Memory Usage

P

Patrick C

I'm an old retired mainframe field engineer from the days when a
multiprocessor system with 6 megs of ram was a big machine. I notice on my
laptop with 1 gig ram is using almost 80% of it's memory with hardly
anything running. Here's a list I manually jotted down from the performance
memory section in control panel.

Commit KB Private KB
svchost.exe 56,812 47,954
(Local System...
Sidebar.exe 58,800 32,588

TeaTimer.exe 35,588 30,892

svchost.exe 35,668 24,556
(netsvc)
QPService.exe 31,012 21,036

svchost.exe 33,328 19,176
(secsvc)
dwm.exe 55,556 18,000

svchost.exe 20,748 10,748
(NetworkSvc...
mmc.exe 19,404 8,956

And so the list continues with lowering task memory users.

Seems the most hogs are svchost, Sidebar, and TeaTimer. I think I can
cutback on Sidebar. I'm not sure where TeaTimer is coming from or why we
have so many copies of svchost running. Can anyone shed some light on
these? Your help would be appreciated.
 
A

Alias

Patrick said:
I'm an old retired mainframe field engineer from the days when a
multiprocessor system with 6 megs of ram was a big machine. I notice on
my laptop with 1 gig ram is using almost 80% of it's memory with hardly
anything running. Here's a list I manually jotted down from the
performance memory section in control panel.

Commit KB Private KB
svchost.exe 56,812 47,954
(Local System...
Sidebar.exe 58,800 32,588

TeaTimer.exe 35,588 30,892

svchost.exe 35,668 24,556
(netsvc)
QPService.exe 31,012 21,036

svchost.exe 33,328 19,176
(secsvc)
dwm.exe 55,556 18,000

svchost.exe 20,748 10,748
(NetworkSvc...
mmc.exe 19,404 8,956

And so the list continues with lowering task memory users.

Seems the most hogs are svchost, Sidebar, and TeaTimer. I think I can
cutback on Sidebar. I'm not sure where TeaTimer is coming from or why
we have so many copies of svchost running. Can anyone shed some light
on these? Your help would be appreciated.
Click to expand...

Tea Timer is a part of Spybot, Search and Destroy. You can untick it in
the Spybot program.

Alias
 
D

Dwarf

Hi Patrick,

A modern operating system (OS) like Vista is able to make more efficient use
of the physical memory on your machine than previously possible with older
OSs. You paid for your memory - it is in your best interest that it is used
as effectively as possible. All machines have a number of background
processes running at all times - these comprise drivers and anti-malware
services together with other processes. For example, my machine has 2GB of
RAM and I have only 55MB free. I only have Windows Mail, 2 Internet Explorer
tabs (3 if you include the 'Reply' panel currently in use) and the 'Windows
Task Manager' open. If I open more programs, such as 'Solitaire' and
'Calculator', the amount of free memory will fall. This is normal behaviour.
Windows supplements the RAM as and when necessary with the Paging File on the
hard disk. The more programs you have open, the more use will be made of your
Paging File. As long as your Paging File is of sufficient size, I wouldn't
worry. You can close the Sidebar and disable TeaTimer (this is part of Spybot
Search and Destroy), but under NO circumstances should you close and disable
any of the instances of svchost.exe as these are essential system processes
and disabling or closing any one of them can cause a fatal system crash. I
strongly advise you to upgrade your memory to 2GB if possible as Vista runs
much better with this amount of memory than with just 1GB like you have at
the moment.
Dwarf
 
P

Patrick C

Thanks Alias and Dwarf, I've cut back on my gadgets, uninstalled Spybot,
until I can get a better handle on how to disable TeaTimer (unchecking
option under tools had no effect) will rely on Adaware and Windows Defender
for now, and plan to increase memory as soon as finances allow in both my
laptop and the wifes' desktop.
 
K

Ken Blake, MVP

I'm an old retired mainframe field engineer from the days when a
multiprocessor system with 6 megs of ram was a big machine. I notice on my
laptop with 1 gig ram is using almost 80% of it's memory with hardly
anything running.
Click to expand...


Two points:

1. How much RAM you need for good performance depends on what apps you
run, but 1GB is insufficient RAM for almost everyone running Vista
with a typical range of business applications. I recommend upgrading
to at least 2GB.

2. Wanting to minimize the amount of memory Windows uses is a
counterproductive desire. Windows is designed to use all, or at least
most, of your memory, all the time, and that's good not bad. Free
memory is wasted memory. You paid for it all and shouldn't want to see
any of it wasted.

Windows works hard to find a use for all the memory you have all the
time. For example if your apps don't need some of it, it will use that
part for caching, then give it back when your apps later need it. In
this way Windows keeps all your memory working for you all the time.
 
P

Patrick C

Thanks Ken and Bob, I guess I can assume that whatever % of memory that is
not in use according to the memory portion of the cpu meters in the gagets
is being used as cache.
 
P

Patrick C

Thanks Bob, that's great, something else I didn't know, a lot better than
the gagets meters.
 
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