High R.A.M consumption

[Jake]

hi
im using a laptop with a processor (2GHz) and (2Gb) of RAM
system: Windows Xp pro SP2, 2002 edition, updated to SP3
I need to work on many programs that need memory, such as MS-Office Word (
with a document over 40 pages with pictures), Autocad-2009,
MATLAB-R2007a(mathematical program), ANSYS11 (for finite elements analysis
for engineering).

those programs eat the RAM, and sometimes i need to work on more than 3
programs at once. BUT AFTER I FINISH AND CLOSE THEM ALL i find that the RAM
consumption is still SUPER-high :-( over 1.4Gb although all hungry-programs
are shut down. i find that by using task manneger.

Also, Windows explorer (NOT Internet explorer) starts to take a portion of
200Mb (usually it takes not more than 80Mb).

The only solution i can do now is to log off then on or to restart cos then
the pc is soo slow and responds in ages :-( pain in the back.

WHY the hell is that happening :-( and whats the best thing to do to prevent
it? OR if this cant be prevented, what can i do to gain the low RAM
consumption back without a restart or a log-off/on
thankx x

xxx

 

[HeyBub]

hi
im using a laptop with a processor (2GHz) and (2Gb) of RAM
system: Windows Xp pro SP2, 2002 edition, updated to SP3

I need to work on many programs that need memory, such as MS-Office
Word ( with a document over 40 pages with pictures), Autocad-2009,
MATLAB-R2007a(mathematical program), ANSYS11 (for finite elements
analysis for engineering).

those programs eat the RAM, and sometimes i need to work on more than
3 programs at once. BUT AFTER I FINISH AND CLOSE THEM ALL i find that
the RAM consumption is still SUPER-high :-( over 1.4Gb although all
hungry-programs are shut down. i find that by using task manneger.

Also, Windows explorer (NOT Internet explorer) starts to take a
portion of 200Mb (usually it takes not more than 80Mb).

The only solution i can do now is to log off then on or to restart
cos then the pc is soo slow and responds in ages :-( pain in the
back.


WHY the hell is that happening :-( and whats the best thing to do to
prevent it? OR if this cant be prevented, what can i do to gain the
low RAM consumption back without a restart or a log-off/on
thankx x

Note RAM usage at boot time. Start one of your applications. Close the
application. Note RAM.

I bet you'll find one (or more) applications are not releasing memory upon
exit like a well-behaved program should.

Once you find the culprit, get on the 'phone to the company and fuss like
the third monkey on Noah's gangplank. You'll probably have no more luck than
the monkey, but you'll feel better.

 

[Daave]

hi
im using a laptop with a processor (2GHz) and (2Gb) of RAM
system: Windows Xp pro SP2, 2002 edition, updated to SP3

I need to work on many programs that need memory, such as MS-Office
Word (
with a document over 40 pages with pictures), Autocad-2009,
MATLAB-R2007a(mathematical program), ANSYS11 (for finite elements
analysis
for engineering).

those programs eat the RAM, and sometimes i need to work on more than
3
programs at once. BUT AFTER I FINISH AND CLOSE THEM ALL i find that
the RAM
consumption is still SUPER-high :-( over 1.4Gb although all
hungry-programs
are shut down. i find that by using task manneger.

Also, Windows explorer (NOT Internet explorer) starts to take a
portion of
200Mb (usually it takes not more than 80Mb).

The only solution i can do now is to log off then on or to restart cos
then
the pc is soo slow and responds in ages :-( pain in the back.


WHY the hell is that happening :-( and whats the best thing to do to
prevent
it? OR if this cant be prevented, what can i do to gain the low RAM
consumption back without a restart or a log-off/on

I don't see any problem at all. 1.4 GB of RAM usage is *good* because
the amount of RAM you have installed is greater than this figure. As
long as you don't rely on the pagefile for your memory needs, you're
doing just fine.

A quick way to determine if this is happening is to open Task Manager
(Ctrl+Alt+Del) and click the Performance tab. Then note the three values
under Commit Charge (K): in the lower left-hand corner: Total, Limit,
and Peak.

The Total figure represents the amount of memory you are using at that
very moment. The Peak figure represents the highest amount of memory you
used since last bootup. If both these figures are below the value of
Physical Memory (K) Total, then you probably have plenty of RAM.

If you'd like to further explore your memory usage, run Page File
Monitor for Windows XP:

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm

Remember: "unused RAM is wasted RAM."

 

[Jake]

dear Daave thanks for reply.

in fact: (total+peak) commit memory < total Physical memory

so according to you, yes i have a plenty of RAM.

but the problem is after i shut down all RAM-eating programs, while the RAM
consumption is still high. my laptop behaves in a funny way.

process of Rendering newly opened application becomes sloooooooow. even if i
wanted to open "my document" file it takes ages to open it properly, and the
window of the file passes through a "blank frozen window" phase, thats how i
know something wrong is going on ...

and thats why i need to return the RAM consumption to its initial state
(like the one after restarting) by logging off

 

[Bob I]

dear Daave thanks for reply.

in fact: (total+peak) commit memory < total Physical memory

so according to you, yes i have a plenty of RAM.

but the problem is after i shut down all RAM-eating programs, while the RAM
consumption is still high. my laptop behaves in a funny way.

process of Rendering newly opened application becomes sloooooooow. even if i
wanted to open "my document" file it takes ages to open it properly, and the
window of the file passes through a "blank frozen window" phase, thats how i
know something wrong is going on ...

and thats why i need to return the RAM consumption to its initial state
(like the one after restarting) by logging off

As was pointed out by HeyBub, check to see which application is actually
causing the "non-release" issue first.

 

[Daave]

dear Daave thanks for reply.

in fact: (total+peak) commit memory < total Physical memory

so according to you, yes i have a plenty of RAM.

but the problem is after i shut down all RAM-eating programs, while
the RAM consumption is still high. my laptop behaves in a funny way.

process of Rendering newly opened application becomes sloooooooow.
even if i wanted to open "my document" file it takes ages to open it
properly, and the window of the file passes through a "blank frozen
window" phase, thats how i know something wrong is going on ...

It's important to know which program is hogging CPU cycles. The best way
to determine this is to use Process Explorer:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

Hopefully, there is a newer version of the offending program.

 

[Patty]

hi
im using a laptop with a processor (2GHz) and (2Gb) of RAM
system: Windows Xp pro SP2, 2002 edition, updated to SP3

I need to work on many programs that need memory, such as MS-Office Word (
with a document over 40 pages with pictures), Autocad-2009,
MATLAB-R2007a(mathematical program), ANSYS11 (for finite elements analysis
for engineering).

those programs eat the RAM, and sometimes i need to work on more than 3
programs at once. BUT AFTER I FINISH AND CLOSE THEM ALL i find that the RAM
consumption is still SUPER-high :-( over 1.4Gb although all hungry-programs
are shut down. i find that by using task manneger.

Also, Windows explorer (NOT Internet explorer) starts to take a portion of
200Mb (usually it takes not more than 80Mb).

The only solution i can do now is to log off then on or to restart cos then
the pc is soo slow and responds in ages :-( pain in the back.


WHY the hell is that happening :-( and whats the best thing to do to prevent
it? OR if this cant be prevented, what can i do to gain the low RAM
consumption back without a restart or a log-off/on
thankx x

xxx

One thing you could try is to look at Processes in Task Manager and see if
any of the programs that you closed is still listed as using memory. I've
seen this happen on occasion. You can right click on the process to end it
and that should free up the RAM that program was using.

Patty

 

[Twayne]

dear Daave thanks for reply.

in fact: (total+peak) commit memory < total Physical memory

so according to you, yes i have a plenty of RAM.

but the problem is after i shut down all RAM-eating programs, while
the RAM consumption is still high. my laptop behaves in a funny way.

process of Rendering newly opened application becomes sloooooooow.
even if i wanted to open "my document" file it takes ages to open it
properly, and the window of the file passes through a "blank frozen
window" phase, thats how i know something wrong is going on ...

and thats why i need to return the RAM consumption to its initial
state (like the one after restarting) by logging off

Somehow, somewhere, you have corruption happening. But it does sound
like you have enough RAM. The monitor suggested is good and I've used
it myself several times.

It doesn't bother me that you see a lot of RAM used, depending on what
that RAM is. RAM, the physical memory sticks, always has a lot in it,
and retains it after closing programs, in case you want to use it again,
and especially if your have a habit the system has noted of going back
and re-using them.
It's normal for a lot of RAM to contain data.

What isn't normal is that your laptop should go "funny".
First, run the RAM monitor and set it always on top so you can watch it
working. If the pagefile gets too big, and stays large more than a few
seconds after the programs close, someone isn't managing their RAM
usages very well. Try to figure out which of your applications is
causing that.

Also, I've noticed that, sometimes, the ORDER/sequence the applications
are started in can make a difference in pagefile and even system RAM
usages. Try starting the apps in a different order and see if it makes
a difference.

If you've had crashes of any of those apps, and had to power your way
out to close them (kill task, hit the power button, whatever), they have
left an immense amount of trash on the disk that could eventually be
discovered and tries to get used. Do a good Disk Cleanup in System
Tools, and see if that helps.
Also, with RAM (which description often includes the pagefile, since
that's what it's being used for) hungry apps, disk fragmentation can
really go astray. So, the program starts OK and probably initially runs
OK because t hose parts aren't fragmented, but before long the apps
start asking for pieces of code onthe disk that are fragmented, often
many megabytes at a time, and that's going to slow things down.
With RAM hungry and disk intensive apps (Office, rendering, etc.)
defrag is something that needs to be done OFTEN. I'm a video editor and
the first thing I do after rendering video is a defrag because of the
fragmentation it causes. And if the program should crash and I have to
power my way out of it, there's a lot MORE crap to remove.

So, whatever you mean by "rendering" and depending on the apps you're
running, that could very well be an issue.

Get that monitor and see what your pagefile is doing.
Oh! And if it's NOT set for Sytstem Manages the size of the pagefile,
you're making a BIG mistake! Let the system decide how big the pagefile
needs to be. There are seldom any good reasons for speccing a max size;
it'll often also rob system RAM of some of its contents.
IF you can put the pagefile on a different, PHYSICAL hard drive, not
just another partition, it will help speed things up, too. But let
Windows manage the size of the pagefile! Be sure to make the original
pagefile small, in say the 100 top 300 Meg range so it'll use the other
disk more often.

HTH some at least,

Twayne

 

[Jake]

As a matter of fact, if the task mannager tab called (processes) shows any
"still running programs" my problem would have been solved for ages.

However i did this experiment a day ago and i got shocked!

i took a screen shot of task mannager (Processes tab) after closing some
RAM-eating programs (namely MS-Office-word 2007, AutoCAD2009). and compared
it with a screen shot after restarting my laptop and Guess What!

the same programs where running in the back ground, and each is consuming
almost the same memory (Memory Usage) with slight differences. except for
explorer.exe which was at ~200Mb and went down to ~40Mb.

After summing up the memory usage at bothe cases (from processes tab) i
discovered that both numbers were almost the same (~700 Mb before restarting,
~500Mb after restarting)

BUT on performance tab the pf usage showed 1.4Gb before restarting and
~500Mb after restarting!!!!!!!!!!

now something hidden is consuming 700Mb of memory and i dont know what is it

:-(

 

[Jake]

Will try that for sure and be back at you ;-) thaaaaaaaaaaaanx for your time
to reply

 

[Twayne]

Will try that for sure and be back at you ;-) thaaaaaaaaaaaanx for

your time to reply

Hope you let us know whether it helped or not.