Is RAM the answer?

[Craig234]

I use a PC some years old, AMD 965, 4870 card, with 4GB and Win 7 ultimate.

After I reboot, it's pretty good, but I leave it running 1, 2, 3 days, before long it's gotten in a state of a ton of disk access.

Boot drive is an 80GB SSD, HD is a 1TB, both are pretty full but have several GB free so it should be a total thrashing there.

If I swap out, it's like 30 seconds or more in that state. Change browser tabs, 15 seconds or more. Load a simple web page, 15 seconds or more instead of a couple.

I'm thinking maybe adding 16GB of RAM will get rid of the problem. Agree or disagree?

I have lots of overdue upgrades.

 

[DSF]

First I would check task manager and see how much of the system memory is being eaten up. My guess is that's probably not the issue unless you open tons of tabs or leave a lot of stuff running in the background. 4GB is plenty for basic Windows 7 operation. 16GB is far and away overkill for a light duty machine. It's even more than you need for solid gaming.

Also, how many is "several" GB free? SSDs like to have roughly 25% of their capacity left unused. HDDs don't necessarily need that much space, but only having a few GB left out of 1000 is too full. At the very least leave enough room on the HDD that Windows can successfully run defrag.

 

[Ketchup]

Windows 7 will use just about all RAM, the question is if it is being used by what you need it to. I agree task manager is a great tool here.

It is also a good idea to run msconfig and see just how many apps are starting with the computer, and how many of those apps you actually need.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Sounds like a memory leak causing pagefile thrashing.

More RAM may help, by delaying the onset of the thrashing. The root cause is probably a memory leak somewhere.

Edit: Also, is your pagefile on the SSD? It should be.

4GB is barely enough these days. I much prefer 8GB.

 

[Berliner]

RAM is always the answer.

 

[denis280]

Also, is your pagefile on the SSD? It should be. 4GB is barely enough these days. I much prefer 8GB.

Agree with this.and AMD like more ram then intel.

 

[cubby1223]

Symptoms sound more like a software issue than a hardware issue. Before doing anything major, try these:

-run chkdsk against the drives
-go into Windows Update, into change settings, and turn off the option for microsoft software
-uninstall and reinstall the anti-virus software
-run a very thorough virus/malware scans with as many of the good tools, combofix, malwarebytes

 

[Craig234]

With not much running, cpu bounces between about 10% and 30%; memory used is about 45%.

When I run a game, that goes to over 90% memory used.

I just exited the game, and the disk was pegged about 2 minutes while memory showed about 45%. After that, it's taking about 6 to 8 second to switch browser tabs.

That's usually a lot faster soon after booting. I'm trying to check where pagefile is.

I don't remember but might have put it on the hard drive either because of reducing wear on the SSD or an idea that pagefile separate from OS might help performance.

 

[John Connor]

Run Autoruns and see what crap you have starting up.

 

[Craig234]

Run Autoruns and see what crap you have starting up.

Well, task manager shows not all that much is running. Usually the biggest outside of one thing I'll run is Internet Explorer. Currently tabs taking from 160MB down to little.

The next biggest are steam 43MB, Amazon cloud 38MB, another Amazon cloud 23MB, Windows Desktop Manager 20MB, then things under 10MB each.

 

[Ketchup]

Well, task manager shows not all that much is running. Usually the biggest outside of one thing I'll run is Internet Explorer. Currently tabs taking from 160MB down to little.

The next biggest are steam 43MB, Amazon cloud 38MB, another Amazon cloud 23MB, Windows Desktop Manager 20MB, then things under 10MB each.

Is that with 'Show processes for all users' enabled?

What about antivirus? Microsoft Security Essentials runs ~40, and it is one of the lightest ones out there.

 

[Craig234]

Is that with 'Show processes for all users' enabled?

What about antivirus? Microsoft Security Essentials runs ~40, and it is one of the lightest ones out there.

It wasn't but showing all users didn't change the info much.

Teatimer 48mb, svchost.exe 26mb, avg 22mb, 14mb, 12mb, 8mb... svchost.exe(?) for 10mb...

 

[Sattern]

I've had 4 gigs of ram for about 8 years and it never gave me any problems.

Ram isn't the answer unless you are actively using more than you have now.

I never do anything which requires more than 4 gigs and I am doing just fine, even if I do things that require high performance.

 

[Ketchup]

It wasn't but showing all users didn't change the info much.

Teatimer 48mb, svchost.exe 26mb, avg 22mb, 14mb, 12mb, 8mb... svchost.exe(?) for 10mb...

OK, I am not discounting what you are seeing, but it still seems like we are missing something. I remember a few years ago I installed AVG after being away from it for a while, and the process was unbelievably small. Then I found that AVG hides it's running apps under svchost. I reinstalled a few minutes ago for kicks, and when I did nothing but open a couple tabs in my browser AVG processes are running 135 MB of RAM. I know that isn't a lot, but I opened Solitaire (the one that comes with Windows) and 9 more svchost apps popped up with it!

I would try replacing AVG with MSE (at least in the short term) as a test to see if your problems go away.

 

[Matt1970]

Sounds like a memory leak causing pagefile thrashing.

More RAM may help, by delaying the onset of the thrashing. The root cause is probably a memory leak somewhere.

Edit: Also, is your pagefile on the SSD? It should be.

4GB is barely enough these days. I much prefer 8GB.

The average user is just fine with 4GB of ram.

 

[John Connor]

I have just 3 GB of RAM in the laptop and just 6 GB in the desktop and I'm fine.

 

[Craig234]

I can try disabling avg, but shouldn't the task manager info indicate if that was an issue?

Hopefully there's an easy disable command, I'm not sure how I'd reinstall it.

Think I got it as a digital purchase a long time ago where I don't know a code to redownload it.

 

[John Connor]

Autoruns will show things that task manager doesn't. I would go to bleepingcomputer and download ADwcleaner and scan with malwarebytes.

 

[Ketchup]

I can try disabling avg, but shouldn't the task manager info indicate if that was an issue?

Hopefully there's an easy disable command, I'm not sure how I'd reinstall it.

Think I got it as a digital purchase a long time ago where I don't know a code to redownload it.

And it is possible the paid version handles itself better. You will not regret going to 8 GB of RAM. Beyond that is a waste for most.

 

[Craig234]

And it is possible the paid version handles itself better. You will not regret going to 8 GB of RAM. Beyond that is a waste for most.

I'm not even sure what's running now. I bought a couple years but it might have reverted to the 'free' version by now.

I already bought 16GB to upgrade (actually think I got a couple sets) years ago and never installed it. I tried once, and then couldn't boot even after taking it out, scared me off.

Don't laugh.

That's why I'll go to 16GB. I'm also wondering if part of the HDD could have gone 'slow'.