Memory Leak Constantly!..

[Guest]

Im currently running a dual-boot system on my Sony Vaio VGN-N2s1w.. im having
major problems with an untraceable memory leak with Vista. I have checked all
files on the OS and none of them seem to be increasing in size yet im still
loosing memory even by the hour!. I havnt been running any updates etc or
anything that could potentially take up any memory yet it still seems to be
disapearing. PLease help...

 

[Mike]

Im currently running a dual-boot system on my Sony Vaio VGN-N2s1w.. im having
major problems with an untraceable memory leak with Vista. I have checked all
files on the OS and none of them seem to be increasing in size yet im still
loosing memory even by the hour!. I havnt been running any updates etc or
anything that could potentially take up any memory yet it still seems to be
disapearing. PLease help...

It's normal. Vista uses all available memory for disk caching. It
makes things run faster. When you start an app it will load from cache
if it's already there, making it start much faster.

I have 2 gigs of RAM here and normally run with just 5 or 10 megs free.
You *want* it to use all available resources. RAM sitting there unused
isn't doing you any good.

Mike

 

[Swingman]

"Laurahuk wrote in message

Im currently running a dual-boot system on my Sony Vaio VGN-N2s1w.. im
having
major problems with an untraceable memory leak with Vista. I have checked
all
files on the OS and none of them seem to be increasing in size yet im
still
loosing memory even by the hour!. I havnt been running any updates etc or
anything that could potentially take up any memory yet it still seems to
be
disapearing. PLease help...

RAM, or is it your hard drive space disappearing?

If the latter, it is probably System Restore and Shadow Copies. You can
disable these functions, but it is discouraged. Open up the Help file and
type in the above phrases to read up on what this is about.

 

[Adam Albright]

It's normal. Vista uses all available memory for disk caching. It
makes things run faster. When you start an app it will load from cache
if it's already there, making it start much faster.

I have 2 gigs of RAM here and normally run with just 5 or 10 megs free.
You *want* it to use all available resources. RAM sitting there unused
isn't doing you any good.

Did you take a course on stupid somewhere?

RAM filled with things you don't need means Windows FIRST has to flush
that memory and bring in what it DOES need to do what you asked of it.

So much for your "theory".

 

[Mike]

RAM filled with things you don't need means Windows FIRST has to flush
that memory and bring in what it DOES need to do what you asked of it.

Which takes fraction of a second.

So much for your "theory".

It's not a "theory" - it's a fact of how Vista operates. It's one of
the reasons that it runs faster than XP.

Try knowing something about the subject before you post. I know it's a
foreign concept to you, but try anyway.

Mike

 

[Adam Albright]

Which takes fraction of a second.


It's not a "theory" - it's a fact of how Vista operates. It's one of
the reasons that it runs faster than XP.

The "theory" part is that it is a good idea. If it is such a good
idea, then how come Microsoft didn't do it until recently? Every
version of Windows for 20+ years has tinkered with memory management.

Try knowing something about the subject before you post. I know it's a
foreign concept to you, but try anyway.

I know all about idiots like you that post here and fake being expert
when in fact they are mostly clueless morons.

 

[Vista User]

The "theory" part is that it is a good idea. If it is such a good
idea, then how come Microsoft didn't do it until recently? Every
version of Windows for 20+ years has tinkered with memory management.

I know all about idiots like you that post here and fake being expert
when in fact they are mostly clueless morons.

In the past the disk subsystem was not the slowest part of the computer for
the average user.
Today with the faster processors and memory the disk subsystem is now the
bottleneck.
Having information in memory is now much faster then retrieving from the
disk drive so the memory management takes advantage of the memory installed
in the system to do just this.

Do some research.

 

[f/fgeorge]

The "theory" part is that it is a good idea. If it is such a good
idea, then how come Microsoft didn't do it until recently? Every
version of Windows for 20+ years has tinkered with memory management.

I know all about idiots like you that post here and fake being expert
when in fact they are mostly clueless morons.

In this case Adam...you are mistaken. Memory you paid for and then
sitting empty 'waiting' for you to use it is money wasted. MS has
decided that they will cache things, just like the L2 cache on the
cpu, to try and make Vista faster than any previous OS. Does it work?
For some people it does, for others, not so much.

 

[Mike]

The "theory" part is that it is a good idea. If it is such a good
idea, then how come Microsoft didn't do it until recently? Every
version of Windows for 20+ years has tinkered with memory management.

Gee I don't know. Maybe because 2 gigs RAM wasn't very common until
recently? How much caching can you actually do in 512 megs?

Look, the fact is that gobs of unused RAM isn't doing anyone any good -
not the OS, and certainly not the user. Vista is putting it to use.

Do you suppose that the 1 or 2 or 4 megs (or whatever you have) of CPU
cache is sitting largely unused, waiting for you to do something?

I know all about idiots like you that post here and fake being expert
when in fact they are mostly clueless morons.

Yes, you are.

Why do you always resort to personal attacks? Why can't you just admit
that you just *might* be wrong?

Mike

 

[Mike]

In the past the disk subsystem was not the slowest part of the computer for
the average user.
Today with the faster processors and memory the disk subsystem is now the
bottleneck.
Having information in memory is now much faster then retrieving from the
disk drive so the memory management takes advantage of the memory installed
in the system to do just this.

Do some research.

Exactly. He clearly has no idea how this works, and why it is faster
to do so.

Mike

 

[Adam Albright]

In this case Adam...you are mistaken. Memory you paid for and then
sitting empty 'waiting' for you to use it is money wasted. MS has
decided that they will cache things, just like the L2 cache on the
cpu, to try and make Vista faster than any previous OS. Does it work?
For some people it does, for others, not so much.

Exactly. Sometimes it may work, other times not. Some, I dare say most
applications need to wait until Vista dumps whatever is already
hogging memory meaning the application loads slower since Vista first
has to remove "something" first. The "theory" that using all your
memory is smarter is BS if you first need to flush out what is in
memory to make room for what needs to be put in memory. The larger the
application the more of a performance hit you'll theoretically see.

An analogy would be you are using your freezer "better" if you always
keep it 99.9% full. Well is that really true? No, not when you go to
the store and buy something on sale. To put 20 pounds of new food in
the freezer you first have to make room and remove 20 pounds of old
food that's already there. In effect the same thing happens if all
your memory is always in use. Something has to be moved out of memory
BEFORE anything new can be put in memory.

 

[Adam Albright]

In the past the disk subsystem was not the slowest part of the computer for
the average user.
Today with the faster processors and memory the disk subsystem is now the
bottleneck.
Having information in memory is now much faster then retrieving from the
disk drive so the memory management takes advantage of the memory installed
in the system to do just this.

Do some research.

Your ignorance is showing.

What we're really talking about is Vista GUESSING what you'll do next.
If it guesses right, great, whatever it next needs to access is
already in memory. However if it guesses wrong then it has to swap
memory pages to make room for what it ACTUALLY needs to do.

An example would be at boot. As bloated as it is, obviously the parts
of the OS that needs to be loaded into memory to start you off isn't
close to 2 GB assuming you have that much RAM. So if Vista has loaded
up memory assuming it does it based on what you did in the past AND
you do something different, then all that stuff loaded into memory you
don't need needs to be flushed out. That's two steps verses one step
if a certain percentage of memory was kept free as it was in older
versions of Windows. Penny wise, pound foolish. Again, as with most
things it depends HOW you use your computer.

You need a real world example? Well listen up. I do a lot of video
editing. Obviously the source file which can be huge needs to be in
memory in order to work on it. If at boot Vista loads in a old file
when I want to start a new project that means the majority of RAM is
loaded with a file I no longer need. That means Vista wasted time to
load some old video source file into RAM, then it wastes more time to
unload it from RAM then wastes still more time to actually load in the
new source file I'm actually going to work on. So super-fetch can work
for you or against you.

Understand yet?

 

[Mike]

An analogy would be you are using your freezer "better" if you always
keep it 99.9% full. Well is that really true?

Yes, because your freezer is running and using electricity whether it's
full or empty. It's already there (just like your RAM), therefore it's
better to keep it full - just like your RAM.

Would you buy a huge freezer, plug it in and then just keep 4 ice cube
trays in it? That's *exactly* what you are doing with 2 gigs RAM and
running nothing but IE7. 1.6 gigs going unused.

No, not when you go to
the store and buy something on sale. To put 20 pounds of new food in
the freezer you first have to make room and remove 20 pounds of old
food that's already there. In effect the same thing happens if all
your memory is always in use. Something has to be moved out of memory
BEFORE anything new can be put in memory.

But if it only takes a few milliseconds to move it out, then again yes
you absolutely keep it full. The worst case is you load it from disk,
which you would have done anyway. The best case is the app you want is
already in cache, so it loads instantly.

Mike

 

[Vista User]

You just believe what you want.
There is no point trying to explain something to you as your convinced
nobody is correct but yourself.
The fact is it IS faster. Do the research yourself.

 

[Adam Albright]

Gee I don't know. Maybe because 2 gigs RAM wasn't very common until
recently? How much caching can you actually do in 512 megs?

Look, the fact is that gobs of unused RAM isn't doing anyone any good -
not the OS, and certainly not the user. Vista is putting it to use.

Do you suppose that the 1 or 2 or 4 megs (or whatever you have) of CPU
cache is sitting largely unused, waiting for you to do something?


Yes, you are.

Why do you always resort to personal attacks? Why can't you just admit
that you just *might* be wrong?

I'll gladly admit I'm wrong, when I am. Will you agree to do the same?

Don't look like it. Remember the poster Gary and his screaming his BS
about how news servers worked? Well he was dead wrong. He didn't admit
he was wrong until painted into a corner. Ditto for his rants about
color space. That he never admitted to and just tucked tail and
slithered out of the newsgroup after calling me and others a bunch of
names. Way too many posters that think they are right, get proven
wrong and never admit it. I'm constantly called dumb and worse and
every damn time I prove the other guy IS wrong. Amazing.

 

[Mike]

You need a real world example? Well listen up. I do a lot of video
editing. Obviously the source file which can be huge needs to be in
memory in order to work on it. If at boot Vista loads in a old file
when I want to start a new project that means the majority of RAM is
loaded with a file I no longer need. That means Vista wasted time to
load some old video source file into RAM, then it wastes more time to
unload it from RAM then wastes still more time to actually load in the
new source file I'm actually going to work on. So super-fetch can work
for you or against you.

Understand yet?

Yes, we understand. We understand that *you* don't understand.

It takes mere milliseconds for this flush to happen. There is no
complicated "moving things around in RAM to make room". The RAM is
simply allocated to the new, loading app. The OS knows what is cache
and what is real, important data in RAM. The cache simply gets
overwritten and shrinks as more apps and data get loaded.

Your CPU cache works *exactly* the same way. If what you need is in
the cache, then great. If it's not, then it's fetched and it replaces
something else in the cache. If you think this is such a bad idea then
disable your CPU cache and get back to us with how much you speeded up
your system by making it "do less work and waste less time moving things
around in the cache".

Mike

 

[Mike]

I'll gladly admit I'm wrong, when I am. Will you agree to do the same?

Sure, but I'm not wrong here. Caching is a time-tested method for
speeding up computers. We've had software disk caches, hardware disk
caches and CPU caches for years. Are you claiming that all of these
are bad ideas?

Caching works. It works because the penalty for a cache miss is
vanishingly small compared to the huge benefit of a cache hit.

Sure, you can create a scenario (or write a program) that creates more
misses than hits by randomly reading data from all over the drive. But
in the real world, people don't work that way. They tend to load up
the (more or less) same stuff every day.

Of course, the ultimate caching is hibernating or sleeping. Rather than
shutdown Windows (or OS X or Linux or whatever), you either "hibernate"
- which writes ALL RAM to disk and then completely powers down - or
"sleep" - which just powers down the drives and monitor but leaves the
RAM active.

In either case, the next re-start is faster than a cold boot. In the
case of sleep, it's nearly instantaneous, because everything is still in
RAM (cached) and does not need to be re-loaded from the slow disks.
Restarting from hibernation is still faster than rebooting but is slower
than waking from sleep. In both cases, all your apps and data are
exactly where you left them.

Mike

 

[Mike]

You just believe what you want.
There is no point trying to explain something to you as your convinced
nobody is correct but yourself.
The fact is it IS faster. Do the research yourself.

He seems to have a bad case of NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome- if *he*
didn't think of it, then it *must* be wrong.

Mike

 

[Adam Albright]

Yes, because your freezer is running and using electricity whether it's
full or empty. It's already there (just like your RAM), therefore it's
better to keep it full - just like your RAM.

Would you buy a huge freezer, plug it in and then just keep 4 ice cube
trays in it? That's *exactly* what you are doing with 2 gigs RAM and
running nothing but IE7. 1.6 gigs going unused.


But if it only takes a few milliseconds to move it out, then again yes
you absolutely keep it full. The worst case is you load it from disk,
which you would have done anyway. The best case is the app you want is
already in cache, so it loads instantly.

That is the promise but not the reality. I use two large applications
constantly, Photoshop and Sony's Vegas. Neither load instantly. My
guess is Vista is first removing big chunks of what is currently in
RAM to make room for them. So so-called super-fetch seems more hype
than fact. Ditto for Agent, my news reader. First application I fire
up in the morning, yet it doesn't load "instantly" either and it has a
small footprint where it could using your logic always be in RAM. It
obviously isn't.

 

[Adam Albright]

Yes, we understand. We understand that *you* don't understand.

I understand that people that insist on using 'we' when speaking for
themselves have little basis for the argument they are trying to make
thus their foolish need to imply they are speaking for others to
bolster their weak position. ;-)