RAM Usage in Vista

[WylieCoyote]

I have recently installed Vista Home Premium onto my P Dual 3Ghz PC. I have
3GB of RAM installed and was surprised to notice in Task Manager that 948GB
in use, 2349GB cached and no free RAM.

Whilst installing some software, I again checked Task Manager and noted that
I had 10-20MB free whilst the install was happening. When it finished, it was
dropped back to around about the same level but there was no free RAM, it was
all cached again.

Should all my free RAM be cached? Is the caching causing my machine to slow
down (installing software does seem to be taking longer)? Can I stop Vista
from doing this? Should I be worried about this?

Apologies if I'm being a complete dunce on this but I am a little concerned.

Thanks

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I have recently installed Vista Home Premium onto my P Dual 3Ghz PC. I have
3GB of RAM installed and was surprised to notice in Task Manager that 948GB
in use, 2349GB cached and no free RAM.

Whilst installing some software, I again checked Task Manager and noted that
I had 10-20MB free whilst the install was happening. When it finished, it was
dropped back to around about the same level but there was no free RAM, it was
all cached again.

Should all my free RAM be cached? Is the caching causing my machine to slow
down (installing software does seem to be taking longer)? Can I stop Vista
from doing this? Should I be worried about this?

Apologies if I'm being a complete dunce on this but I am a little concerned.

Wanting to minimize the amount of memory Windows uses is a
counterproductive desire. Windows is designed to use all, or 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.

 

[Earle Horton]

Caching is supposed to make your computer run faster. We assume, of course,
that it is caching the right stuff. As someone else pointed out, you didn't
buy all that RAM so it could sit idle. On the other hand, if it is needed
for something else and the cache must be dumped, then caching can at times
slow things down. The assumption is that most of the time the effect is
positive. When the programmer guesses wrong, then things have been cached
that aren't needed and time is lost.

Google "superfetch".

Saludos cordiales,

Earle

 

[Blade]

For me superfetch slowed the machine down and the hard drive would work
almost all of the time, so I disabled this service and now I like my machine
mutch better.

Good Luck