2012 Mac Mini RAM upgrade

[weelzSA]

Does Memory Clean's stats correlate with the Activity Monitor? Using the latter, and sorting by memory use, quickly points out where a leak could be happening. Chrome is hungry - but not that hungry...

Thanks for the tip. Just looked at Activity Monitor, Google Chrome is using 177.7mb of real mem (thats with 13 tabs open). The thing using the most is kernel_task which is using 1.63GB which seems quite alot. From reading online this seems to be about 5X the average usage - unless I am mistaken?

 

[Cassady]

Thanks for the tip. Just looked at Activity Monitor, Google Chrome is using 177.7mb of real mem (thats with 13 tabs open). The thing using the most is kernel_task which is using 1.63GB which seems quite alot. From reading online this seems to be about 5X the average usage - unless I am mistaken?

Ah.. Kernel_task. Occasionally the precursor to kernel_panic, the Mac equivalent of the blue-screen-of-death...

I don't really know enough about the in's & outs of kernel tasks, since I haven't been a Mac user for long enough. Had my MBP for about 8 months, and in that period, there have been 2 occasions where the Kernel got active, so to speak... Fans fired up without warning, beachball appeared, and things slowed to a crawl... CPU usage went through the roof, and a few minutes later - all was back to normal. It happens so rarely, that I simply wait it out on my MBP. No such patience on my Windows desktop - but then that happens wayyyy more regularly!

Point is, it simply triggered, whilst I was doing some very low-key word processing. I think it was simply the system doing what it needed to do. 1,63GB was about where mine got up to those times it did happen, which really should be the exception, not the norm. So, whereas I might be wrong, I wouldn't stress too much unless it starts happening frequently, or remains orbiting at those levels. Again, I might be wrong, but it should'nt run at those levels constantly - most of the time (95%) on my system, at least (and I often check the Activity Monitor), any kernel_tasks are wayyyy down the memory use rankings, to the point where I would need to scroll down to find them...

My 2 cents!

 

[weelzSA]

Ah.. Kernel_task. Occasionally the precursor to kernel_panic, the Mac equivalent of the blue-screen-of-death...

I don't really know enough about the in's & outs of kernel tasks, since I haven't been a Mac user for long enough. Had my MBP for about 8 months, and in that period, there have been 2 occasions where the Kernel got active, so to speak... Fans fired up without warning, beachball appeared, and things slowed to a crawl... CPU usage went through the roof, and a few minutes later - all was back to normal. It happens so rarely, that I simply wait it out on my MBP. No such patience on my Windows desktop - but then that happens wayyyy more regularly!

Point is, it simply triggered, whilst I was doing some very low-key word processing. I think it was simply the system doing what it needed to do. 1,63GB was about where mine got up to those times it did happen, which really should be the exception, not the norm. So, whereas I might be wrong, I wouldn't stress too much unless it starts happening frequently, or remains orbiting at those levels. Again, I might be wrong, but it should'nt run at those levels constantly - most of the time (95%) on my system, at least (and I often check the Activity Monitor), any kernel_tasks are wayyyy down the memory use rankings, to the point where I would need to scroll down to find them...

My 2 cents!

Yeah that is very weird. my kernel_task stays at 1.63GB usage (the CPU usage is next to nothing). So not sure if it is something I should be concerned about or not. but seeing as I now have 16GB ram, don't think I will let it bother me too much - thats of course if it is more a major thing I should be concerned about...

 

[Cassady]

Yeah that is very weird. my kernel_task stays at 1.63GB usage (the CPU usage is next to nothing). So not sure if it is something I should be concerned about or not. but seeing as I now have 16GB ram, don't think I will let it bother me too much - thats of course if it is more a major thing I should be concerned about...

How long has it been running at that for?

 

[weelzSA]

How long has it been running at that for?

Since I turned on this morning it has stayed at 1.63GB. Was the same last night if I recall, but definitely been the same since boot up this morning (turned off completely last night so I could test to see what happens when it starts from cold in the morning).

 

[ponder]

Yeah that is very weird. my kernel_task stays at 1.63GB usage (the CPU usage is next to nothing). So not sure if it is something I should be concerned about or not. but seeing as I now have 16GB ram, don't think I will let it bother me too much - thats of course if it is more a major thing I should be concerned about...

It's a common problem and normal. The more ram you have the more will be used by kernel_task.

See http://www.rdoxenham.com/?p=259 for a 'fix'.

 

[weelzSA]

It's a common problem and normal. The more ram you have the more will be used by kernel_task.

See http://www.rdoxenham.com/?p=259 for a 'fix'.

Cool. Thanks for the link. I will just leave it for now and worry if it gets worse as time goes on.

 

[shadow_man]

I'm running these in our 2.5GHZ i5 Mac Mini (2012)

PSD38G16002S PATRIOT DDR3 1600 8GB SO DIMM
SDSSDP-128G-G25 SANDISK STANDARD SSD 128GB

No issues.
J

 

[Pegasus]

So quick update. Ended up ordering 16gig Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 ram (2 x 8GIG) and 3 seconds later was installed and working perfectly. So hopefully now will take alot more for my RAM to run out.

Am still a little concerend tho about the usage. When I boot up from cold and reach the desktop, Memory Clean tells me I only have 12.83GB free of 16GB - there is absolutely nothing else open, no applications, no browsers ect so not too sure what is using up all the memory. Even now after the machine being on for 30 minutes and 3 tabs open in my browser (chrome) it is still hovering just below 13GB free.

But atleast now can run some VM's without having 23MB Ram left :wtf:

Where did you get yours from?

I have the same mac mini, and the same memory issues...

 

[krycor]

How much does a quad core Mac mini cost? Thinking of getting one to run VMs on. Not too sure if running VMWare vsphere directly on it is better than running it virtual box or VMWare on Yosemite

 

[Cassady]

How much does a quad core Mac mini cost? Thinking of getting one to run VMs on. Not too sure if running VMWare vsphere directly on it is better than running it virtual box or VMWare on Yosemite

You'll have to look around - since the Quad-Cores are becoming increasingly rare to find - being discontinued by Apple. Considering that many were fetching up to $1000 on Ebay etc., before Apple started releasing Refurbished models, you might need to look at 2nd hand. I was lucky(?), and grabbed a new one off Incredible Connection Online for R8k.

 

[surfs-up]

How much does a quad core Mac mini cost? Thinking of getting one to run VMs on. Not too sure if running VMWare vsphere directly on it is better than running it virtual box or VMWare on Yosemite

I don't know what Apple were thinking when they went backwards and stopped producing their quad core i7 MacMini. From what I have seen on the web, users are furious at this backwards decision by Apple. Some say that Apple made the decision because the MacMini was stealing sales of it's iMac.

I luckily bought my i7 quad core MacMini from the Apple store in Orlando, Florida while on a trip to the USA in 2013. I also have a dual core MacMini of similar age, and the quad core smokes the dual core....no it obliterates it !!!! I bought it to run a CPU hungry SDR app. On my dual core this app runs with a CPU usage of around 80 - 90 %. With my quad core the same app has a CPU usage of 7 % !!!

I don't like the way Apple is going - using epoxy to seal in batteries in the MBA and MBP, and RAM that cannot be upgraded....I hear the current MacMini's don't have a cover to pop to upgrade the RAM memory WTF ?