FCP RAM problem

I run FCP 5 on a 1.5ghz G4 Powerbook, with 1.25gb RAM. Until recently it has run fine - I use FIREWIRE drives for the media. A few months ago I upgraded the RAM - it only had the basic 512mb and it was having some problems on a large project I was doing. I put in the extra RAM and it worked great. Now suddenly FCP is using almost 1gb of the RAM when I look on ACTIVITY monitor - it had been using around 600 - 700 mb. Everything slows to a crawl, goes to the spinning beach ball indefinately and my system is unusable - does anyone know how I can fix this?????? The system worked fine, I didn't change anything, I am working on a project that worked fine last week.....I do not know what to do!!!!

Adrian

Further to this.....the original project file I was working with was about 70mb in size. Then I made a copy of this project file, and added a few things to it from another project - which itself totals only about 40mb in size. Now the total size of the new project I have been working with is 343 mb in size - clearly this is probably the problem....but why the hell has my project grown so massively in size all of a sudden? Any fixes?

Adrian

Is your project FILE 343mgbs or your PROJECT 343mgbs? Have you tried a restart?

I believe my project file is 343mb - when I get info on the FCP project file that I double click to open the project, it says it's 343mb.

In terms of the actual size of the project, I'm not sure what you are referring to.....is it all of the media??? If so it is several hundred GB - probably about 700gb.

Adrian

>If so it is several hundred GB - probably about 700gb.

That's a lot of media. How many drives do you have that across? What capacity is each drive and how full are they. Are they all running off the firewire ports (daisy chained) on the laptop along with a DV deck or camera by any chance?