Re: Entourage Is Running Very Slowly

"Rafael Montserrat" wrote:

> I don't know what "swapping out virtual memory" means.

Applications and processing on your Mac require physical RAM to work. When
you run out of RAM, virtual memory allows an operating system to escape
the
limitations of physical RAM by using hard disk storage to hold data not
currently in use. This hard disk storage is sometimes called the ³swap²
space because of its use as storage for data being swapping in and out of
memory. Using "swap" space can significantly slow down your Mac.

Pagins or pageouts are how many times a page of memory is swapped out from
disk to memory and vice versa. If the total pageouts is low compared to
the
number of pageins after having used your Mac for hours of work, you may
have
sufficient RAM. Otherwise, you should install more RAM.

You will see Pageins/outs in the Activity Monitor under System Memory. You
can also view this in the Terminal. Simply open the Terminal and type top.

See this page for more info how to monitor paging in the Terminal.

<http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/lackofram.html>

Simply restarting will often free up memory assigned to certain
applications.

> 3. ... overall percentages of memory in use

Looks like a lot of virtual memory being used.
> 
>  Perhaps you can tell something from there.
> 
>> In addition, the free space available on your HD could play a factor.
> 
> According to Disk utility HD info Available : 19.7 GB  out of 55.8 GB

This seems to be adequate.

BTW, have you added your Identities folder to Spotlight Exclude list?

> Does 'drive space' mean HD capacity?

Yes.

> overall percentages of memory in use or idle at the bottom of the
Activity
> Monitor window.
> 
> CPU
> % User          20.00  Green                 Threads     251
> % System       1.00     Red                Processes       69
> % Nice            0.00  Blue
> % Idle           79.00  Black

Click on the System Memory tab for better info on this.

-- 
Diane