VERY high mem usage

[blah380]

Hey guys, I have Windows 7 RC1 (build 7000) x64 in English. While idling, Windows is using ~7GB of RAM (I have 12GB total).

I have NOTHING running that comes even CLOSE to this amount of usage, so what's going on?

Also, why the hell did it decide that 1GB isn't enough memory for my Nvidia 285GTX? 7 has assigned 3.5GB of my system RAM to be "shared" with my video card (my motherboard has NO integrated video).

Specs:
Core i7 @ 3.2Ghz
12GB DDR3 @ 1600Mhz
Nvidia 285GTX 1GB DDR3

 

[Brink]

Hello Blah, and welcome to Seven Forums.

You might check in Resource Monitor under the Memory tab to see if it can help determine what is using your active memory up.



Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[blah380]

Thanks for the welcome, Brink.

I did check it out, and got the same memory usage - it MAY add up to 2GB, but not 7.

 

[Brink]

Does is continue like this if you log off and log on, or restart the computer?

 

[blah380]

Yes. Because my primary drive is a SSD, I had page file disabled, and my memory usage was at 8GB (all available RAM used). I reenabled page file and rebooted, and it jumped to 7GB.

After exploring a bit, I have disabled Aero (or at least made it the Basic theme), and disabled page file again, and my memory usage is staying at ~1.3GB. So, it seems Aero is the source of it, but how and why? Perhaps this is addressed in a later build?

 

[Brink]

Strange. What build do you have? I have the 7600 RTM build with Aero enabled without transparency, and no high memory usage like this.

 

[blah380]

I'm currently on RC1 (build 7000).

I have been using 7 since build 6048 or some junk on both my desktop and laptop, but I have not seen memory usage like this until now, either (I just updated my PC with new parts).

Once again, my theme is set to Aero Basic.

 

[Brink]

It may have just been a temporary glitch with Task Manager not updating the graph properly. It worked fine in the 7000 build for me to.

 

[Blackhawk7188]

You might services starting that are wasting your memory. Is there any chance you have a virus or something that is running in the background and wasting your memory. Just a couple of questions.

 

[Frostbite]

Try running this Process Explorer
add a column called Private Bytes on the Process Memory tab in select columns then sort by that.

 

[nate42nd]

I had this happen to me today. I was trying to run a chkdsk on an external HD. I have the paging file disabled (with SSD and 8GB RAM) build 7229 and it told me I was running low on memory.

I looked at resource monitor and "explorer.exe" was using 7.5 GB or RAM.

I restarted and it went away. Never seen this before....

Just for everyones information.

 

[Frostbite]

I had this happen to me today. I was trying to run a chkdsk on an external HD. I have the paging file disabled (with SSD and 8GB RAM) build 7229 and it told me I was running low on memory.

I looked at resource monitor and "explorer.exe" was using 7.5 GB or RAM.

I restarted and it went away. Never seen this before....

Just for everyones information.

Check this thread out
http://www.sevenforums.com/news/19372-critical-showstopper-bug-windows-7-rtm.html

 

[blah380]

Update speed was normal;

It was (and still is) a clean install of Windows, so no, no chance of infection;

The services were default;

I tried Process Explorer, it showed a total of about 3GB worth of programs under process memory tab;

This is not 7 RTM, it's RC1.

Rebooting did not fix the issue. The primary drive is a brand new SSD, so I doubt it's fragmentation or data corruption.

 

[nate42nd]

Check this thread out
http://www.sevenforums.com/news/19372-critical-showstopper-bug-windows-7-rtm.html

Interesting. huh

I wonder if or why this issue is just coming to light. Maybe it's been a known issue. Funny there are some recent threads about this the last day or two....

 

[blah380]

Interesting. But I wasn't running a check disk... I HAD opened a game (Unreal Tournament 3). It was closed, and the process was ended, however.

 

[johngalt]

You have to remember - most people don't have that much RAM and thus don't have the ability to have all their stuff in RAM - you do - so it is not surprising to see it using that much b/c it has that much available an still has 5 GB free.

*and* you had your pagefile off b/c of the SSD....

 

[spazzie]

Hey guys, I have Windows 7 RC1 (build 7000) x64 in English. While idling, Windows is using ~7GB of RAM (I have 12GB total).
I have NOTHING running that comes even CLOSE to this amount of usage, so what's going on?

Well in the old days of Windows XP you could install more RAM and you would receive a performance boost.

Nowdays Windows Vista / WIndows 7 will cache applications off HDD to all of your RAM like in my case powerpoint, excel and a host of other apps I rarely use. Awesome use of my RAM huh!

I've found foreground applications / the desktop in Vista and Windows 7 slower than Windows XP as a result.

 

[blah380]

You have to remember - most people don't have that much RAM and thus don't have the ability to have all their stuff in RAM - you do - so it is not surprising to see it using that much b/c it has that much available an still has 5 GB free.

*and* you had your pagefile off b/c of the SSD....

So what you're saying is, Windows detects how good a computer you have and runs more applications if you have more memory?

This is complete and utter ****. Windows runs the same apps if you have 512MB of RAM or 128GB of it.

Having my page file off does not affect my current memory usage by 6GB, especially when nothing except the OS, Firefox, and Pidgin are running.

Perhaps you don't understand page filing - it's space on your hard drive that's used as if it was RAM. Since I had nothing running, it doesn't matter if page filing is enabled or not - nothing would have been page filed.

 

[blah380]

It's happening again.

 

[gamepro127]

So what you're saying is, Windows detects how good a computer you have and runs more applications if you have more memory?

This is complete and utter ****. Windows runs the same apps if you have 512MB of RAM or 128GB of it.

Having my page file off does not affect my current memory usage by 6GB, especially when nothing except the OS, Firefox, and Pidgin are running.

Perhaps you don't understand page filing - it's space on your hard drive that's used as if it was RAM. Since I had nothing running, it doesn't matter if page filing is enabled or not - nothing would have been page filed.

Im actually having the same Issue, but Im using 32-bit with 3GB of RAM.
Heres what Ive noticed
After a fresh reboot, my RAM usage is below 800MB and ESET NOD32 AntiVirus V4 is using 40MB of RAM.
For no reason, the RAM likes to go up and uses about 75% of my 3GB. Here, ESET lowers its self to 10MB.
And on my VERY OLD pc running windows XP performance edition, 256MB of RAM. Ive seen ESET go UNDER 1MB of RAM usage.
Now thats good performance!!!
I think its the same for most other pcs...
Look at mcafee, it uses 300MB of RAM during a scan if you have like 3GB RAM+++
OR 100MB if you have 526MB (Which is still, HORRIBLE considering ESET uses 10MB to scan with 256MB RAM, ROFL)
Weird....
Oh well, Firefox loves to eat 200MB. Thats nothing.
WTF is using my RAM? It should be lower than 1GB!!!