Hello. I have Vista Home Premium on a machine with an Athlon 2.2 Ghtz CPU, 1
Gbyte of RAM, and a 256 ATI graphics card. Everything about the machine is
bog standard. My question stems from watching the little gadget on the Vista
sidebar that reads the CPU and RAM usage. The CPU gauge bounces from one end
of the scale to the other at times when the machine is real busy, and that's
good. I feel I'm getting my money's worth out of the CPU. But the RAM gauge
never, and I mean never, gets above 60%.

Now, I am the sort of person who likes to think I am getting my $ worth out
of the hardware. Am I really not using my full 1 Gbyte, or is the little
gadget really just a very approximate indicator that doesn't give a reliable
indication? Or is it just nor able to respond to the peaks of RAM use
because they come and go too fast?

I realise this is maybe a kind of tight-ass question, but I don't loose any
sleep over it. Just love to know what's really going on in there. TIA.

--
Peter in New Zealand. (Pull the plug out to reply.)
Collector of old cameras, tropical fish fancier, good coffee nutter, and
compulsive computer fiddler.

Try Freemeter which is a much better indicator of CPU, RAM and
other system resources.

http://www.tiler.com/freemeter/
Free

"Peter in New Zealand" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:%(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hello. I have Vista Home Premium on a machine with an Athlon 2.2 Ghtz CPU,
> 1 Gbyte of RAM, and a 256 ATI graphics card. Everything about the machine
> is bog standard. My question stems from watching the little gadget on the
> Vista sidebar that reads the CPU and RAM usage. The CPU gauge bounces from
> one end of the scale to the other at times when the machine is real busy,
> and that's good. I feel I'm getting my money's worth out of the CPU. But
> the RAM gauge never, and I mean never, gets above 60%.
>
> Now, I am the sort of person who likes to think I am getting my $ worth
> out of the hardware. Am I really not using my full 1 Gbyte, or is the
> little gadget really just a very approximate indicator that doesn't give a
> reliable indication? Or is it just nor able to respond to the peaks of RAM
> use because they come and go too fast?
>
> I realise this is maybe a kind of tight-ass question, but I don't loose
> any sleep over it. Just love to know what's really going on in there. TIA.
>
> --
> Peter in New Zealand. (Pull the plug out to reply.)
> Collector of old cameras, tropical fish fancier, good coffee nutter, and
> compulsive computer fiddler.

Mine rarely goes above 35% and I have 2gb of memory available. Personally
I'd say that unless you're seeing a performance issue of some sort that
Windows is doing what it needs to do and you're okay ... but that's just me.
;-)

--
Richard G. Harper [MVP Shell/User] (E-Mail Removed)
* NEW! Catch my blog ... http://msmvps.com/blogs/rgharper/
* PLEASE post all messages and replies in the newsgroups
* The Website - http://rgharper.mvps.org/
* HELP us help YOU ... http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm


"Peter in New Zealand" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:%(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hello. I have Vista Home Premium on a machine with an Athlon 2.2 Ghtz CPU,
> 1 Gbyte of RAM, and a 256 ATI graphics card. Everything about the machine
> is bog standard. My question stems from watching the little gadget on the
> Vista sidebar that reads the CPU and RAM usage. The CPU gauge bounces from
> one end of the scale to the other at times when the machine is real busy,
> and that's good. I feel I'm getting my money's worth out of the CPU. But
> the RAM gauge never, and I mean never, gets above 60%.
>
> Now, I am the sort of person who likes to think I am getting my $ worth
> out of the hardware. Am I really not using my full 1 Gbyte, or is the
> little gadget really just a very approximate indicator that doesn't give a
> reliable indication? Or is it just nor able to respond to the peaks of RAM
> use because they come and go too fast?
>
> I realise this is maybe a kind of tight-ass question, but I don't loose
> any sleep over it. Just love to know what's really going on in there. TIA.
>
> --
> Peter in New Zealand. (Pull the plug out to reply.)
> Collector of old cameras, tropical fish fancier, good coffee nutter, and
> compulsive computer fiddler.

I too have 1Gb of DDR ram and mine sits around 45% and may go up to 65%



"Peter in New Zealand" wrote:

> Hello. I have Vista Home Premium on a machine with an Athlon 2.2 Ghtz CPU, 1
> Gbyte of RAM, and a 256 ATI graphics card. Everything about the machine is
> bog standard. My question stems from watching the little gadget on the Vista
> sidebar that reads the CPU and RAM usage. The CPU gauge bounces from one end
> of the scale to the other at times when the machine is real busy, and that's
> good. I feel I'm getting my money's worth out of the CPU. But the RAM gauge
> never, and I mean never, gets above 60%.
>
> Now, I am the sort of person who likes to think I am getting my $ worth out
> of the hardware. Am I really not using my full 1 Gbyte, or is the little
> gadget really just a very approximate indicator that doesn't give a reliable
> indication? Or is it just nor able to respond to the peaks of RAM use
> because they come and go too fast?
>
> I realise this is maybe a kind of tight-ass question, but I don't loose any
> sleep over it. Just love to know what's really going on in there. TIA.
>
> --
> Peter in New Zealand. (Pull the plug out to reply.)
> Collector of old cameras, tropical fish fancier, good coffee nutter, and
> compulsive computer fiddler.
>
>

You are getting your money's worth. 1GiB RAM is the minimum to run Vista
Home Premium, any less and you would not have all the features of Windows
Vista such as the Aero inteface.

If the RAM meter was nearing 100% it would be a bad thing. Your computer
would be running slowly, or not at all, because it does not have sufficient
free memory to operate properly.

You will not be using all of the RAM memory all of the time. You need to
have the RAM memory available for when a program needs it.

"MrSlartybartfast" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
message news:31AF8955-1BC4-4DDE-9BAE-(E-Mail Removed)...
> You are getting your money's worth. 1GiB RAM is the minimum to run Vista
> Home Premium, any less and you would not have all the features of Windows
> Vista such as the Aero inteface.
>
> If the RAM meter was nearing 100% it would be a bad thing. Your computer
> would be running slowly, or not at all, because it does not have
> sufficient
> free memory to operate properly.
>
> You will not be using all of the RAM memory all of the time. You need to
> have the RAM memory available for when a program needs it.

Thanks for taking a moment to reply. That's reassuring for me to hear. I
have to say I am quite enjoying the "visual experience" of Vista Aero, and I
started out 'way back in the good? old Windows 3.1 days.

Looking at your "nome de post", and in view of your helpful reply, I can
only sign myself as "Arthur".

--
Peter in New Zealand. (Pull the plug out to reply.)
Collector of old cameras, tropical fish fancier, good coffee nutter, and
compulsive computer fiddler.

Spirit wrote:
> Try Freemeter which is a much better indicator of CPU, RAM and
> other system resources.
>
> http://www.tiler.com/freemeter/
> Free
>
> "Peter in New Zealand" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:%(E-Mail Removed)...
>> Hello. I have Vista Home Premium on a machine with an Athlon 2.2 Ghtz
>> CPU, 1 Gbyte of RAM, and a 256 ATI graphics card. Everything about the
>> machine is bog standard. My question stems from watching the little
>> gadget on the Vista sidebar that reads the CPU and RAM usage. The CPU
>> gauge bounces from one end of the scale to the other at times when the
>> machine is real busy, and that's good. I feel I'm getting my money's
>> worth out of the CPU. But the RAM gauge never, and I mean never, gets
>> above 60%.
>>
>> Now, I am the sort of person who likes to think I am getting my $
>> worth out of the hardware. Am I really not using my full 1 Gbyte, or
>> is the little gadget really just a very approximate indicator that
>> doesn't give a reliable indication? Or is it just nor able to respond
>> to the peaks of RAM use because they come and go too fast?
>>
>> I realise this is maybe a kind of tight-ass question, but I don't
>> loose any sleep over it. Just love to know what's really going on in
>> there. TIA.
>>
>> --
>> Peter in New Zealand. (Pull the plug out to reply.)
>> Collector of old cameras, tropical fish fancier, good coffee nutter,
>> and compulsive computer fiddler.
>

Freemeter is indeed a little beauty. Basically confirms what I
suspected. That I should stop trying to be so smart and leave Vista
alone to do it's job. (grin)

Thank you for the link.

Peter

--
Peter in New Zealand. (Pull the plug out to reply.)
Collector of old cameras, tropical fish fancier, good coffee nutter, and
compulsive computer fiddler.