Sever Problem with Windows 7 and RAM Usage

There is definitely something wrong with Windows 7 64-bit and its use of physical RAM. I have an Alienware M17x 4-core with 4 GB RAM. Amongst the reported problems here on this forum with Win7's use of RAM I experiened a certain behavior that to me is just plainly unexceptable.

I booted the laptop and then let it settle down out of its boot. At this point it was using just 1.37 GB of RAM. The 4-cores were each equally settled in at idle. I came back 4 hours later after doing absolutely nothing and found that the RAM usage was at 100% with 0% unused RAM.

The computer was at a complete crawl taking over 5 minutes to go from one window to another. It took over 20 minutes to shutdown and turn the computer off.

I have read all the conversations here surrounding this topic and most of them seem to let Windows 7 off the hook. But this is something that Microsoft cannot be left off the hook for. There is definitely a memory leak occurring for some reason or as a result of some feature that Windows is trying to provide to the user.

I think this behavior is totally unacceptable, unwarranted and not correct and needs to be investigated thoroughly to identify the root cause of this huge problem. I cannot buy anyone's excuse posted anywhere in this forum that dismisses this problem. This just isn't correct nor efficient or proficient operating system behavior.

M17x said:

There is definitely something wrong with Windows 7 64-bit and its use of physical RAM. I have an Alienware M17x 4-core with 4 GB RAM. Amongst the reported problems here on this forum with Win7's use of RAM I experiened a certain behavior that to me is just plainly unexceptable.

I booted the laptop and then let it settle down out of its boot. At this point it was using just 1.37 GB of RAM. The 4-cores were each equally settled in at idle. I came back 4 hours later after doing absolutely nothing and found that the RAM usage was at 100% with 0% unused RAM.

The computer was at a complete crawl taking over 5 minutes to go from one window to another. It took over 20 minutes to shutdown and turn the computer off.

I have read all the conversations here surrounding this topic and most of them seem to let Windows 7 off the hook. But this is something that Microsoft cannot be left off the hook for. There is definitely a memory leak occurring for some reason or as a result of some feature that Windows is trying to provide to the user.

I think this behavior is totally unacceptable, unwarranted and not correct and needs to be investigated thoroughly to identify the root cause of this huge problem. I cannot buy anyone's excuse posted anywhere in this forum that dismisses this problem. This just isn't correct nor efficient or proficient operating system behavior.

Hi and welcome

I can understand your frustration, and would like to give you a hand in fixing it if you are inclined.


Ken J+

We wont know until and uneless the OP wants to work on it. I suspect I know what it is (svchost) but cant know until the op is ready to move on.

Ken J+

I'm ready to move on this. There are no other applications installed except Windows Office 2007 which was already on the computer. What's next?

zigzag3143 said:

We wont know until and uneless the OP wants to work on it. I suspect I know what it is (svchost) but cant know until the op is ready to move on.

Ken J+

I noticed the other night that 8 copies of svchost were loaded. I never remember windows XP ever loading this many copies of svchost.

logicearth said:

SVCHOST is just a host process for other processes. It is not the source of a memory leak. Multiple SVCHOST process should be running with each running a different group of Services and other processes.

Interestingly all I have been doing is writing on this forum using explorer and went from 30% usage to now now 70%...with just one explorer windows open. BTW I checked svchost and there are no svchost processes loaded.