Software :: PowerMac Dual 2.0 G5 Running Out Of RAM / Not Enough Memory
Jul 19, 2009
I am running a PowerMac Dual 2.0 G5 with the latest updated version of Tiger. I have maxed out the RAM to 8GB and upgraded the original video card to support my 30" display. I use a helper applications called "Free RAM". This program basically calculates what RAM you have available.
I am a graphic designer and need to run Quark Xpress 7, InDesign, Photoshop & Illustrator (CS4 with latest updates) simultaneously. On top of these 4 I also run Mail, Safari, Acrobat Professional, Extensis Suitcase X and iBiz (time management). These programs are all running all the time.
After launch and all apps running, everything is great. I have 2.95 GB of RAM still free (Free RAM). As the day goes by, and I have opened and closed numerous files this amount of free RAM dwindles and eventually I am left with 96 mb of RAM just before the CPU says "Enough is enough!" and everything grinds to a halt. Now previously I was running CS2 and I never ran into this issue. The problem started when I upgraded to CS3. Now with CS4 I am seeing the issue almost daily.
Now comes the question... Is the issue simply outdated hardware? Or, do I have a software issue.I am afraid to purchase a new CPU in the attempts to remedy this problem. If, in fact it is only a software issue. I find it strange that after a restart I have almost 3GB of RAM available. And yet as the day goes by I run out of RAM. I understand that as I open files more RAM will be used to support the open file.However, after the file is closed the RAM should free-up and be available again.
Hey all, so Im pretty knowledgable when it comes to my mac but I just cant figure out why its running so slow. For example It takes about 10-12 seconds to open up firefox, thats just crazy.
I have repaired permissions, verified my disk, and even ran a techtools fullscan. Nothing seems to be working. Ive got 6.5 gigs off ram in this thing (doubt it reads it all), 150gig sys HD plus many externals for file dumping, and an ati radeon 256mb vid card plus the newest OSX.
I've got a PowerMac G5 dual-core 2GHz box. Can I add another dual core CPU to get a quad-CPU system?
Forgive me for not wanting to open the case and look for myself, but it lives in a little hole that is hard to get out of b/c of all the cables and stuff... just wondering if anyone knows off the top of their head if the motherboard has another slot...
I'm kicking around the idea of switching my Rev. A PowerMac G5 Dual 2.0 for a Mac Mini Core 2 Duo 2 Ghz with 2 Gigs of RAM. I'm wondering if I would take a big performance hit with the switch to this machine when compared to my current workstation (most likely not, but hey I ask anyways). I am looking for something with a small footprint that's quite and basically is not a furnace with computing features inside that sucks power like a maniac. It's worth mention that I am on a budget as well(Macs here in Argentina are expensive as hell). As it is right now, if I do a feature to feature comparison, I would be getting DL DVD burning, Airport, and Bluetooth, something that my PowerMac G5 is lacking.
Its worth noting that the PowerMac has 1 Gig of RAM, the stock Radeon 9600 with 64 MB of RAM, but does have a 250 Gig HD. I regurlarly use Photoshop CS3 (working mostly with A3 sized files @ 300/600 DPI), Illustrator, in Design, Dreamweaver, some Flash. Of course the run of the mill, Web browsing/email checking along with IMing and iTunes activities. So what you guys think? You think a trade of my ol' faithful PowerMac from 2003/2004 to a top of the line mac mini would be a good idea?
Its old but its a workhorse. I need a DVD burner for this machine. I am so outdated on the new burners I am not sure what will work. Last I knew the Pioneers A06 work but having trouble finding them. Not sure if the new stuff in stores is compatible or not. Anyone have any suggestions on a cheap one? Need one kind of quick.
I don't want to spend much on a replacement for it. I am looking at the entry level Mac Mini. According to the Mactracker app, the entry-level Mac Mini has a benchmark score of 2782, while my 4-year old G5 powerhouse sits at a 2245 benchmark. Is it really possible that the little Mac Mini is actually faster than my Power Mac G5? This may be a silly question to even ask, but I just thought that there would be SOME advantages that my machine would have over the little guy. Can anyone think of any drops in speed that I might encounter if I went with the Mac Mini? My main purpose for using my Mac is for pro audio; Logic Pro and such. Would I be taking any kind of speed hits, I don't know, with bus speed or cache or some other little thing that I am not taking into consideration?
Here are a few things that I have considered or pondered: I know that the new Mac Mini can support dual monitors, so I can use my existing Samsung monitors, which is great (what kind of connectors does that Mac Mini have, I wonder?). One thing I noticed is that the SuperDrive on the Mac Mini is 8X, instead of the 16X speed of my G5's. I don't really care about that though, how often does one really burn discs? I know I don't do it frequently..................
Im looking into buying a second hand G5 Powermac Tower for Audio & Video Editing can someone give me a little insider because I beleive they don't all run latest OSX Snow or behond......
i have just bought a PowerMac g5 1.8 Dual core its the model with 8 ram slots, and i want to upgrade the graphics card to the best one possable that the mac can take but i dont know which ones are compatible i know its AGP but other than that i have no idea what im looking for!!!
i'm sure someone has experience here, but how does powermac G5 dual core 2.3 compare to MBP CD 2.16... and how does Mac Pro 2.66 compare to them?
i'm especially interested in processing photographs... not necessarily in photoshop as the CS2 comparison is kinda biased, and CS3, well, if you have those data, it's very welcomed.
i'm sure MacPro 2.66 will out perform the former two by far, but by how far? and will PMG5DC out perform MBP CD 2.16 or the other way?
I have a Dual 2.0 Powermac G5 that has been shutting down without notice. It first started doing this every couple of days. I'd have to let the computer sit for a few hours before it would run again. Now it does it more and more frequently and stays running ofr less and less time. As of now, it will only stay on for 15 minutes before suddenly shutting down.
how do i add an additional hard drives to my G5 tower, what type of drive is needed? Is there a max limit to the the drive i can use like the G4's? What type of memory do I need to buy, and lastly, how do i determine what series fo Dual G5 do I have? It seems as if there was a 2003 and a 2005 produced G5 dual 2.0 GHZ model.
I'm new to this forum, just registered and you've helped me before with some of my mac issues.. Recently, I was offered a Powermac G5 2.3 Ghz dual core. I'm interested but I want to know if the machine is worth paying for, he was asking $1700.00 AUD.
Here are the specs. POWERMAC CPU * 2.3GHz Dual PowerPC G5 processor * 1.15GHz frontside bus * 512k L2 cache * 2.5 Ghz RAM (400MHz DDR2 PC3200U DDR SDRAM Memory) * 300GB Serial ATA hard drive * 16x SuperDrive (double-layer) DVD Burner * 4 Firewire port PCI-X Expansion card * Two open PCI-X expansion slots * ATI RADEON 9650 Video Card with 256MB of GDDR SDRAM
PORTS & BAYS * 1x FireWire 800 port * 2x FireWire 400 ports (one on front) * 4x USB 2.0 ports (one on front) * 2x internal SATA hard drive bays
BUILT IN AUDIO * Optical digital audio input/output * Analog line-level input/output * Front headphone minijack and speaker Upgradable to 8Gb RAM and 2-3 Terabyte of Hard Drive
I was told its a good, non-problematic machine. Are they telling the truth. I am also planning to check it out, what should I check or watch out for.
I've bought a dual 2Ghz powermac G5 secondhand, and bought a new drive and installed 10.4.3 and updated to 10.4.11, the fans where always on full blast so i searched the forums and ran the Thermal Calibration utility, everything seemed fine for a week. Then it started turning itself off with a click from the power supply after i left it on all night while downloading.
Wondering if it makes sense to sell my QS dual 1ghz and get a Mac Mini C2D or upgrade the QS with a faster video card (Ati 9800 pro, about $120 on ebay). The QS already has a fast HD and 1.5gb ram. Looks like either option would be about the same price. I won't need to upgrade either Mac in the future, it will be the home Mac (A new Mac Pro after 1/15 will be my main Mac at work).
I have a powermac G5, dual 2.5 ghz from 2004. I was wondering what the best graphics card upgrades are. I currently have an nvidia Geforce 6800 ultra, but I really want something with more vram
does anyone know what the largest gfx card i can put in this machine? (agp)
radeon 9600 256mb is the largest one ive found that i compatible :S
i just bought the powermac from a work colleague for �120 with a 19" apple lcd (not a bad price) 2gb ram, 1.42 x2 PPC and im going to put 2x WD Caviar Blue 500gb HDD's in (using it as a home media center and torrent box)can anyone help me with regards to the gfx situation?
I am a Graphic/Web Designer. Currently I have a dual 867mhz G4 that doesn't cut it. I can go all out and bring the machine up to dual 1.42 G4, 2gb ram, Radeon 3850, etc etc... BUT Before I lay out the money for it, would it be worth going for a second hand intel mini? The gpu in them I know is terrible but that aside does anyone have experience of the performance between the two when running; Adobe Photoshop, In-Design, Illustrator and Dreamweaver CS3 as well as Inkscape and GIMP and occasionally Google Sketchup. I'm not bothered about noise etc, only the performance difference.
I just bought a early 2009 MAC Pro and it came with 3GB of RAM, I ordered 3 2GB sticks of memory to replace the 3 1GB sticks that I had in there from Kingston. I turned off the unit, I popped the little levers and pulled the memory out of slot 1, 2, 3 and then replaced the memory with the new Kingston in slot 1, 2, 3
One of the sticks in is not working at all and I get the RED LED light no matter what slot I move that chip to. So I am running on 2 of the new Kingston memory chips.
Can I mix the memory and add the 1GB into slot 3 and 4 with slot 1 and 2 full of 2GB chips?
Also how to I run the memory utility again? I went to /system/Library/CoreServices/ and then I see the program Memory Slot Utility.app
How do I run this? I'm used to no spaces and I type ./then program name
do any of you have CS4 running on a G4 Powermac? I want to buy CS4 but I have no intentions of buying a G5. Someone told me that he use Photoshop CS4 on his G4 with no problem. I do not want to buy the entire Suite and then end up getting stuck being unable to use it. On the box says G5 Intel is recommende
CPU cooling fans are running at strange different speeds. Powermac G5 early 2005, dual G5 (not dual core).This is at idle:CPU A 60 degree Intake 300rpm Exhaust 300rpmCPU B 63 degrees Intake 1125rpm Exhaust 1100rpm! I have not noticed this before. They usually remain identical.
Anyone try to put more than 4gb of memory on a dual core MacBook? Do you have to have the same amount of memory in each slot? I've only got 2gb and am running Lion, which slows everything down.I got a 2gb and 4 gb from OWC but the folks at the Genius Bar tell me that the MacBook ishould have no more than 4gb and that the memory slots need to be equal.
I upgraded my late '09 13" MBP to 4gb, but one of the sticks apparently died. I'm about to replace it with my old 1gb stick so then I'll have 3gb total ram.
I have a MSI wind u120. I was running windows XP and now have dual booted so I am also running OS X. I'm trying to figure out how to uninstall OS X. I'd like the HD space back.
I have two machines. A dual 1.8ghz G5 with 5gb ram. And a new 2.66ghz macbook pro with 4gb ram and 7200rpm drive. For everyday use, the Macbook is faster, but not by much and I prefer to just use the G5 because of the bigger screen. However, the G5 is mainly my media center (store all of my movies and TV shows on it). I really like HD and the Macbook will run 1080P without a problem, but the G5 will only run 720P, and only some at that. Some 720P videos it will skip with. It is a solid machine, (I know they are older, but it really is not bad, and is there anyway I can make it handle all 720P smoothly?
For storage, searching the web, and watching movies, this computer is still great. But more and more things are in HD now and it is a bummer having some of them skip a few times when watching.
I have an old iMac G3 in my room running Mac OS 10.3 Panther. Just recently, I hooked up a VGA CRT monitor in an attempt to run dual displays. However, it seems that all the machine or OS is capable of is running in mirrored mode.
I am new here, and have searched, but just needed to get some input. I currently have a Macbook, but want to get a Mac mini for the desk. I would like to run 2 of the inexpensive 24" monitors independently. All I use is iWork, heavy Internet, light movies, and rarely games (would like to try Starcraft 2), but mostly work stuff. Nothing intense.
What would be the earliest Mac mini that could handle this?