BleepingComputer.com: Physical RAM usage ALWAYS between 60 and 80%.

My sidebar gadget always reads between 60 and 80 percent of memory being used (even at idle). I checked task manager in case the gadget was wrong, but it always shows the same number. Is this normal?

I'm running Vista Ultimate with 1 gig of RAM.

I have disabled several services, including Desktop Window Manager, Windows Defender, and Windows Firewall.

The only things I run at startup are my Kaspersky Internet Security, Outpost Firewall, and Windows Sidebar (I like the weather gadget). None of these things should force me to use so much RAM, so I'm pretty confused.

Any insight?

Windows vista is a VERY memory intensive OS. what it does is load the entire OS or as much of it as possible onto your memory. especially vista ultimate. I would say that for a 1 gig system, those numbers are what one would expect at idle. when I had 2 gigs, mine idled at around 33-40% and when I upgraded to 6 gigs it idled at around 22% I personally, will not sell a computer with vista on it with less then 2 gigs of ram on it for that reason, I prefer more. I have 6 gigs on my system and will upgrade to 8 when I get the chance, but Im a gamer so you probably wont need that, but If I were you I would look at upgrading to 3-4 gigs at some point in the future, I think it would do you a lot of good, and make sure you run your anti spyware programs a lot cuz it wont take much to mess it up. as far as your ram usage right now, thats normal for your setup, only way thats going to go down is if you upgrade your memory.

Gotcha! That sucks, but I was planning on upgrading my memory soon anyway, so I guess now is as good a time as ever.

Vista uses RAM in a different way than XP. The RAM being used isn't necessarily for the OS, but for pre-fetch. It's basically loading things that are most likely to be used into RAM to be ready so they can load faster. When you NEED that RAM, like when an application asks for it, Vista will instantly open up that RAM for it. So you actually have access to all your RAM(except what Vista REALLY needs to run, which is smaller than you are probably seeing).

So don't worry. Vista isn't actually taking up that much RAM just to run. It's just using RAM more efficiently by using it even when idle. It's absolutely normal, and upgrading your RAM won't necessarily make it seem like less. It's just pre-fetch, and it's a good thing.

That being said, it's definitely recommended to get more RAM, even if it's just another GB. You can never have enough of it(although on a 32 bit system you can only access so much, of course).

Brent

Yeah, I think I can only add another gig to my system anyway. Thanks for all the help everybody.

Adding more RAM may help - as long as it's a RAM issue.

The surest way to check this is to check the Event Viewer...Processes tab and ensure that Show processes for all users is clicked on.

Then check the memory usage column to see what's using the most memory. Let us know the image names for the most significant usage (and the approximate %) and we can work from there.

As others have stated, 1 gB isn't very much for Vista. At work we consider 2 gB to be the bare minimum - with 4 gB being optimum. You can find out how much your system can take by going to http://www.crucial.com and using the configurator there (it's free).

Well, I've been through the task manager, and nothing out of the ordinary is running. Ya know, the usual explorer.exe, a gazillion svchosts, sidebar, my AV and firewall, etc. I'll check out Crucial.com and let ya know.

If you're using 60-80% and nothing unusual shows in Task Manager...Processes tab - that's unusual in and of itself!

Vista will use some of it in the background, but that much is an issue that needs looking into. If it's a shortage of RAM you may be able to check the Performance tab to see what's being used versus how much you have. In my Vista VM I'm using 266 mB of the 511 mB allotted to the system - and there's no sign of what's using it.

So, that being said, I'd wonder if there is even an issue here. Numbers and statistics are fine things to have - but they've gotta relate to some real world event (such as a system slowdown) in order to be significant. In other words, is there anything wrong with your system? Are you experiencing slowness issues or are you getting memory errors? If not I'd probably chalk it up as being normal.

Also check your pagefile to make sure it's not being overused (it's in the System box in the Performance tab). But I'd suspect that even with adding memory you won't see any significant changes.

I really don't think it's anything specific. I mean, I did a clean install of Vista Ultimate from XP about two weeks ago. All I have done is reinstall all of my programs since. It's just strange. Right now, I have Utorrent downloading movies, I'm ripping a DVD, and have four tabs open in Google Chrome (plus the usual stuff, sidebar, AV, firewall, etc.). With all of that running at once, my Physical Memory is still at 75%. My cpu usage is up there, but that's to be expected. You would think that the physical memory would be drastically higher right now than when my computer is at idle.

its just the way vista uses the memory, I wouldnt lose to much sleep over it. If you upgrade it, it should go down depending on how much you upgrade it to. mine runs at 22% at idle, but I have 6 gigs od ddr2 6400 installed on my system, when I was running on 2 gig, it was much higher.

The highest I can go is 4 gigs, but that beats the crap out of the 1 gig I have right now, ya know?

PoliSciBri, on Mar 12 2009, 02:55 AM, said:

I agree with the Patriot, I only build Vista computers with 2 gigs of 800Mhz corsair ram, and ram in DDR2 is so cheap now! Cheers,Alan I run 4 gigs now and it shows 21%.

Ya know what's strange though? I put Vista Ultimate on my laptop at the same time, and it seems to run a little better. My laptop and desktop have the same amount of RAM, but the laptop only reads around 50% most of the time. Despite that, my desktop is still the faster machine. Strange, huh?

Same here- 1gig of Memory and takes about 30-50% if idle....Well i prefer Readyboost technology soon

PoliSciBri, on Mar 13 2009, 06:29 AM, said:

but is it the same type of ram? ddr2 800 will run more efficiently then ddr 667 mhz for example. and being a laptop, being mobile, im sure makes a bit of a difference as well, different systems will run slightly different applications/memory usage, etc. if its a 10% difference its still nothing out of the normal. especially if its not showing any malware with anti spyware programs.