Idle System RAM/CPU Usage

[EvilOzzmess]

Hey guys, I was wondering if this amount of RAM usage was normal, for just idling after startup:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f177/SS_Ozzy/TskManAfterStartup.png

To me, this seems pretty high and it can go anywhere between what you see here and 1.70GB at times! I notice many systems on here through screenshots being at or well under 1GB for just idling and not doing anything directly after startup, except for mine. I realize my notebook is a multi-touch touchscreen paired with a mutli-gesture mouse pad gizmo and that both must demand more system resources on account of these features than the standard would, but I don’t think those alone should be eating up that much of my RAM.

With that said, how to I pinpoint what is eating all of my RAM and what can I do to get this figure down under 1GB for system idle?

Before we go on let me address this first and foremost, I have NOT messed with startup threads/programs yet because I just don’t know what they are, what they do and if they HAVE to be ran directly at startup or not for the system to run. If you can help me through this as well I would be very grateful and will screenshot what you need to see in order to tell me what to get rid of and what to keep, if necessary.

Currently, this is not interfering with any of my computing tasks, but to be perfectly frank it scares me that my RAM skyrockets to a solid 3GB load doing nothing but playing simple flashgames in Furefox! Same thing for Sims 2 and Sims 3 – that definitely should not be happening as TS2 demands only 256MB and TS3 only 1GB.

More concerning, is the fact that both of my core 2 duo T6600 processors are being maxed out. I don’t know if that is normal, or what the heck it is but this also concerns me a bit.

Just for the sake of keeping system loads low and stable for the future longevity of this system I would really appreciate some help here. Thank you!

 

[IggyAZ]

Hi,
I would like to see the Processors tab in task manager for starters.
It shows you have 87 processes going on after 5 min into your startup.
That is alot of garbage running in the background.
1.Do you have anything in your startup menu?
2. Could it be Media Center updating it database?
3. What virus protection do you have? Do you have it set to scan on bootup?

Here is a picture of mine to show you what my CPU and 2GB of memory is going right now.

 

[Frostmourne]

The garbage is from Acer and the crapware it preloaded on the OP's laptop. Post a shot of Autoruns' logon tab. This has to be purged.

 

[whest]

Yes it is normal w7 doesnt load too much at start up - you have 2gb free which is the one you should watch as it will come down when programs are loaded and your cached will rise - what you have there to me looks completely normal and similar to mine - i have 4gb of memory and home premium 64bit. Maybe a little high, but it depends whether you did the shot 5 minutes after startup or 15 minutes down the track as programs are getting loaded then.

Thats ok but both your cores maxed out on games that wouldnt consume resources doesnt sound correct - it sounds like an incompatbility - have you installed the intel matrix storage manager? - also video drivers maybe - ATI 10.2 is now available. I would also be looking for a more recent driver for the multi - touch touch screen.

ATI - Graphics Drivers & Software

Intel matrix manager - http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=3061&DwnldID=17882&lang=eng

Adobe Flash player - http://www.adobe.com/products/

 

[Frostmourne]

Yes it is normal w7 doesnt load too much at start up - you have 2gb free which is the one you should watch as it will come down when programs are loaded and your cached will rise - what you have there to me looks completely normal and similar to mine - i have 4gb of memory and home premium 64bit.

Thats ok but both your cores maxed out on games that wouldnt consume resources doesnt sound correct - it sounds like an incompatbility - maybe with antivirus program your using - would recommend MSE or updating your chipset drivers or some other driver -video driver maybe - ATI 10.2 is now available.

MSE - http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/default.aspx

ATI - Graphics Drivers & Software

Intel Drivers - http://downloadcenter.intel.com/default.aspx

Normal?

 

[whest]

One question did you install w7 home premium or did it come preinstalled with the laptop ?

Read this it will give you more insight into memory usage :
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=7389&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zdnet%2Fhardware+%28ZDNet+Hardware+2.0%29&alertspromo

 

[EvilOzzmess]

Alright, got the screencaps here:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f177/SS_Ozzy/TskManProcesses1.png
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f177/SS_Ozzy/TskManProcesses2.png

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f177/SS_Ozzy/StartupConfig1.png
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f177/SS_Ozzy/StartupConfig2.png
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f177/SS_Ozzy/StartupConfig3.png



whest: No, I don’t know if I have the Intel Matrix Storage Manager. If Acer didn’t put it on here, then it’s not on here. I’ll see what it is and if I need it though – thanks for the tip. As for drivers, Acer Update Manager reports that there are no new drivers and I’ve confirmed this on the website. All Drivers, from Acer’s site, are current. If they really aren’t, I’ll wait until Acer puts them up on their site so I don’t risk chasing down wild hairs here – had bad experiences doing that on my old PC and want to avoid it.

Yes, 7-64bit came preloaded – without a disk. All I have to work with is a backup that I made of the entire system as-is from the factory which I had to make myself. I don’t know if I can use those disks just to repair windows or anything like that which the retail/OEM OS disk can do though and so I’m stuck with it the way it is, if you were hedging at possibly needing to repair/clean install it or something.

Thanks again for your help guys, really appreciated!

 

[whest]

Thats why i was asking if W7 was preinstalled - and since it is the intel matrix manager wouldnt be needed or you already have the newer version which has a diff name - also if you cant resolve the problem Acer will provide support.

You also have a lot of start up programs - you can disable them by elimination if you want to or guessing which ones the OS needs eg adobe and google on the first page could be deselected i guess. You can do this -control planel - programs and features - left side - "turn windows features on or off" - you will be surprised what you can remove -and they can all be reinstalled by just reselecting them - eg IE8, WMPlayer 11, media Centre - this is great if you dont use them or prefer another eg firefox - realplayer etc

 

[whest]

Something else i Just remembered - web pages with a lot of flash advertisements can use a lot of cpu usage even mine will use over 50% opening some pages let alone playing flash games - so it could be normal.

With the backup thats was a good decision, but i dont think you have a problem, however, if you made the repair disk (you still can), you can use it to recover the system if it packs it in altogether from the disks you made - if you open system restore you might check to see if the backup is listed as a restore point, and use that if something goes wrong. Just click show all restore points.

 

[EvilOzzmess]

I checked off most of the Startup threads in the System Configuration, but it barely put a dent in the RAM consumption. It brought it down to about 1.13GB from the previous 1.19 to 1.23GB Idle average.

Everything else showing up in that startup menu is necessary for my touchscreen and touchpad gizmos to run properly. However, I see about six things in the Processes tab of TskMan that are to blame for this high RAM consumption. I don't know if I should turn those off or not though as they, again, have to do with the touch screen and touchpad gizmos and I wouldn't know where to turn them back on at.



whest: thank you. You mean I can still make a 7 Home Premium x64 disk without having a disk in the first place? I thought in order to do this you already had to have had a install disk to rip everything from to create the new one? I wouldn't even know where to begin to track all of the files down or if there's a magic button somewhere to do it all for you. Let me know if there is though, because that would be very helpful to have later on when the SHTF!

 

[whest]

Open Control Panel - Backup and Restore - Create a system repair disk - it will fit on a 700 mb CD - this is more or less the same as what comes with the W7 install DVD - and can be used if your system fails altogether - you would have to insert your other backup DVD's with the system image - i know it works as I've read the tutorial on ZDNET - I'll try to find the link and post back.

http://www.brighthub.com/computing/windows-platform/articles/30950.aspx

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2083-system-repair-disc-create.html