Adaware Service and Memory Usage

[Patrick C]

I'm running Vista Home Premium with only 1 gig ram. The system was running
slow so while checking memory usage found the service using 150 meg so I'm
running the service manually for now. I'm still not clear on it's purpose
when I'm not actually running the program. Its listed in services under
Lavasoft aawservice.exe.

 

[Alias]

I'm running Vista Home Premium with only 1 gig ram. The system was
running slow so while checking memory usage found the service using 150
meg so I'm running the service manually for now. I'm still not clear on
it's purpose when I'm not actually running the program. Its listed in
services under Lavasoft aawservice.exe.

That's the reason I uninstalled AdAware. It never found anything so why
have the Pro version's .exe running and sucking up resources?

Alias

 

[Patrick C]

I had a similar problem with Spybot and uninstalled it. Wanted to have
something besides Window Defender as Adaware still seems to find things.

 

[Alias]

I had a similar problem with Spybot and uninstalled it. Wanted to have
something besides Window Defender as Adaware still seems to find things.

I don't have that problem with Spybot but I don't use Tea Timer. You
might want to check out spywareblaster and spywareguard. What does
AdAware find, cookies?

Alias

 

[Jim]

I'm running Vista Home Premium with only 1 gig ram. The system was running
slow so while checking memory usage found the service using 150 meg so I'm
running the service manually for now. I'm still not clear on it's purpose
when I'm not actually running the program. Its listed in services under
Lavasoft aawservice.exe.

If you upgraded to Vista , you need more RAM .

 

[Patrick C]

I tried to disable Tea Timer but had some issue with it maybe I should
revisit it. I do run Spywareblaster. Yes it does find cookies threst level
3 and some minor things.

 

[Patrick C]

I just ordered more ram last week.

If you upgraded to Vista , you need more RAM .

 

[Mick Murphy]

As an extra bit of security for a manual scan try:

http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

Malwarebytes is as the name says, a Malware Remover!
For the Free version scroll down their page to either download from
Download.com, or Major Geeks.com

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I'm running Vista Home Premium with only 1 gig ram. The system was running
slow so while checking memory usage found the service using 150 meg so I'm
running the service manually for now. I'm still not clear on it's purpose
when I'm not actually running the program. Its listed in services under
Lavasoft aawservice.exe.

If I were in your shoes, rather than worrying about Adaware, I'd worry
about having so little RAM, since that's the reason your system is so
slow. How much RAM you need for decent performance depends in part on
what apps you run, but everyone doing more than just playing Solitaire
needs at least 2GB.

 

[Patrick C]

If I were in your shoes, rather than worrying about Adaware, I'd worry
about having so little RAM, since that's the reason your system is so
slow. How much RAM you need for decent performance depends in part on
what apps you run, but everyone doing more than just playing Solitaire
needs at least 2GB.

I'm in the process of getting more Ram. Was gonna go for 4 gigs but the
specs save 2 max so guess I'll go for 2.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I'm in the process of getting more Ram.

Excellent. Glad to hear it.

Was gonna go for 4 gigs but the
specs save 2 max so guess I'll go for 2.

Three points:

1. Do not assume that more RAM is always better than less. How much
RAM you need for good performance is *not* a one-size-fits-all
situation. You get good performance if the amount of RAM you have
keeps you from using the page file, and that depends on what apps you
run. Most people running a typical range of business applications
under Vista find that 2GB works well, others need 512MB. Almost anyone
will see poor performance with less. Some people, particularly those
doing things like editing large photographic images, can see a
performance boost by adding even more--sometimes much more.

If you are currently using the page file significantly, more memory
will decrease or eliminate that usage, and improve your performance.
If you are not using the page file significantly, more memory will do
nothing for you.

2. Assuming that your version of Vista is 32-bit, note that all 32-bit
client versions of Windows (not just Vista/XP) have a 4GB address
space. That's the theoretical upper limit beyond which you can not go.
But you can't use the entire 4GB of address space. Even though you
have a 4GB address space, you can only use *around* 3.1GB of RAM.
That's because some of that space is used by hardware and is not
available to the operating system and applications. The amount you can
use varies, depending on what hardware you have installed, but can
range from as little as 2GB to as much as 3.5GB. It's usually around
3.1GB.

Note that the hardware is using the address *space*, not the actual
RAM itself. The rest of the RAM goes unused because there is no
address space to map it too.

3. If your motherboard won't support more than 2GB, consider all the
above to be just background info. Go ahead and upgrade to 2GB.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Thanks for the input Ken.

You're welcome. Glad to help.

I'm retired

Me too.

and just use the laptop for web, email, occasional solitaire or
java driven poker and IM, sometimes with talk & video.

Then almost certainly, 2GB is all you need.

I only get concerned
when it runs slow which usually happens when it comes out of hibernation for
a bit and then I try and catch what's using the memory by looking at the
performance status. It's a AMD Turion 64 x2 T50 with 1 gig running Vista
Home Premium. I see newer models have at least 2 gig and faster cpus. The
wife has a desktop with AMD Athilon which is faster with the same 1 gig and
Vista version. I'm ordering 4 gig for her. I think now that memory is so
cheap now's the time to upgrade.

You're right that it's very cheap, and if the difference in cost
between 2GB and 4GB is low enough that you don't care, then fine. But
bear in mind that if her usage is similar to yours, she would probably
see no difference in performance between 2GB and 4GB.

 

[Hugh Jeego]

Vista with 1 gig is really pathetic. You need at least 2 gigs and even then
need a USB stick made for readyboost in it. Get 4 gigs and be happy.

 

[Hugh Jeego]

Excellent. Glad to hear it.





Three points:

1. Do not assume that more RAM is always better than less. How much
RAM you need for good performance is *not* a one-size-fits-all
situation. You get good performance if the amount of RAM you have
keeps you from using the page file, and that depends on what apps you
run. Most people running a typical range of business applications
under Vista find that 2GB works well, others need 512MB. Almost anyone

Glad you said "most" because in my experience with a fair few Vista users
going around the traps, none of them are happy with 2gigs. I thought I would
run into someone who was, one day, though. 512megs for Vista is just plain
ridiculous. Just going from turning on to ready to use would be a hell of a
lot longer because of that. I have run Vista Business in 1gig ram plus a
4gig readyboost chip and it was pathetic. I upped it to 2gig because the
motherboard has only 2 DDR slots and I cant get 2gig sticks of DDR. It runs
better now but my laptop on 64bit Vista Ultimate worked pathetically in
2gigs ram and works quite a lot better in 3gigs. I expect it will work
reasonably in 4gigs but possibly not. I am not going to bother getting more
ram for either. I am going to sit it out till the next Windows gets here. I
expect to have an overspec laptop at that stage.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Glad you said "most" because in my experience with a fair few Vista users
going around the traps, none of them are happy with 2gigs. I thought I would
run into someone who was, one day, though.

You just did. I have 2GB and it meets my needs just fine. My wife also
has 2GB and she's happy with her computer too. I also know lots of
other people running Vista with 2GB who are happy with their
computers.

512megs for Vista is just plain
ridiculous.

Absolutely right. My apologies for the mistake in the message I
posted. It was essentially an older Windows XP message that I edited
for Vista, but I did a poor job of editing and left that 512MB where
it didn't belong. Sorry, and thank you for catching my error.