Is this memory usage normal?

[sactjt]

Fans are constantly blowing. Sounds like the macbook wants to take off to space. This is while idle.
I have 6 desktop spaces (3 on main macbook display and 3 on external display). The 6 desktop spaces are: Finder, Itunes, Skype, Mail (standard built in mail), Safari and Microsoft remote desktop (connects to windows machine in different location). This is how I usually leave my spaces and then open up apps for work as I need them but close them afterwards.
Memory usage stays high (no extra apps open, only spaces). Cpu usage stays low.
After restart it's usually better but doesn't take long to get back to above mentioned.
I've done the opening up of the bottom plate and made sure there's no dust or debris stuck in the fans or air vents...

PS. This started with the Mavericks update.

Specs Overview screenshot:


Memory installed screenshot:


Memory usage screenshot:


Cpu usage screenshot:

 

[GoofySmurf]

Fans are constantly blowing. Sounds like the macbook wants to take off to space. This is while idle.
I have 6 desktop spaces (3 on main macbook display and 3 on external display). The 6 desktop spaces are: Finder, Itunes, Skype, Mail (standard built in mail), Safari and Microsoft remote desktop (connects to windows machine in different location). This is how I usually leave my spaces and then open up apps for work as I need them but close them afterwards.
Memory usage stays high (no extra apps open, only spaces). Cpu usage stays low.
After restart it's usually better but doesn't take long to get back to above mentioned.
I've done the opening up of the bottom plate and made sure there's no dust or debris stuck in the fans or air vents...

PS. This started with the Mavericks update.

Specs Overview screenshot:
View attachment 86031


Memory installed screenshot:
View attachment 86033

Memory usage screenshot:
View attachment 86035

Cpu usage screenshot:
View attachment 86037

Yes this is normal for Unix/Linux based operating systems, it caches allot of content in your ram so that if you access it again its fast. When you open a new program it will flush parts of the older cached files to make room for new files.

Mac OSX is based on Unix.

 

[Centronix]

That doesn't look normal dude. Can you check what's chowing your memory?

 

[JStrike]

Flash? The flash player plugin causes crazy memory consumption

 

[Cassady]

Sort that activity monitor page, to list the high memory usage applications? Should give you an idea? Not that I know much of anything - but that seems high to me - not as if you're running anything toooo intensive - barring (possibly) that Microsoft remote desktop... If you disable/close the latter, how's it go?

 

[sactjt]

Sort that activity monitor page, to list the high memory usage applications? Should give you an idea? Not that I know much of anything - but that seems high to me - not as if you're running anything toooo intensive - barring (possibly) that Microsoft remote desktop... If you disable/close the latter, how's it go?

Thanks.

Well, i closed Microsoft remote desktop and memory usage dropped a lot. I have it set so that it opens when osx starts up so never closed it before.
With remote desktop closed:


Strange thing... Although completely closed, iPhoto is hogging the memory and battery usage in activity monitor. I opened iPhoto and closed just to make sure. Still hogging?

 

[Cassady]

Thanks.

Well, i closed Microsoft remote desktop and memory usage dropped a lot. I have it set so that it opens when osx starts up so never closed it before.
With remote desktop closed:
View attachment 86101

Strange thing... Although completely closed, iPhoto is hogging the memory and battery usage in activity monitor. I opened iPhoto and closed just to make sure. Still hogging?

Apologies if this comes across as rude - since I have no way of knowing how familiar you are with OSX - but when you say "closed" iPhoto, do you mean "quit" - as in CMD+Q with iPhoto active? Or do you mean clicking on the red button?

 

[sactjt]

Apologies if this comes across as rude - since I have no way of knowing how familiar you are with OSX - but when you say "closed" iPhoto, do you mean "quit" - as in CMD+Q with iPhoto active? Or do you mean clicking on the red button?

Haha. No problem. I use the CMD+Q command. I also double checked under "force quit", just to make sure.

 

[Cassady]

Haha. No problem. I use the CMD+Q command. I also double checked under "force quit", just to make sure.

Ah... Cool beans!

I have come across several 'new' Mac users who closed apps by only clicking on red. But often (presumably), they would accidentally click on orange/minimise instead - which would see a myriad of open apps relegated to the dock - and 'out of sight / out of mind'...

Something must be going on with iPhoto then - possibly trying to reindex or something - others will no doubt know more... If you sort the memory tab under the Activity Momitor, which apps are the biggest users? Microsoft and iPhoto?

 

[[)roi(]]

Certainly not normal, biggest concern for me would be the fans audibly running at high revs; this indicates that something is being taxed (CPU, GPU, ...)

Couple of things:

1. Check your MBP temperatures (cpu, gpu, ...), the fans are spinning faster because something is getting too hot -- use something like Dashboard iStat Pro or Temperature Monitor app
2. System Preferences, Energy Saver, Automatic Graphics Switching (is this enabled); running your AMD GPU continuously can often cause over heating + your battery life is going to suck. I recommend keeping this enabled to let OSX decide when to turn on the AMD GPU or run off the Intel one.
3. Look at the Activity Monitor Energy tab; run it for a bit to try to single out which apps are using the most energy; generally these are the ones hitting the GPU / CPU the most.
4. Occasionally apps like iPhoto and many others crash and leave zombie processes still running; often the zombie process get out of hand because they've lost contact with parent processes (the one that crashed), for example: constantly polling for the parent (which of course no longer exists); this type of zombie activity can sometimes consume a significant amount of resources (CPU, GPU, RAM, ...). Restarting the app (like iPhoto) won't help because the zombie processes are linked to the PID of the previous iPhoto instance that crashed. To resolve this you either have to try manually identify these processes to terminate them (can be an impossible task), or restart your MAC, or try a reinitialise of launchd (the parent process for just about everything).

 

[sactjt]

Certainly not normal, biggest concern for me would be the fans audibly running at high revs; this indicates that something is being taxed (CPU, GPU, ...)

Couple of things:

1. Check your MBP temperatures (cpu, gpu, ...), the fans are spinning faster because something is getting too hot -- use something like Dashboard iStat Pro or Temperature Monitor app
2. System Preferences, Energy Saver, Automatic Graphics Switching (is this enabled); running your AMD GPU continuously can often cause over heating + your battery life is going to suck. I recommend keeping this enabled to let OSX decide when to turn on the AMD GPU or run off the Intel one.
3. Look at the Activity Monitor Energy tab; run it for a bit to try to single out which apps are using the most energy; generally these are the ones hitting the GPU / CPU the most.
4. Occasionally apps like iPhoto and many others crash and leave zombie processes still running; often the zombie process get out of hand because they've lost contact with parent processes (the one that crashed), for example: constantly polling for the parent (which of course no longer exists); this type of zombie activity can sometimes consume a significant amount of resources (CPU, GPU, RAM, ...). Restarting the app (like iPhoto) won't help because the zombie processes are linked to the PID of the previous iPhoto instance that crashed. To resolve this you either have to try manually identify these processes to terminate them (can be an impossible task), or restart your MAC, or try a reinitialise of launchd (the parent process for just about everything).

Thank you for your detailed help! Much appreciated.

Seems to me that iPhoto was indeed the culprit. I forgot that, a month or so ago, I added +- 60GB of photos to iPhoto library. iPhoto kept on crashing and it got to a point where some of the photos went missing. Because of this, I had to "rebuild the database". After rebuilding the database it kept on wanting to update the thumbnails. I recall being in a hurry and just clicked "finish later". I guess something went south there. I definitely closed iPhoto and double checked with "force close". I guess it was still trying to do something in the background and got messed up somehow.
When I opened iPhoto this morning it gave me the following message:
View attachment 86353

After I clicked "yes" it brought up the same message +- 7 more times. After this it started "updating thumbnails" View attachment 86355 again. This time around, I left the updating to finish. Whilst the updating took place, out of curiosity, I opened the temperature monitor app. this was the results: View attachment 86361. I also checked the memory usage which at this point jumped from +- 5GB to: View attachment 86363.

Anyway, long story short, all is back to normal after "updating thumbnails". Good to have the oomph again.

Temp results now:
View attachment 86369

Memory usage now:
View attachment 86371

Thank you for everyones help.