normal resource usage?

[jaypels]

when on standby, my windows gadget shows my resources are at 46% to 50%. is this normal? i have an acer aspire 4745g laptop. processor is an i5 with 2gb of ddr3 ram and 512mb radeon hd 5470.. i've attached a snip of my task manager. firefox shows that i have a 73064k even if i only have 2 tabs open. one for my yahoomail and one for seven forums. is this normal?

 

[profdlp]

Click the button at the bottom labeled "Show processes from all users" and post another screenshot. Most laptops come loaded with all sorts of unnecessary stuff.

How much RAM do you have?

 

[jaypels]

i could not fit all the processes in one snip. i'll upload it in three files. i have 2gb of ddr3 ram..

 

[logicearth]

It is fine. Until you have a high level of Page Faults (viewable in Resource Monitor) you do not need to worry about memory.

 

[jaypels]

i see.. i was just curious because my i5 with 2gb ddr3 ram laptop shows the same standby resource usage as my core2duo with 2gb ddr2 ram desktop.

@logicearth i found the resource monitor button but not the page fault tab. where do i find it and what is my indicator that it is not ok?

 

[logicearth]

@logicearth i found the resource monitor button but not the page fault tab. where do i find it and what is my indicator that it is not ok?

Memory tab, then one of the graphs on the far right should have that information for you.
It will be labeled "Hard Faults"

 

[karlsnooks]

i see.. i was just curious because my i5 with 2gb ddr3 ram laptop shows the same standby resource usage as my core2duo with 2gb ddr2 ram desktop.

@logicearth i found the resource monitor button but not the page fault tab. where do i find it and what is my indicator that it is not ok?

Resource Monitor Memory tab look in the hard faults column

 

[profdlp]

With 2Gb of RAM that seems about right. One thing that took me some getting used to was that Win7 likes to have your RAM actually doing something. The old mindset with previous Windows versions was that you wanted to have a lot of memory available. Win7 manages it better and will free up resources as you need them. Another way of looking at it is that having a bunch of free RAM doesn't do a thing to boost performance. Since RAM is faster than the page file on your hard drive, why not put it to good use?

 

[jaypels]

With 2Gb of RAM that seems about right. One thing that took me some getting used to was that Win7 likes to have your RAM actually doing something. The old mindset with previous Windows versions was that you wanted to have a lot of memory available. Win7 manages it better and will free up resources as you need them. Another way of looking at it is that having a bunch of free RAM doesn't do a thing to boost performance. Since RAM is faster than the page file on your hard drive, why not put it to good use?

i see.. i am enlightened a bit. thanks everyone for the info! thank you for the quick reply and a big thank you to profdlp for the impressive explanation.