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Memory Usage

Discussion in 'Techno-Magic' started by Saber, Dec 2, 2009.

  1. Saber

    Saber A revolution without dancing is not worth having! Veteran

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    Remove all ads!
    Err, so my computer tells me it is using 3.5 gb (out of 4gb) of it's memory. I am running iTunes, Firefox, a download manager, and an email client... why are these programs using so much memory? Even when I close firefox (which the computer was complaining about), it only goes down to 3 gb in use. Is there some way to reduce the use? It doesn't seem like it should be that high.
     
    Saber, Dec 2, 2009
    #1
  2. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    And you're looking at this usage where exactly?
     
    Taluntain, Dec 2, 2009
    #2
  3. Saber

    Saber A revolution without dancing is not worth having! Veteran

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    Task Manager -> Performance.

    I only started looking because messages kept popping up saying, "Warning: Memory Low, please save your data and close all programs," and stuff like that.
     
    Saber, Dec 2, 2009
    #3
  4. Ragusa

    Ragusa Eternal Halfling Paladin Veteran

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    Go check what 'Processes' you have running, it's two folders away from 'Performance', and maybe there you find some other process that eats up a lot of memory ;)
     
    Ragusa, Dec 2, 2009
    #4
  5. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    Which Windows edition do you have? And is it a 32/64 bit version? I've got 3.3GB total recognized memory in XP and 2.6 of it used right now with my browser, Miranda and Winamp and a few background apps running... so the relatively high usage is normal, because the OS will try to use as much RAM as it can as it speeds things up. It's only a problem if you start getting warnings about the RAM not being reallocated as needed when you only have a few apps running. In your case, it's likely that one (rogue) process is eating up much of those resources. Older Firefox versions were notorious for memory leaks, among other things.
     
    Taluntain, Dec 2, 2009
    #5
  6. Saber

    Saber A revolution without dancing is not worth having! Veteran

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    I tried that, but even when I close most of the programs using more than 30,000 K memory, I am still at about 2.8, 3gb of memory in use... the rest of the programs are all small, mostly under 2,000 K memory.

    I am using Vista Home Edition x64. Hrmm, I have the newest version of Firefox; most of my programs are up to date (excluding iTunes - last time I updated it, it nearly destroyed my computer, so I still have an older version, but it isn't using up that much memory).
     
    Saber, Dec 2, 2009
    #6
  7. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    Try killing everything and see how much you're left with. Have you run a spyware/malware check lately? Things like that could be the guilty party here.
     
    Taluntain, Dec 2, 2009
    #7
  8. Saber

    Saber A revolution without dancing is not worth having! Veteran

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    I will try running them; haven't done one in a while - my AVG free no longer wants to scan, is there another good one for free? I have Spybot, but I want multiple ones.

    Ironically, while typing this for the first time, Firefox quit :p
     
    Saber, Dec 3, 2009
    #8
  9. Kitrax

    Kitrax Pantaloons are supposed to go where!?!?

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    Dude...from what I've heard here on SP and on FB, your PC is F***ed. Reformat and start over. If AVG isn't scanning, there's something majorly wrong. If MS Office, FF, and all the other programs you mentioned aren't working, *and* your memory usage is through the roof....well, need I say more?

    It's not worth the hassle to try to figure out what's wrong. Save your essential files and reload.
     
    Kitrax, Dec 3, 2009
    #9
  10. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    I can recommend Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware. It's free, too.
     
    Taluntain, Dec 3, 2009
    #10
  11. Saber

    Saber A revolution without dancing is not worth having! Veteran

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    Ran Malwarebyte's anti-malware, ad-aware, and spybot, and nothing was found (besides the usual cookies). Memory is still in the high 3 gbs.


    Argh, I really don't want to reformat, that would be a huge hassle...

    AVG stopped running it's scan a long time ago, I think it had something to do with it wanting to update to a paid version and I denied it, and now it is being mean to me as revenge. I think I just need to reinstall it (that fixed Ad-aware).


    EDIT: Went into the Resource Monitor and looked at my memory, and a svchost.exe (netsvcs) is using up 5,000,000ish kb of memory (or, it is under the category "Commit (kb)"). I can't find a good way to stop it from using so much though... any ideas (besides reformatting, which is a last resort).
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2009
    Saber, Dec 3, 2009
    #11
  12. Chandos the Red

    Chandos the Red This Wheel's on Fire

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    Chandos the Red, Dec 4, 2009
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  13. Saber

    Saber A revolution without dancing is not worth having! Veteran

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    Restarting seems to have helped a bit - it dropped by 1gb of usage after a restart - I have a feeling that a temporary solution will be to restart it everytime it gets really high (which hopefully won't happen soon).

    How much memory SHOULD a Vista 64 bit computer be running using just a few programs?
     
    Saber, Dec 6, 2009
    #13
  14. Merlanni

    Merlanni Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!)

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    4 gig for 64 bit. Higher is better since win 64 just uses more memory.
     
    Merlanni, Dec 6, 2009
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  15. Saber

    Saber A revolution without dancing is not worth having! Veteran

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    Oh, I meant how much should it currently be using? I have 4 gb of memory, but no computer should use all of it just to run simple programs, right? Like, is 2.5 - 3 gb a normal load for Vista?
     
    Saber, Dec 6, 2009
    #15
  16. Morgoth

    Morgoth La lune ne garde aucune rancune Veteran

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    These are the system requirements for Vista: (from here)

    Home Basic
    * 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
    * 512 MB of system memory

    Home Premium / Business / Ultimate
    * 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
    * 1 GB of system memory

    But, hey, this just pops in. svchost could be keeping up a large foothold so that it can immediately allocate memory to new processes. Could you perhaps set the system performance to a lower level and see what happens?
    I can't remember how to set the performance, but I think Vista gave that option. Don't have Vista near me to check it (just Linux and Mac OS X I'm 'afraid' :p)
     
    Morgoth, Dec 7, 2009
    #16
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