WinXP: Windows Task Manager Lies

[Stuh505]

I have noticed on many machines that the windows task manager seems to display false information. For instance, a while back I was running a program with a rather large memory leak that would use up all my memory...so much that I could not even open a word file without gettign an error saying "not enough memory"...yet I could open task manager and it would say that I was only using a small percent of memory and that I had 250MB of ram not being used!

Right now, I have explorer and limewire running...along with some minor background programs. I dont really have a problem with spyware on this compuer and i do regular checks for that. Anyway, Ive been running a lot of installers lately...but the situation is that task manager says that 100% of memory is being used, yet the sum of memory being used by all processes currently running is only a small fraction of my RAM....but it really IS running slowly. Im sure it will be fixed when I restart.

But someone please explain...why the heck does task manager not give reliable results like this? By the way I'm not talking about 1 computer I've seen this on many XP machines

[bigstusexy]

Programs can run other sub processes, programs, dlls, vxds you name it. They all require their own memory space. Howerver I do not believe that the programs will report their memory usage as well. I have just installed new drivers by linksys for my wireless card (man do I wish the OEM would release drivers to the public) the two programs (there are three but I don't use the tird) programs that it launches are causing a bad memory leak, after about 4 days I need to restart my computer never does the processes equal the 400+megs that is used when it becomes a problem but yet I know its happening.

[Stuh505]

hm...so you're saying that the memory in the task manager is just the memory that the applicans report they are using. if that's true...that's ridiculous! it seems like great incentive for companies to purposefully report false numbers to make their products appear to be more memory efficient. i thought these numbers were generated by the system. hmm. that does explain the issue, though. id be interested to know more

[USMC2Hard4U]

I would just buy 2GB of Ram and not worry about it

[JustLong]

hm...so you're saying that the memory in the task manager is just the memory that the applicans report they are using. if that's true...that's ridiculous! it seems like great incentive for companies to purposefully report false numbers to make their products appear to be more memory efficient. i thought these numbers were generated by the system. hmm. that does explain the issue, though. id be interested to know more
Well Task manager only shows a limited amount of data by default. Make sure you have "Show processes from all users" checked. Also with the processes showing click view>select colums and add VM Size. This will show you how much Virtual Memory a process is taking.

[DaRkF0g]

I had the exact same problem as you a while back. Turn safemode on and see how much memory you are using. If it is normal than it is a corrupted startup entry. I discovered that my Norton Antivirus 2005 was the culprit. Once I uninstalled it and reinstalled it the memory was being correctly reported. It was almost like notron wanted a whole GB allocated to itself!

Good Luck!

[[MS]]

Well Task manager only shows a limited amount of data by default. Make sure you have "Show processes from all users" checked. Also with the processes showing click view>select colums and add VM Size. This will show you how much Virtual Memory a process is taking.
This is what throws most people off...

The graph of memory is the entire VM space, not just physical memory. So when people compare the graph to the sum of physical memory being used by processes, it's never going to add up.

[Stuh505]

I'm not talking about the graphs. I'm looking at the numbers for the amount of physical and kernel memory available. They will report that I have 250MB of ram free, when I actually have no memory available at all, and the CPU Usage number will be like 5% when really it should be 100%. But the other day, it said I had 250MB free...but 100% cpu usage. that makes no sense.

[darkpark]

task manager does report how much memory an application is using. leaked memory is memory that is no longer used by an application but still tagged as 'in use'. by looking at task manager you won't be able to tell if an applicatio is leaking memory.

[[MS]]

They will report that I have 250MB of ram free, when I actually have no memory available at all,
How do you determine that you have no memory available?

and the CPU Usage number will be like 5% when really it should be 100%.
Again, what are you using to determine this? What's running when you see this behavior? It's entirely possible for the system to be acting slow and yet have CPU usage only at 5%.

But the other day, it said I had 250MB free...but 100% cpu usage. that makes no sense.
CPU usage and memory usage are not linked. Depending on what you're doing the CPU could be at 100% with minimal memory usage, or you could have high memory usage with little CPU utilization. It all depends on what you are running on the system.

[Stuh505]

How do you determine that you have no memory available?

Operations like moving the mouse around the screen will not respond well, and attempting to open simple applications like Word will give the message "not enough memory to complete the operation"

Again, what are you using to determine this? What's running when you see this behavior? It's entirely possible for the system to be acting slow and yet have CPU usage only at 5%.

Im talking about the number that is reported in the task manager for % CPU usage

CPU usage and memory usage are not linked. Depending on what you're doing the CPU could be at 100% with minimal memory usage, or you could have high memory usage with little CPU utilization. It all depends on what you are running on the system.

ok, good point...

[[MS]]

Operations like moving the mouse around the screen will not respond well, and attempting to open simple applications like Word will give the message "not enough memory to complete the operation"


If the task manager is stating that you have plenty of memory left, and you are getting errors like that, I would suspect the the application more than the OS. I've seen apps do it plenty of times. There'll be a bug in the app and it'll request a huge chunk of memory when it shoudn't, and such an error results. I'd first check to see if there are any updates to the application, for word those can be found on the office update site. There are other possibilities though, malware could cause the behavior, or a hard disk that is starting to fail.

As for the mouse pointer behavior, that would be more related to high CPU utilization, not memory.


Im talking about the number that is reported in the task manager for % CPU usage
Yes, but I was wondering what you were comparing it to when you said it was wrong. Perfmon? If it's just the general "feeling" that the machine slows down at times, though could be just as easily from a hard disk as from CPU utilization.

[bigstusexy]

I thought the graph reported the physical memory usage hmmm oh well never really checked that out.

Check out the stats on the performance tab (win2k) to see more closely what memory is being used were and how. However this will not show you what memeory is in use by what program, there are programs out there that will tell you more indepth what memory is in use by what program (should look for myself I think these stupid drivers has a memory leak) and possbibly allow you to spot memory leaks better. These programs are for programsser but there migth be user level ones and perhaps free ones. If you find a good one tell us.


Oh also when counting up system process usage don't count system idel process. also if your physical memory is used up and you are primarly running on paged memory things will be slow with little to know cpu usage shown, also make sure that you are showing kernal times on your process usage, I believe that it still only shows up in the graph.