Weird RAM Usage

Hey guys,

First of all, I have 2 Gbytes of RAM.

In the past days, RAM usage on my PC was normal like 600-700mb at idle, 800-1500mb when used. Since yesterday, RAM usage became weird, like MSE v2 consuming like 70mb (see attached screenshot), Emsisoft Anti-Malware at around 30mb (before it was 1-2mb only), svchost.exe at around 30mb as well, and a bunch of processes (see screenshot).

Processes started hogging my RAM after I re-enabled scheduled scanning on MSE. Disabling scheduled scanning on MSE doesn't work. Reinstalling the program doesn't work either. I have uninstalled some startup/background apps but it doesn't work. RAM usage is now at 900-1500mb at IDLE.

Please help.

Thanks.

Hi Francis,

At first glance, you have three AV suites- MSE, avast and Emsisoft. Dont know whether they are all running in real time or whether one or more is on-demand only. You may want to check whether you need that many. If you want my advice, use MSE as your resident AV, along with an on-demand scanner like MBAM. Uninstall the rest, your security needs will be taken care of.

Also, you have a lot of instances of chrome running. Plus in general quite a no. of processes (77). Since you have only 2 gigs of RAM, take a look at trimming processes a bit, that'll bring RAM usage down. You can check msconfig for processes and services that start automatically at windows startup and if they are not important, just uncheck. You can start anything you need later manually.

Bill2 said:

Hi Francis,

At first glance, you have three AV suites- MSE, avast and Emsisoft. Dont know whether they are all running in real time or whether one or more is on-demand only. You may want to check whether you need that many. If you want my advice, use MSE as your resident AV, along with an on-demand scanner like MBAM. Uninstall the rest, your security needs will be taken care of.

Also, you have a lot of instances of chrome running. Plus in general quite a no. of processes (77). Since you have only 2 gigs of RAM, take a look at trimming processes a bit, that'll bring RAM usage down. You can check msconfig for processes and services that start automatically at windows startup and if they are not important, just uncheck. You can start anything you need later manually.

Hello Bill,

So, MSE eating up 70mb of RAM is just normal? Are the processes in the screenshot eating up RAM normally? Emsisoft isn't running in the background as you can see in my system tray. I use it as my on-demand scanner but I don't know why is it running in the background and consumes 30mb unlike before it was only 1-2mb. Right now, avast is using 18mb.

As I said a while ago, uninstalling avast! or MSE doesn't seem to help. If they are uninstalled, then there is a slight decrease in memory because some programs and services are still hogging the memory.

I'm running Chrome 8 dev. It shouldn't be a memory hog right now but .

Have you updated to the new MSE? Its supposed to have a smaller memort footprint.

Bill2 said:

Have you updated to the new MSE? Its supposed to have a smaller memort footprint.

I'm using the beta (2.0.375.0). I know, but its using 70mb as if its an internet security suite. Even programs that are supposed to utilize less resources are now resource hungry.

Try a clean boot diagnosis, may help identify any software/driver conflicts.

How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista or in Windows 7

You can also poke around in the Resource Monitor, look for hard faults, reserved memory.

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/wi...indows/?p=3176

The only other things I can think off is to turn off search, indexing and superfetch. Also, restart your computer, some program may be leaking memory.

I see 19 Google Chrome running is that correct. Keep in mind, just because something is on the task bar doesn't mean it isn't running in the back ground.

Bill2 said:

Try a clean boot diagnosis, may help identify any software/driver conflicts.

How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista or in Windows 7

You can also poke around in the Resource Monitor, look for hard faults, reserved memory.

Investigate memory usage with Windows 7 Resource Monitor | Microsoft Windows | TechRepublic.com

The only other things I can think off is to turn off search, indexing and superfetch. Also, restart your computer, some program may be leaking memory.

These are the screenshots taken during clean boot.
Looks like IE9, Paint, Secunia are now top resource eaters.

Upgrade your RAM to max possible.