memory - OSX Mavericks using way too much RAM

15
2013-12
  • Julien Clancy

    I recently upgraded my mid-2011 15" MacBook Pro to OSX 10.9 Mavericks. Since then, my computer's RAM usage spikes to the point of making my computer unusable. Specifically, anywhere between a minute and 2 hours after booting up, the process kernel_task will use between 4 and 5 GB of RAM (I have 8 GB installed) and mds and mds_store will use around 2 GB between them. At that point all of my apps become unresponsive.

    If I don't restart my computer within about five minutes of this happening, OSX will ask me to quit all of my apps. If I don't do that the computer becomes totally unresponsive (even to restart requests) and I have to perform a hard shutdown. If I do, the same thing happens but it takes a couple minutes longer. I talked to an Apple representative and he said to flash my PRAM and reset the SMC, which I did, but nothing happened.

    Aside from that he said to send my device in, which I can't do at the moment. Any idea what's going on?

    • Answers
  • David

    So I found the same thing with my iMac - Mavericks seemed to be chewing through a lot more RAM than Lion or Mountain Lion.

    I found a solution though that doesn't require a reboot: http://osxdaily.com/2013/11/14/use-purge-command-os-x-mavericks/

    simply run "sudo purge" (it'll ask you for your password) and it purges the unused memory the OS is hanging onto.

    I freed up over 5GB this way without any hitches - although the system appears to hang for a moment or two while it's doing this purge.

    I hope this helps!

    David

  • Julien Clancy

    I posted this question in the Apple support forums here and ran some diagnostics at their suggestion. Since running those, I've discovered a host of new problems with my system that were not present before installing Mavericks. Not the least among them, many of my Python packages no longer work (such as flask and pandas), and easy_install and pip are now broken. I was recommended to do a clean install (and consider downgrading in the process), which I will do as soon as is convenient.


    • Related Question

    memory - Windows 7x64 Using Too Much RAM and Slowing Down
  • Globmont

    I have been trying to figure out why this is happening to me. I have about 190+ processes running on my computer at any given point in time. Since I see a lot of people running like 20-30 at a given time, I would assume that the majority of these are unnecessary and can be removed. The only issue is that I am not too familiar with the different processes and am uncomfortable ending any of the ones that I cannot immediately identify like photoshop.exe. Google Chrome has about 31 processes at any given time even if I only have 3 tabs open and 1 window. Usually, I only have 1 Windows Explorer, 1 iTunes, and 1-2 Chrome windows open but my computer uses about 6/8 GB of my RAM. If anyone could help me figure out what to do with this, I would love it! I'll attach a screenshot of my performance section of Task Manager. If any of the other sections are necessary, just ask :) Picture of my Task Manager!enter image description here

    EDIT: Please ignore the photoshop.exe process. I used it to edit the username out of the photos.


    • Related Answers
  • Mixxiphoid

    If you ran a program which is now closed you can safely close all remaining processes with that name. For example. If you closed Google Chrome but there are still 30 instances running, you can close them via task manager.
    Most memory that is being used, is actually not used but reserved for running programs. Although in this case Chrome is using excessively memory for (probably) nothing.

    As mentioned in the comments; Windows is an Operating System which needs reboots to stay fast. You can have it running for half a year, but your performance will be very slow by then.

    If you want to avoid regular reboots, you need to check ghost processes once a day/week depending on the way you use your computer. In the case of Google Chrome (but actually all browsers) it can use up a lot of memory for tabs that aren't open anymore. If you use flash or other plug-ins while browsing, keep an eye on your memory usage, it can raise pretty quickly.

  • Lee Harrison

    Black Vipers Windows 7 SP 1 Guide: http://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-vipers-windows-7-service-pack-1-service-configurations/

    Microsoft AutoRuns: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

    This is a great guide that has been around awhile. Use the grid in the middle of the page to help you choose which services are completely unnecessary to you. If your still crawling, consider a program such as Microsoft's AutoRuns. It allows you to see which programs and processes are launching when you turn on your PC, and you can disable/remove them if you don't need them. Using both of these tools you should easily be able to cut your process list in half with no ill effects.