vista memory problem

[Dutchmaster420]

I have vista ultimate 64bit and on the meter gaget that shows the dual core usage and memory usage...the memory is always at about 20% when im not doing anything


I just did a fresh install and it was not doing this on my previous install


any ideas>

 

[Smilin]

Yeah, it should be a much higher I think. Use Resource Monitor / Perfmon to be sure the system cache is being used.

 

[Dutchmaster420]

it should be higher?

it saying that 20% is being used when im doing nothing

both cores fluctuate from 0-2% shoulnt the memory usage be down there also or is this normal

im guessing its normal b/c the background services but just making sure...i have 4gb of mem

 

[Matthias99]

Vista does very aggressive precaching and indexing. You should have very little truly "free" RAM at any time.

If it's showing 20% being used by applications or services even while you're doing nothing, that may be an issue. But lots of RAM being used for SuperFetch or other caching is not a problem.

 

[StopSign]

I swear, the questions regarding Superfetch just never end...

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Dutchmaster420
it should be higher?

it saying that 20% is being used when im doing nothing

both cores fluctuate from 0-2% shoulnt the memory usage be down there also or is this normal

im guessing its normal b/c the background services but just making sure...i have 4gb of mem

What would worry me is 80% of your memory being completely unused. That means the next app you load is almost certainly going to have to be completely read from disk. Yuck!

It's going to take some getting used to not being on XP anymore.

 

[piasabird]

I never understood all the questions about memory usage and performance monitoring. How does it run?

 

[Dutchmaster420]

but the thing is, Ive been running vista for a while now but recently reinstalled..I'm pretty sure before I reinstalled it wasn't around 20% when absolutly nothing was running

Im almost postive it was only around 2-3%

Should I reinstall again?


can anybody else with vita 64bit ultimate chime in on what their ram usage is showing on the sidebar gadget when doing nothing

 

[Jeff7181]

Sounds perfectly normal to me. I have 2 GB of RAM and I'm using Vista Business (32-bit) and with IE and Trillian running I'm using 42% of my RAM.

If you open the task manager and look at "Free" in the "Physical Memory" section you'll see how much of your RAM isn't be used for anything, including Superfetch.

 

[InlineFive]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
Sounds perfectly normal to me. I have 2 GB of RAM and I'm using Vista Business (32-bit) and with IE and Trillian running I'm using 42% of my RAM.

If you open the task manager and look at "Free" in the "Physical Memory" section you'll see how much of your RAM isn't be used for anything, including Superfetch.

Interesting. My running applications use 884MB while SuperFetch uses up 1359MB for caching and leaves 68MB free.

Are you looking at the performance tab in the Windows Task Manager?

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: InlineFive

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
Sounds perfectly normal to me. I have 2 GB of RAM and I'm using Vista Business (32-bit) and with IE and Trillian running I'm using 42% of my RAM.

If you open the task manager and look at "Free" in the "Physical Memory" section you'll see how much of your RAM isn't be used for anything, including Superfetch.

Interesting. My running applications use 884MB while SuperFetch uses up 1359MB for caching and leaves 68MB free.

Are you looking at the performance tab in the Windows Task Manager?

Yes, that's what I'm talking about. I'm using 42%... meaning, applications that are currently running are using the RAM. Superfetch has claimed about 1300 MB, and I have 5 MB not in use at all.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: InlineFive

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
Sounds perfectly normal to me. I have 2 GB of RAM and I'm using Vista Business (32-bit) and with IE and Trillian running I'm using 42% of my RAM.

If you open the task manager and look at "Free" in the "Physical Memory" section you'll see how much of your RAM isn't be used for anything, including Superfetch.

Interesting. My running applications use 884MB while SuperFetch uses up 1359MB for caching and leaves 68MB free.

Are you looking at the performance tab in the Windows Task Manager?

Yes, that's what I'm talking about. I'm using 42%... meaning, applications that are currently running are using the RAM. Superfetch has claimed about 1300 MB, and I have 5 MB not in use at all.

Are you basing the app usage off of the physical memory block on the performance tab or based on a total of the memory column in the processes tab?

I would suggest adding the "memory - commit size" column to the performance tab. If you then scan down the list comparing private working set and commit you should see a big difference.

Apps will ask for far more memory than they actually end up using. The OS will allocate pages to them but not truly burn up physical memory until the app actually writes something to the page.

 

[Shawn]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: InlineFive

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
Sounds perfectly normal to me. I have 2 GB of RAM and I'm using Vista Business (32-bit) and with IE and Trillian running I'm using 42% of my RAM.

If you open the task manager and look at "Free" in the "Physical Memory" section you'll see how much of your RAM isn't be used for anything, including Superfetch.

Interesting. My running applications use 884MB while SuperFetch uses up 1359MB for caching and leaves 68MB free.

Are you looking at the performance tab in the Windows Task Manager?

Yes, that's what I'm talking about. I'm using 42%... meaning, applications that are currently running are using the RAM. Superfetch has claimed about 1300 MB, and I have 5 MB not in use at all.

Yeah. That's how it's supposed to work. I'm currently using about 1GB out of 2GB and I have 12MB free. The other gig is cached.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Smilin

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: InlineFive

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
Sounds perfectly normal to me. I have 2 GB of RAM and I'm using Vista Business (32-bit) and with IE and Trillian running I'm using 42% of my RAM.

If you open the task manager and look at "Free" in the "Physical Memory" section you'll see how much of your RAM isn't be used for anything, including Superfetch.

Interesting. My running applications use 884MB while SuperFetch uses up 1359MB for caching and leaves 68MB free.

Are you looking at the performance tab in the Windows Task Manager?

Yes, that's what I'm talking about. I'm using 42%... meaning, applications that are currently running are using the RAM. Superfetch has claimed about 1300 MB, and I have 5 MB not in use at all.

Are you basing the app usage off of the physical memory block on the performance tab or based on a total of the memory column in the processes tab?

I would suggest adding the "memory - commit size" column to the performance tab. If you then scan down the list comparing private working set and commit you should see a big difference.

Apps will ask for far more memory than they actually end up using. The OS will allocate pages to them but not truly burn up physical memory until the app actually writes something to the page.

This is what I'm going by. The numbers are slightly different now, but you see what I mean.

 

[Smilin]

Yeah there's just not enough information on that page for concern.

You need to drill into the processes tab, resource monitor, or use perfmon to get a picture of what's happening. That shot just shows a lot of memory being used but doesn't indicate what it's being used for.

If your machine only had 52meg free and everything else was in use and could not be reallocated you would *know* it. Your hard drive would be lit up and your computer grinding near a halt.

 

[Smilin]

Heh, I just now noticed that 47% down in the status bar. I don't think I've ever in 12 years noticed that! It appears to line up with the little memory histogram on the left. That's really not a useful number for measuring the "health" of your OS.

 

[Jeff7181]

I didn't say I was concerned. I was telling the OP that it was normal. Unlike Windows XP, Vista makes every effort to use your RAM. It also seems to give it up freely as I've seen memory usage down to 15% after closing an application like WoW.

The "free" memory needs to be added to the "cached" memory number to see how much is actually available for use. Add those together and subtract it from the total and that's how much RAM is claimed by all the programs that are running.

 

[Smilin]

ah, ok. I thought that, like the op, you were concerned about the usage.

Personally I don't even bust out perfmon/resource mon/taskmgr unless I "feel" something. You'll drive yourself nuts fussing over what the OS handles during normal operation.

 

[Jeff7181]

Neither do I. If I wanted to manage my own memory I wouldn't be running Windows.

I think Vista does a great job though... it's nice to actually see more RAM being put to use. Seemed like an aweful waste when Windows XP would sit there using 300 MB and leave 1700 MB just sitting there untouched.

 

[Dutchmaster420]

Im talking about in vista they have the gadgets on the right hand side with the clock extc and i have the dual core usage meter setup and when im idling doing nothing both cores are around 1% but the memory is stuck around 20% when doing aboslutly nothing? just want to know if this is normal

also in the task manager just with mozilla running right now it says under memory 864mb under where it says cpu usage

then under phsical memory it says

total-4092
cached-3359
free-20

Kernal memory

total-104
paged-68
nonpaged-36


are these numbers normal

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: Dutchmaster420
Im talking about in vista they have the gadgets on the right hand side with the clock extc and i have the dual core usage meter setup and when im idling doing nothing both cores are around 1% but the memory is stuck around 20% when doing aboslutly nothing? just want to know if this is normal

That sounds normal, yes. My system has 2GB of RAM, and here's a quick Task Manager shot for you, with a couple IE7 windows open: http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/mechBgon/Vista_SuperFetch_at_work.gif

 

[Jeff7181]

Yep, perfectly normal. It would be unusual if it wasn't using much RAM.

 

[stash]

mechBgon, why is your page file so large?

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: stash
mechBgon, why is your page file so large?

It's not, he probably has his set to 'let the system manage it'. It's currently 800 something meg, but has a maximum of ~9g on his system. As I read it, the second number is the maximum, not the current file size.

Mine reads 13388M/64758M but the pagefile itself is only 32g.

Bill

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: stash
mechBgon, why is your page file so large?

It's not, he probably has his set to 'let the system manage it'. It's currently 800 something meg, but has a maximum of ~9g on his system. As I read it, the second number is the maximum, not the current file size.

Mine reads 13388M/64758M but the pagefile itself is only 32g.

Bill

I have system-managed page files on three hard drives, yeah. It probably isn't that beneficial to have the extra ones, given my current light usage patterns, but I figured what the heck.