpufreq-info), e.g.
governor="ondemand"
min_freq="1GHz"
max_freq="1.67GHz"
d. Add 'cpufreq' to the list of DAEMONs in /etc/rc.conf (after 'hal').
e. In /etc/pm/config.d/ create a file 'config' and in it list the modules to be unloaded before suspend, e.g.
SUSPEND_MODULES=" button uhci_hcd"
5. If applicable, change the labels for the power and sleep buttons in /etc/acpi/handler.sh.
E.g. in Dell Inspiron 6400 replace PWRF with PBTN and replace SLPB with SBTN.
6. Configure proper handling of lid closure by editing the button/lid section in etc/acpi/handler.sh.
I don't know how to do that as yet but the following hack at least will allow you to close the lid after putting the laptop on Standby and have the screen come back to life after resuming, rather than having it remain black.
Put the following shell script '000hacks' into /etc/pm/sleep.d/ and make it executable (you'll have to install vbetool):
#!/bin/bash
case $1 in
suspend)
chvt 1
vbetool vbestate save > /tmp/vbe
resume)
vbetool post
vbetool vbestate restore < /tmp/vbe
chvt 7
esac
7. Read Arch wikis:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pm-utils
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Cpufrequtils
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Acpid

How does swap in Linux work?

I thought I knew, but I am not so sure anymore.
I have 4GB ram and 2GB swap (I know it works because I even have hibernation), fast SATA HDD and Core 2 Duo.
On occasions I run opera (~1GB), and two virtual machines. As soon as RAM utilization goes in the vicinity of 3.8GB, my system becomes totally unresponsive and to recover it, I try to close opera window, but the first challenge is to actually move a mouse, and the second to wait about a minute before the click takes any effect.
I was thinking of putting swap on a USB flash drive to make things fast, but judging from this, it does not look like swap is being used at all.

meph wrote:This is odd. I'm starting to doubt that it's caused by swapping itself. Just think about it, how does running out of memory present itself? It could hang, it could give you all sorts of error messages, but being unresponsive without any errors is weird. It means that the system is actually running but is being slowed down by something. Misbehaving process, whatever.
I don't know. Windows behaves pretty much as my Arch when it runs out of memory.
meph wrote:
1) Try using swap file instead. Using it will mean that different physical location on your hdd will be used, and also that it will use your root partition, which is known to work well (i guess?). If it still misbehaves after you start using it, you will rule out faulty hdd (however unlikely that already is).
2) Did you ever have this problem without using your VM's? Try and use all your memory without running those, and see what happens. For example opening a dvd image in a text editor could work? Just fill your memory with random garbage and see what happens, and while doing that you may want to watch htop again. This should rule out a problem in whatever virtualization software you're using.
3) Try and turn swap off before trying to induce the problem. Again, this is about knowing how exactly will your system behave when it actually runs out of memory. Expected outcome is flooding you with error messages about killing processess, but the system should remain somewhat responsive. Cluttered and obviously not working well, but responsive. This step could help identify a memory defect, obviously the next step would be running a memtest.
4) This one is rather obvious and I suppose you already did it, but look carefully into your log files, especially kernel.log. Or better yet, induce the problem, take a precise note about when exactly things started to go bad, and then look for errors in your logs around that time.
1. That's quite a bother. I gonna have to do it a little bit later, if you think it is absolutely necessary.
2. I opened two ISO files (2GB each) with geany, and the result was pretty much the same, except this time swap usage went up to 700MB, but that could be because htop managed to refres after 2-3 minutes, while previously it did not. But the system was freezing up pretty much the same way.
3. Again, the result is similar. Maybe the system is a bit more responsive, especially in the first minute of running on full RAM, but afterwards everything else locks up, too. Still, the mouse is movable for most of the time, but it could be a coincidence.
silentsnake,
I usually have +20 tabs opened in my browser. I think opera is doing a fairly good job. Certainly better than firefox.
The easiest solution would be to buy more RAM. RAM is very cheap - you can get 4x4 GB (16 GB total) for around 80 €.
Yeah, I wish I was running DDR3. The cheapest 4GB SODIMM DDR2 module on ebay.co.uk is almost £60

Expected impact of under-allocation of swap

Oracle rdbms 112.0.1
Oracle GI 11.2.0.1/2
Oracle Linux 5.6 x86-64
stand-alone, no RAC
Development box is hosting ASM and 3 rdbms instances. databases are at 11.2.0.1, ASM was upgraded to 11.2.0.2 before I inherited it.
Prod box is hosting ASM and 2 rdbms instances. Databases and ASM/GI are at 11.2.0.1.
Started upgrade of GI to 11.2.0.2 and it failed the prereq check, stating there was insufficient swap. Machine has 21.5gb ram, 11.1875gb swap.
Going back installation guide for base level I see that it also recommends 16gb of swap for that amount of ram, but I don't recall seeing that in the guides that came with the upgrade. If so, I must have glossed over, thinking that since the base level was installed we should be good on any fundamental prereqs like that.
The dev box - where GI was upgraded before I started this job - has 23.5gb ram and 15.6gb swap.
On the prod boxe the ram was upgraded after the current software installtions. I believe the same happened on the dev box.
I'm waiting on a response from the SA on the feasability of upping the swap but in the mean time wondered about the expected fall-out of overriding the pre-req check and proceeding with the upgrade.

user705159 wrote:
The SWAP sizing normally asked for by oracle is a minimum for normal database operations to include installations etc. You may be able to get by with a smaller SWAP size but it depends on other factors such as system usage on the server at the indicated time. Under allocation of swap for oracle in the worst case will result in process failures due to ora-4030 errors or out of process memory. Typically you would see an accompanying swap related error in the OS logs if it were related to the swap size.yes.

My brand new iMac is often extremely slow to open applications

Problem description:
brand new mac slowing down when powered up for a while. Applications bounce for tens of seconds before they actually open
EtreCheck version: 2.2 (132)
Report generated 5/1/15, 2:01 PM
Download EtreCheck from http://etresoft.com/etrecheck
Click the [Click for support] links for help with non-Apple products.
Click the [Click for details] links for more information about that line.
Hardware Information: ℹ️
    iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2013) (Technical Specifications)
    iMac - model: iMac14,3
    1 2.9 GHz Intel Core i5 CPU: 4-core
    8 GB RAM Upgradeable
        BANK 0/DIMM0
            4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok
        BANK 1/DIMM0
            4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok
    Bluetooth: Good - Handoff/Airdrop2 supported
    Wireless: en1: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
Video Information: ℹ️
    NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M - VRAM: 1024 MB
        iMac 1920 x 1080
System Software: ℹ️
    OS X 10.10.2 (14C109) - Time since boot: 18:19:35
Disk Information: ℹ️
    APPLE HDD HTS541010A9E662 disk0 : (1 TB)
        EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB
        Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / : 999.35 GB (394.75 GB free)
        Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted> [Recovery]: 650 MB
USB Information: ℹ️
    Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)
    Apple Inc. BRCM20702 Hub
        Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
    ACS CCID USB Reader
    Apple, Inc. Keyboard Hub
        Apple Inc. Apple Keyboard
    HP Photosmart 5510 series
Thunderbolt Information: ℹ️
    Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus
Gatekeeper: ℹ️
    Anywhere
Kernel Extensions: ℹ️
        /Library/Application Support/VirtualBox
    [loaded]    org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxDrv (4.3.22) [Click for support]
    [loaded]    org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxNetAdp (4.3.22) [Click for support]
    [loaded]    org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxNetFlt (4.3.22) [Click for support]
    [loaded]    org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxUSB (4.3.22) [Click for support]
        /System/Library/Extensions
    [not loaded]    com.bose.cdcusb.kext (1.0.0) [Click for support]
Startup Items: ℹ️
    ciscod: Path: /System/Library/StartupItems/ciscod
    Startup items are obsolete in OS X Yosemite
Launch Agents: ℹ️
    [loaded]    com.cisco.anyconnect.gui.plist [Click for support]
    [loaded]    com.divx.dms.agent.plist [Click for support]
    [loaded]    com.divx.update.agent.plist [Click for support]
Launch Daemons: ℹ️
    [loaded]    com.adobe.fpsaud.plist [Click for support]
    [running]    com.cisco.anyconnect.vpnagentd.plist [Click for support]
    [loaded]    com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist [Click for support]
    [loaded]    com.timesoftware.timemachineeditor.backup-auto.plist [Click for support]
    [loaded]    com.timesoftware.timemachineeditor.helper.plist [Click for support]
    [not loaded]    org.virtualbox.startup.plist [Click for support]
User Launch Agents: ℹ️
    [loaded]    com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist [Click for support]
    [loaded]    com.google.keystone.agent.plist [Click for support]
    [not loaded]    org.virtualbox.vboxwebsrv.plist [Click for support]
User Login Items: ℹ️
    iTunesHelper    Application (/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesHelper.app)
    AdobeResourceSynchronizer    Application Hidden (/Applications/Adobe Reader.app/Contents/Support/AdobeResourceSynchronizer.app)
    Dropbox    Application (/Applications/Dropbox.app)
    Android File Transfer Agent    Application (/Users/[redacted]/Library/Application Support/Google/Android File Transfer/Android File Transfer Agent.app)
Internet Plug-ins: ℹ️
    FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 17.0.0.169 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]
    DivX Web Player: Version: 3.2.3.1164 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]
    AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: Version: 11.0.10 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]
    AdobePDFViewer: Version: 11.0.10 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]
    Flash Player: Version: 17.0.0.169 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]
    Default Browser: Version: 600 - SDK 10.10
    OVSHelper: Version: 1.1 [Click for support]
    QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3
    SharePointBrowserPlugin: Version: 14.4.0 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]
    Silverlight: Version: 5.1.30514.0 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]
    JavaAppletPlugin: Version: 15.0.0 - SDK 10.10 Check version
Safari Extensions: ℹ️
    symbaloo bookmarker
3rd Party Preference Panes: ℹ️
    Flash Player [Click for support]
Bad Fonts: ℹ️
    Verdana Bold.ttf: /Library/Fonts/Verdana Bold.ttf
    Trebuchet MS: /Library/Fonts/Microsoft/Trebuchet MS
    Arial Rounded Bold: /Library/Fonts/Microsoft/Arial Rounded Bold
    Wingdings 2.ttf: /Library/Fonts/Wingdings 2.ttf
    Arial Bold Italic.ttf: /Library/Fonts/Arial Bold Italic.ttf
    Verdana.ttf: /Library/Fonts/Verdana.ttf
    Arial Black: /Library/Fonts/Microsoft/Arial Black
    Arial.ttf: /Library/Fonts/Arial.ttf
    Wingdings.ttf: /Library/Fonts/Wingdings.ttf
    Georgia: /Library/Fonts/Microsoft/Georgia
    Times New Roman Bold.ttf: /Library/Fonts/Times New Roman Bold.ttf
    Verdana Bold Italic.ttf: /Library/Fonts/Verdana Bold Italic.ttf
    Comic Sans MS: /Library/Fonts/Microsoft/Comic Sans MS
    Wingdings 3.ttf: /Library/Fonts/Wingdings 3.ttf
    Tahoma: /Library/Fonts/Microsoft/Tahoma
    Brush Script.ttf: /Library/Fonts/Microsoft/Brush Script.ttf
    Impact: /Library/Fonts/Microsoft/Impact
    Arial Italic.ttf: /Library/Fonts/Arial Italic.ttf
    Times New Roman Bold Italic.ttf: /Library/Fonts/Times New Roman Bold Italic.ttf
    Verdana Italic.ttf: /Library/Fonts/Verdana Italic.ttf
    Times New Roman.ttf: /Library/Fonts/Times New Roman.ttf
    Gill Sans Ultra Bold: /Library/Fonts/Microsoft/Gill Sans Ultra Bold
    Arial Narrow: /Library/Fonts/Microsoft/Arial Narrow
    Times New Roman Italic.ttf: /Library/Fonts/Times New Roman Italic.ttf
    Arial Bold.ttf: /Library/Fonts/Arial Bold.ttf
    Andale Mono: /Library/Fonts/Microsoft/Andale Mono
Time Machine: ℹ️
    Skip System Files: YES - System files not being backed up
    Mobile backups: OFF
    Auto backup: NO - Auto backup turned off
    Volumes being backed up:
        Macintosh HD: Disk size: 999.35 GB Disk used: 604.60 GB
    Destinations:
        TimeMachineBackup [Network]
        Total size: 1.92 TB
        Total number of backups: 8
        Oldest backup: 2015-03-02 04:09:44 +0000
        Last backup: 2015-05-01 01:31:36 +0000
        Size of backup disk: Adequate
            Backup size 1.92 TB > (Disk used 604.60 GB X 3)
Top Processes by CPU: ℹ️
         8%    WindowServer
         1%    fontd
         1%    Microsoft Excel
         0%    cloudpaird
Top Processes by Memory: ℹ️
    926 MB    com.apple.WebKit.WebContent(5)
    657 MB    kernel_task
    451 MB    softwareupdated
    221 MB    mdworker(8)
    221 MB    Finder
Virtual Memory Information: ℹ️
    67 MB    Free RAM
    7.93 GB    Used RAM
    0 B    Swap Used
Diagnostics Information: ℹ️
    Apr 30, 2015, 10:01:49 PM    /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/FindSystemFiles_2015-04-30-220149_[redacted].cr ash
    Apr 30, 2015, 07:40:38 PM    Self test - passed

Hi, actually it is mostly the Word and Excel for Mac that are slow to launch - but not always ! That's the frustrating thing: it can be quite fast sometimes; and sometimes exceedingly slow (up to 30 seconds). The kind of problem for which you turn in your PC to the store and they never see the issue; until you get back home with it. When it is slow; I try to observe with activity monitor what else is going on. But there is nothing really noteworthy to me.
I am pleasantly surprised that nobody -yet- has mentioned the super obvious fact that I bought a Mac and should not be using Microsoft products like Word and Excel. For me though, it is needed and in fact the availability of Office for mac was the very fact that made me go for Apple anyway and has taken away the last doubts to do so. Sadly the Office product does not really deliver: macro's are very slow to run (see plenty of other support posts and google results). This ticket though is specifically about the launch speed of the application.
About the fonts: the 100 euro Office software sadly did not mention in big black letters that it would create unhealthy fonts on my mac.
So for starting up in safe mode: I'd need to run my mac a very long time in safe mode before I could judge whether the launch speed is in that case ALWAYS fast, but thanks for the tip anyway. How does one delete Fonts ? According to the Font Book app everything was fine with my fonts.

RAM goes to swap often

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