limited memory on macbook

[kiore]

i am currently folding on a g4 ppc and going strong after some initial issues and have started to 'convert' others to fah.
my neighbour has a macbook 10.4 intel running leopard and expresses an interest in folding too. problem is she says her machine is very slow, when i checked the activity monitor she had less than 80 mb available free (green) with the remainder of the 1gig memory was evenly split active and inactive.
i quit as many applications as possible and removed half of the 20 something items on her dock, but have only managed to lift it to 240mb without safari on.. she has dashboard generated widgets taking up over 100mb which i can't seem to quit, one an international clock is indicated at taking up 6% of her cpu.
any advice for removing these stubborn widgets or of where to look for the rest of what's using the memory, i can't seem to find what might be using all the other memory which should be available when inactive.
can't imagine she'll be able to fold well on this machine at present.
any other advice to give re folding on macbooks appreciated, as i am recruiting i don't want to cause any problems for the owner.
thanks.
kiore.

[susato]

To begin with, 1 Gb memory is very low whether running Tiger (10.4) or Leopard (10.5). You mentioned both OS's - which one is she running?

She should definitely upgrade her RAM whether or not she is Folding, especially if she likes to keep a lot of applications and widgets running. I checked over at www.crucial.com; a 1 Gb SODIMM of DDR2-PC-5300 is only $14.99 (this is for the MacBooks with DDR2 memory) and a 2 Gb SODIMM of DDR3-PC-8500 memory is only $35.99.

Inactive memory is occupied by applications which are holding on to it until they need it again. As far as I can tell the only way to free it up is to quit the application (or widget)

You are already using Activity Monitor to check for cpu usage - click the "Real Memory" column header to find out what is using memory. On my machine usually the browser is the chief RAM user.

I'm not sure what to advise you about widgets that won't delete or which reappear on restart. These pages at the apple discussion forum may be helpful.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jsp ... 3&#8579493
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jsp ... 4&#8888574

I always recommend smcfancontrol
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/31029
for folding on Mini's and Mac laptops. It raises the fan speed for better heat transfer, and will keep the machine cooler.

Finally, THANK YOU for recruiting - Of all the things an ordinary user can do for the project that is probably the MOST helpful!

[kiore]

thanks, she said it was 10.4, but using it it was not tiger (i use that) so must be 10.5 leopard.
i use 1gig in my ibook g4 ppc and have half my memory free, don't know whether i can upgrade my one, have both slots filled, can i put in more memory in mine?
have already suggested she up her macbook.

re recruitment, have 3 new prospects (2 mac 1 m$) she would have signed on today if i could have sorted it, didn't want to start running fah when she was already over committed and then drop out in short order.

thanks
kiore.

addit have looked at the site you suggested and it seems i can upgrade to 1.5 gig for $50us but she can get twinned to 2gig ram for only $29 .. looks fairly straight forward will do mine first..

kiore.

[jackrabbit]

The RAM requirements for the SMP client on that macbook are much higher than for the single-cpu client on your G4. I doubt there is much value for you to upgrade if you're not experiencing problems.

BTW, removing icons from the Dock does nothing for RAM usage (except if you're actually quitting apps). The dashboard widgets can be killed by restarting the Dock. I've never seen the standard clock widget take up that amount of CPU power. To be sure memory is actually the problem, look at the Page Out number in Activity Monitor. A high number is usually problematic.

[kiore]

thanks, yes quit the apps and removed from dock, yes page in/ out approaching equal so serious memory problems for her will talk to her today re adding another gig.
i was very surprised to see the widget even scoring on % cpu, maybe multiple copies?

re me upgrading have already 50% of memory clear when not using, thought another 500mb would help keep up rate when using but suppose still have cpu competition..

thanks for the help.

kiore.

[Foxbat]

If the MacBook is new enough (Core 2 Duo) it might be able to support two 2 GB SoDIMM modules. I did this on my Niece's MacBook before she left for school. It was under $75 at the time and now she has all the memory she could want or need. Older MacBooks will support only 2 GB total, so it's best to check with Crucial or Other World Computing before buying the wrong modules.

[kiore]

thanks foxbat, am heading round to check on exactly which model she has and whether both slots are taken, suspect only one slot with 1gig insitu so will add either 1 or 2 depending on system, think this may be an early model so maybe only 1 more.
crucial seems very helpful on defining what's the maximum and installation instructions are very clear, twin 2 gigs would be a fantastic up grade!
kiore.