Most Windows 7 PCs max out memory.

[seekermeister]

dgwin7,

BTW *never never let any apps or anti-virus apps running in background while you are play games, any games don't need anti-virus app at all also avoid bloated.

Do you go so far as to include programs that start on boot and are parked in the notification area?

 

[Barman58]

BTW *never never let any apps or anti-virus apps running in background while you are play games, any games don't need anti-virus app at all also avoid bloated.

Just my 2 cents.

dg

A valid point as long as you disconnect your machine from the outside world before you disable your protection

 

[dgwin7]

BTW *never never let any apps or anti-virus apps running in background while you are play games, any games don't need anti-virus app at all also avoid bloated.

Just my 2 cents.

dg

A valid point as long as you disconnect your machine from the outside world before you disable your protection

LOL

 

[CarlTR6]

I have an old machine with with 2.5 Gb RAM. I use Areo, have two gadgets running along with an AV and firewall program, run Outlook, and run Firefox with tabs minimum continuously running. I have never seen my RAM useage over 60%. It is usually between 34% and 42%.

 

[Night Hawk]

BTW *never never let any apps or anti-virus apps running in background while you are play games, any games don't need anti-virus app at all also avoid bloated.

Just my 2 cents.

dg

A valid point as long as you disconnect your machine from the outside world before you disable your protection

And you know too often the online gamers simply forget that one!

As far as the main topic here I found a good rebuttal followup blog about the COMPUTERWORLD article.

February 18th, 2010

86% of Windows 7 PCs maxing out memory ... really?

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 8:12 am

I’ve had so many emails hit my inbox overnight about a story over on ComputerWorld citing data collected by Devil Mountain Software’s community-based XPnet claiming that some 86% of Windows 7 machines being monitored are regularly consuming 90-95% of the system RAM that I’m forced from silence to comment.

OK, let me begin by telling you why I wasn’t going to cover this story. Well, I’ll be honest with you, it’s because XPnet’s data isn’t a data source that’s on my trusted list. Collecting and correlating data is a tricky business, and there are too many mysteries surrounding how XPnet data is collected and what data is collected for me to get a clear picture of what’s going on. Those are my thought and feelings on the issue, but I encourage you to come to your own conclusions.

OK, but with that out of the way, let’s take a look at the claim.

86% of Windows 7 machines in the XPnet pool are regularly consuming 90%-95% of their available RAM

The rest of the reluctant writer's comments can be seen at: 86% of Windows 7 PCs maxing out memory ... really? | Hardware 2.0 | ZDNet.com

 

[BugMeister]

gotta be total rhubarb..!!:huh:

 

[valtonray]

That is something I do not understand. When I walk thru the computer stores, most Win7 systems have 4GBs and more - and they all have 64bit. No way to find a 32bit system which we were looking for because a friend needed that to run a bundle of very expensive programs for her business from 32bit Vista. My win7 systems usually run around 1GB of RAM usage. So where is the problem.

i dont see why your friends programs wont run in 64 bit. which programs are they using. 64 bit windows emulates a 32 bit environment very well and the rare instances of these problems are becoming practically unheard of.

 

[MiguelAngelXP]

I don't believe it

hmmm well , here's a image of my memory usage (just surfing the net)

Regards
MiguelAngelXP

 

[valtonray]

hmmm well , here's a image of my memory usage (just surfing the net)

Regards
MiguelAngelXP

it looks to me like avast is busy maybe that will explain some of it. try looking for memory leaks in your system otherwise.

 

[KazeNoKoe23]

I'm using about 37% of my 2 GB on my netbook. XPnet fails hard.

 

[Uber Philf]

I have an old PC with 1GB of RAM with XP and Win 7 both 32bit installed and Win 7 always crashes due to lack of RAM.

That can't be right, i've installed W7 on a 512mb RAM laptop, and it has NEVER crashed due to low memory.

And back to topic, i've got 8GB RAM installed, and only had it get to 7.8GB cause i was installing a game, and i had 2 Virtual Machines running.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there

I'm not sure which version of Windows you are running but I've even got W7 X-32 PROFESSIONAL to run on an old dell with 640 MB RAM and it ran better than the XP system previously existing on it.

Something isn't right with your setup -- unless your video RAM has "eaten" most of your real RAM.

On some of these earlier computers you can "switch off" Video RAM shadowing in the BIOS - this used to allocate part of the RAM in the old BIOS to the actual RAM in the computer as BIOS RAM used to be slower than the motherboard RAM.

Shadowing meant that the OS would access memory RAM rather than the BIOS RAM for video -- of course this means less for the OS but with the earlier OS'es this wasn't particularly a significant problem.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[foadywm]

That is something I do not understand. When I walk thru the computer stores, most Win7 systems have 4GBs and more - and they all have 64bit. No way to find a 32bit system which we were looking for because a friend needed that to run a bundle of very expensive programs for her business from 32bit Vista. My win7 systems usually run around 1GB of RAM usage. So where is the problem.

i dont see why your friends programs wont run in 64 bit. which programs are they using. 64 bit windows emulates a 32 bit environment very well and the rare instances of these problems are becoming practically unheard of.

there are plently of apps(even newer ones) that will not run under 64 bit. 64 bit windows emmulates 32 bit to a certain point and only to a certain point.

 

[Boris]

Question: Why users max out on ram?

Answer: Games

 

[pparks1]

there are plently of apps(even newer ones) that will not run under 64 bit. 64 bit windows emmulates 32 bit to a certain point and only to a certain point.

Any examples of apps which are 32-bit that aren't running properly? Everything that I have ever thrown at my 64-bit Windows 7 systems at home and at work have worked properly. 16-bit apps don't work...but that is to be expected.

 

[macgyver2]

OK I just read the zdnet article and see that 2.6GB is avail acording to task manager, and only 100mb is fee. So I have a question, if I disable superfetch would my avail now become the same as free? granted I could test this myself but not sure what impact that would have on my system.

So I should have 2.6GB free and avail if I understand this correctly.

 

[pparks1]

You could disable superfetch and it should do that. However, it's the same as free when it's cached. The OS will use it when it needs it. Not sure why you want it to show "free" so badly.

 

[macgyver2]

update. Well I disable the superfetch service and rebooted. the Avail was 2.7GB and free was 2.4GB. I restarted superfetch and its not using my ram at the current time so the avail is currently 2.8gb and free is 2.4 but my used has dropped from 1.2gb to 958mb and the only thing I disabled from before the 2 restarts was punkbuster which according to task manager was only using 2mb anyway.

now i wonder what was using almost 250mb of my ram that is not running now.

oh I don't want it just have the curiosity of a few million cats LOL I love experimenting on my computers even when they are my main machines. Things like this are fun for me. I should have a second machine for this type of thing but then I wouldn't have the thrill factor of possible having to use my backup.

 

[whs]

there are plently of apps(even newer ones) that will not run under 64 bit. 64 bit windows emmulates 32 bit to a certain point and only to a certain point.

Any examples of apps which are 32-bit that aren't running properly? Everything that I have ever thrown at my 64-bit Windows 7 systems at home and at work have worked properly. 16-bit apps don't work...but that is to be expected.

For starters the free REVO does not run - you need to buy the 64bit version. Then AppLauncher and Weatherbug gadgets do not run in the tweaked sidebar. I also have a (paid) video capture program and a video editing program that do not run. I am sure there are more examples. My friends applications do not run either but I did not explore the why and what.

 

[madtownidiot]

I have not found any applications that worked in xp or vista (32 or 64bit) that I could not get working in windows 7