Why is Vista hogging 2gb of memory?

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p8ball4life

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I recently built my new computer, and until I could patch it up it would through a BSOD if I left 4gigs of ram in (2 sticks of 2gb). So naturally I used only one stick until I could get the patches going. Windows is eating 2gigs+ of my memory with AERO disabled! I couldn't believe it... I'm running NAV in the background, and I know that's not the best with regards to resources, but there's no way it should be taking all of my ram should it?

Free ram stays near 10-20kb while paging is close to 100-300mb.....

Any help would be appreciated.
 
Ill go easy on you but htis has been asked a million times.

Vista isnt like XP where ram just sits idle. If ram isnt being used, Vista preloads programs you use into ram so theyre snappy snappy when you go to use them. Its called Superfetch. Great feature, and only boosts the comps speed. Dont worry about free ram. If a program needs it, Vista instantly makes it available.
 
Between pageable memory, caches, used memory, etc. it's not so clear cut how memory should be reported, bottom line, most of the memory reported as in use in Vista can be used by your programs.
 
Yup. Welcome to modern operating systems where more is done in RAM instead of on a hard drive swap file.
 
The only time my install of x64 hit 90% of my 2GB was when I ran DivX - the effects were bad enough that I had to reformat, but since then, I haven't had a single problem.

I have not seen more than 65% used at any given point in time with Aero enabled and the Sidebar disabled.
 
TheGodfather47 said:
The only time my install of x64 hit 90% of my 2GB was when I ran DivX - the effects were bad enough that I had to reformat, but since then, I haven't had a single problem.

I have not seen more than 65% used at any given point in time with Aero enabled and the Sidebar disabled.
Click to expand...

That's what most people report, so why is my system different?
 
Q6600 B3 @ 3.0Ghz (333x9) 1.37v
Tuniq Tower
p7n diamond motherboard
MSI 8800GTS OC x2
X-Fi Extreme Soundcard
500GB WD Caviar SE16 x2
Xclio Windtunnel
Corsair 2GB DDR2 800 @ 4-4-4-12 x2 (only 1 stick installed)
Scythe Ninja 61cfm x2 (one in Tuniq)
 
Vista will use different amounts of RAM based on total system RAM and even time of day. I see my Ram go to 55% used of 4GB in the morning and afternoons, but it drops down to about 33% later in the day as my usage changes.

What you may be seeing, but I'm not sure, is Vista continuing to use the cache it had when the system had 4GB. I would expect that if you continued to use it with 2 GB you will see the amount change over time.
 
Doubtful, since the system would never boot into windows with 4gb. Always a BSOD before windows loaded.
 
You can leave areo on. It doesn't use system resources. All GUI functions were offloaded to the video card which would just sit idle otherwise. Disabling areo does nothing. Assuming one is not using crappy onboard video.
Areo is disabled when gaming so it won't use up your video card resources.

griffinhart said:
Hmm, ok. Was just a thought really. Any idea what is causing the BSOD?
Click to expand...

Most likely drivers. Nvidia Vista drivers are horrible. And they've had a number of SLI problems though I believe that has been resolved through patches.
There is actually data(Vista collects crash info) that shows Nvidia drivers are what causes the most system crashes in Vista.
But it could also be related to faulty hardware. Since this is a new build you'd have to check that out. Start with the usual memtest and go from there.
 
Aero does use system resources: it's called the Desktop Window Manager, or DWM for short. Look in Task Manager and note activity for DWM.exe when Aero is operational, as well memory usage taking place as well. Disable Aero, DWM.exe is still there, but the resource usage - most notably the RAM required - drops considerably.

Aero is not 100% GPU, folks, it does require system RAM and CPU time to function because it's powered by DWM.exe. When something requiring full screen video support comes up (either actual video playback or something that fires up DirectX for gaming - Aero is a 3D interface, yanno, so the GPU is always on when Aero is enabled) then DWM.exe will relinquish some RAM and the CPU resources to whatever application is requiring them, and will re-acquire the resources when the application lets go.

Aero does a little sidestep in such cases, but it's still there, just idling.
 
I don't like the Aero look, so stop arguing over it!

The BSOD is not an issue, it's a driver issue with vista that they fix with SP1 and had a fix before that.
 
I cant believe people are so worried about memory usage still in Vista. Disabling Aero for more memory? Idiotic. Hey I just reinstalled Vista last night with 4GB Ram. Check out my memory usage:



ZOMG WHERES TEH RAMS GO???? 296MB out of 4(3 really 32bit FTL) GB WTFFFFF!!!!!!

System preforms 10x faster then XP and dosent slow down. No memory issues or conflicts. Running a 200mb swap file. Forget about the memory thing its a non issue.
 
Well, disabling services and unused stuff in Vista is at least as useful as doing it in XP. In XP, the extra freed RAM isn't used unless an app requires it. In Vista, the more memory you have "free", the more data Vista is able to load into Superfetch, which results in a more responsive system. Not sure how useful that is with a 4GB system, though. There seems to be a limit on how much data Vista will "fetch", because sometimes it leaves several hundreds MB free on my 2GB system.

Aero is still more efficient - if you drag a window around in normal mode, CPU usage spikes. In Aero mode, the meter barely moves. If you don't like the look, you can always disable the transparency and choose any color you want.
It uses a little more ram - However when you start a memory hungry app and don't have enough RAM, something gets paged to disk to make room, so it's not that important to close down every single application and service every time you launch e.g. a game. I frequently leave browser windows and other stuff open and it doesn't affect the games I run - all that gets pushed aside to the paging file when I run the game.
 
p8ball4life said:
I don't like the Aero look, so stop arguing over it!
Click to expand...

Well when you're complaining about your memory usage, even when you have it disabled, we're suppose to automatically know it's because you don't like the look of it? :confused: I’m pretty sure everybody here figured you disabled it to “optimize” your system.
 
Disabling unwanted programs that load up during your computer logs you in will increase performance....get Autoruns.

Is your registry bogged down with unwanted values? Try Regcure < Best Registry Cleaner Program
 
Right now according to task manager:
Total: 4096
Cached: 2714
Free: 36

Vista is supposed to do this. it's called SuperFetch.
 
Physical Memory (MB)
Total: 8190
Cached: 7209
Free: 9

Kernel Memory (MB)
Total: 428
Paged: 372
Nonpaged: 56

Vista seems to use as much as you give it. I don't mind. Most everything opens damn near instantly. TF2 even loads up very quickly compared to Xp.
 
GORANKAR said:
Physical Memory (MB)
Total: 8190
Cached: 7209
Free: 9

Kernel Memory (MB)
Total: 428
Paged: 372
Nonpaged: 56

Vista seems to use as much as you give it. I don't mind. Most everything opens damn near instantly. TF2 even loads up very quickly compared to Xp.
Click to expand...

Agree 200%.

My values are slightly different...

Total: 8189MB
Cached: 2967MB (just rebooted, cached value drops)
Free: 3318MB (again as result of reboot, this generally is small, under 10MB most of the time once SuperFetch is "trained.")

Kernel Memory (MB)
Total: 344MB
Paged: 256MB
Nonpaged: 88MB

...but the concept is the same.

Vista tends to apportion memory based on how much you have installed. I have 8GB installed and if I let it sit bone-idle on boot it uses about ~1.5-2.0GB right off the bat. However, I also never see the OS hit the disk unless I actually ask for something big (like a game). Almost everything is taken care of by SuperFetch.

Vista memory management != XP memory "management."
 
I honesty don't understand why people complain about superfetch. I have 4gb, I want to use it; I don't get an erection from seeing 85% of my ram unused.
 
i dont know about you "delvryboy" (heh)... but in my experience BF2/BF2142/Most other 3d games make plenty of use of Ram on XP
 
I thought RAM is used less then Vista on XP??? But it doesn't make a huge difference when you got 60 tasks in your task manager at the same time!
 
It just uses your ram in a different way to make the experience faster for you. You will only notice improvements. It is something every other OS out there does.
 
kre62 said:
ZOMG WHERES TEH RAMS GO????
Click to expand...
Classic.

In honor of this, I have created a lolcat:
zomgwhereste128550670811770523.jpg
 
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