How much improvement would upgrading RAM give me?

tbh · 23-08-2011 11:46AM #1

hey guys -

I have a fairly old MBP 15" with a 2.33 Ghz core 2 duo processor and 2 GB of RAM. It's fairly sluggish, and work have offered to upgrade the RAM. I *think* I can only upgrade to a maximum of 3 GB of RAM, would that make much of a difference?

I have to make the call between upgrading the RAM or moving to a windows laptop with a fairly beefy spec. If I can, I want to hang on to the MAC, but to be honest the performance is starting to irritate me.

thanks for any help or advice.

uncle_sam_ie · 23-08-2011 11:59AM

Go to crucial.com and type in your model info. That should tell how much RAM it will take. I say upgrade the RAM seeing that it's free and then doing a clean re-install of OS X.

Greentree_uk · 23-08-2011 12:08PM

I'd say the reason your mac is now feeling sluggish is more likely caused by the Hard drive. Go for a Hard drive replacement instead. the newer drives are twice the speed, if you could stretch to an SSD all the better. you'll see little in terms of performance gain by going to 3Gb but you may aswell considering it costs so little.

tbh · 23-08-2011 12:09PM

uncle_sam_ie wrote: »

Go to crucial.com and type in your model info. That should tell how much RAM it will take. I say upgrade the RAM seeing that it's free and then doing a clean re-install of OS X.

thanks - handy site. Max RAM is indeed 3GB. Think it's back to windows for me

sarkozy · 23-08-2011 02:42PM

tbh wrote: »

thanks - handy site. Max RAM is indeed 3GB. Think it's back to windows for me

I don't get this. After using my MBP for so long, I couldn't go back to Windows. It's so bloated. As for speed problems, I don't fully by the 'old HD' reason, but it may be partly both. If you don't want to shell out for a new computer or HD (it's unlikely an SSD will work with yours), then the solution may be more RAM because it'll spend less time using the HD as a back-up. I have a 5 year-old MBP, it's getting sluggish, but I'm not upgrading because the video card (ATi) is slowly dying.

Sad Professor · 23-08-2011 02:48PM

What are you using it for? 3GB should be plenty for 10.6. The sluggishness may be due to other factors. I'm typing this on a 2.26GHz C2D with 4GB of RAM running Lion and I have no performance problems at all.

tbh · 23-08-2011 03:00PM

I use it to produce slideshows and videos mostly - I use office 2008 a lot

when it's fine, it's great, but I just notice the beachball a lot lately, and it's getting frustrating.

Sad Professor · 23-08-2011 03:11PM

Check your hard drive in Disk Utility and make sure it's not failing. Also consider doing a clean install, or check Activity Monitor and make sure you don't have any rogue processes and clean out any login items and kernel extensions that you don't need.

I'd recommend upgrading to 3GB anyway, but lack of RAM is unlikely to be the cause of the spinning beachball.

whiterebel · 23-08-2011 04:03PM

Sad Professor wrote: »

Check your hard drive in Disk Utility and make sure it's not failing. Also consider doing a clean install, or check Activity Monitor and make sure you don't have any rogue processes and clean out any login items and kernel extensions that you don't need.

I'd recommend upgrading to 3GB anyway, but lack of RAM is unlikely to be the cause of the spinning beachball.

I second that clean install. Should be like a new machine after.

conor.hogan.2 · 23-08-2011 04:07PM

Check activity monitor when it feels sluggish and see how much ram is being used and whats free.

Also check and post up page ins/page outs.

I have 4gb and there is times I could do with more ram, mostly because I never quitted safari and chrome and they eat up memory the longer they are open.

Type 17 · 26-08-2011 10:58AM

Max out the RAM with Crucial.com/eu/ and do a clean install of the OS. You only need a new HD if it's sick (failing), or is too small for your needs (has less than 10-15% free, which is required for virtual memory).

It'll feel like a new machine afterwards...

Liameter · 27-08-2011 08:01PM

Sad Professor wrote: »

I'd recommend upgrading to 3GB anyway, but lack of RAM is unlikely to be the cause of the spinning beachball.

It could be. I doubled the RAM in an iMac and totally eliminated the spinning beachball without doing anything else.

Of course, good housekeeping is to be recommended. Leave plenty of HDD space free and don't put a lot of files on the "desktop".

SouperComputer · 28-08-2011 06:46AM

Pretty unlikely an extra GB of RAM will benefit you, peek in activity monitor for confirmation. A good house cleaning should be your first step. If its not up to snuff after that, a slean install of OS or, even better a more modern HD will make a huge, noticeable difference in performance.

Liameter · 28-08-2011 07:06AM

Just a word of warning: DON'T use any "clean up your Mac" software. It will invariably lead to tears. The only software I'd trust is "Applejack" but it's unlikely to do anything that will affect speed. Unlike Windows, OSX does not slow down unless there's something wrong.

BTW I'm not clear on whether you feel your Mac has got slower or whether it has always been "sluggish. If the answer is "always" then adding RAM and making sure the CPU is running at full speed (not power saving mode) are the only two things likely to help, in my opinion.

Darksaga87 · 29-08-2011 09:18PM

Anyone know how much it would be to have someone put more RAM in your MBP?

I can out another 4gb in mine, but the thoughts of opening it myself is pretty terrifying!

Sad Professor · 29-08-2011 10:11PM

Do it yourself. It's easy. Getting someone else to do it would probably cost twice to three times as much.

What Macbook do you have?

Darksaga87 · 30-08-2011 12:19AM

13 inch, 2.3 ghz.

2011 model.

Sad Professor · 30-08-2011 12:26AM

Here's Apple's own guide for installing RAM on your machine. It's very straightforward and won't affect your warranty.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1270#link1

adox · 07-09-2011 08:18PM

I've just very recently added an extra 2gb of ram to my old White Intel iMac and it's made a huge difference. Granted I was running on only 1gb for a long time due to a faulty stick but I had huge spinning beach ball issues etc which have more or less vanished with the extra ram.

air · 08-09-2011 12:48PM

Gotta say guys RAM is so cheap nowadays it's nearly always worth upgrading if you have slots. I just upgraded my 27in iMac from 4GB to 16GB and it cost me $94.
I run virtual machines etc and have found it great.

mikemac · 09-09-2011 06:50AM

air wrote: »

Gotta say guys RAM is so cheap nowadays it's nearly always worth upgrading if you have slots. I just upgraded my 27in iMac from 4GB to 16GB and it cost me $94.

I ran the scanner on crucial website for my imac

States I only have two slots and manufacturer recommends you cannot go about four GB which I already have, two by two GB, disappointed

In fact crucial don't sell anything above this

Where did you buy yours?

air · 09-09-2011 07:31AM

I bought from an ebay US seller called ram-upgrades.
If you give them details of your machine they will check compatibility and they also do a 30 day money back guarantee.
If you are already maxed out then you are out of luck though unfortunately.

ayjayirl · 10-09-2011 01:17PM

Hi guys,

I found this place good for price range and they are Irish

http://www.memoryc.com/

I consitently buy RAM, HDD's, and other components from them. As for RAM upgrade, it is fairly easy. A good way is to search in youtube for a video of someone doing it. once you see it, it will not seem so terrifying

note: Do a back of data before you open it - just in case

How much improvement would upgrading RAM give me?

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