101 MB Memory Free in Vista

[+Gary7 Subscriber²]

I was running Paint so I could save the screenshots.

Yes I know now, the snipping tool only uses 5K of memory. It also is easier to use IMHO.

[ViperAFK]

The snipping tool would be awesome if you could bind it to the print screen key.

[soldier1st]

i use paint still as it does what i tell it to and it is very simple.have not tried the snipping tool yet.

[Dessimat0r]

svchost might have a memory leak due to a bug -- I've had the same thing in the past. with Windows XP. 52mb is rather excessive there, but I think it also uses memory which isn't addressed there (i.e., the service crashes, reloads, and doesn't release the memory). Might be the themes service. Also try installing Service Pack 1 if it isn't already on there.

[Witt3439]

Dessimat0r, there's only one problem. He's running Vista not XP.

As for the svchost, right click on each one one at a time and then click on "Go to Service(s)" and it will show you what service each svchost process is associated with. It looks more like Vista is doing what it's supposed to be doing though, which is a good thing.

What good is it to have all of that RAM if it's just sitting around doing nothing? I wouldn't worry about it.

[CPressland]

Nobody cares if you moved your computers to Ubuntu,but your incesant bashing here @ Neowin,Objectiveley and subjectively is way sick,so please just swallow your damn opinions they are useless.

Chillout dude. I'm not bashing, i'm stating an opinion. My Mac screenshot was a simple joke, get over it. I dont like a Mac over a Windows system or anything. A Computer is a Computer and I HAVE to use them to do my job. Simple as. I was only trying to illustrate to the OP that 101MB of Free RAM is hardly anything to worry about.

And Vegetunks - if indeed you've switched all of your systems away from Vista that would seem to indicate a dislike for the product, don't you think? ;)

My Moving them to a different system was entirely as an experiment, I seamed to be reinstalling the Machines quite frequently (malware etc) as my family members wouldnt know the difference between typing on a keyboard and hammering on a keyboard. Ubuntu seamed to work, they still dualboot into Vista for gaming etc. I really DONT dislike Vista, SP1 has really made it a good system and some of the features are really top notch, it's just still too prone to spyware and such like for N00Bs like my family members.

Honestly this is Windows Vista support, you probably shouldn't be saying crap like this here. So, even though Vista has Superfetch, you still say the memory management is bad? :rolleyes:

I guess I only still rant about Windows Memory management as on the Windows side of things I still mainly use XP, which anyone will admit does have poor memory management. I've never used Vista on a Machine with 4GB+ of memory to truly see what SuperFetch is capable of. But I know that it always "felt" as more of a slowdown then a speed up. I'm only comparing Windows to a Unix System, hardly against the Neowin rules.

[-Hiroshi-]

Yeah, Vista makes use of EVERY piece of ram in your system and caches it for applications to be launched more smoothly. So even though it appears you have no ram left, it shows in the box that only a certain point of your ram is used.

[PyX]

Nobody cares if you moved your computers to Ubuntu,but your incesant bashing here @ Neowin,Objectiveley and subjectively is way sick,so please just swallow your damn opinions they are useless.

I don't care a lot about this thread, except maybe that I learned that free memory was bad, but ... you didn't really say this, didn't you? Another member, maybe, but you? :|

[ManMountain]

To each their own I suppose but for me, Superfetch is a keeper :)

Edited August 31, 2008 by ManMountain

[mike.vutler]

It is a very good selection to delegate experience in choosing 101 MB Memory Free in Vista.One of the first things I did in light of that was to read up on the ReadyBoost function in Windows Vista. If you haven't heard of ReadyBoost, there's a number of good sources that describe it in detail; some of them I'll be referencing here for your after hours reading."Windows ReadyBoost lets users use a removable flash memory device, such as a USB thumb drive, to improve system performance without opening the box. Windows ReadyBoost can improve system performance because it can retrieve data kept on the flash memory more quickly than it can retrieve data kept on the hard disk, decreasing the time you need to wait for your PC to respond."

Mike

WideCircles

[+allan MVC]

My Moving them to a different system was entirely as an experiment, I seamed to be reinstalling the Machines quite frequently (malware etc) as my family members wouldnt know the difference between typing on a keyboard and hammering on a keyboard. Ubuntu seamed to work, they still dualboot into Vista for gaming etc. I really DONT dislike Vista, SP1 has really made it a good system and some of the features are really top notch, it's just still too prone to spyware and such like for N00Bs like my family members.

The OS has NOTHING to do with spyware. Any OS can be attacked and infected with spyware, virus or any form of malware.

[ViperAFK]

The OS has NOTHING to do with spyware. Any OS can be attacked and infected with spyware, virus or any form of malware.

While what you say is "true" there really isn't very many viruses and malware for linux at this time, and I do know what it's like having your family constantly **** up windows machines with viruses and malware, at this day and time it's gonna be really damn hard to get a mac or linux machine infected because there is really no known malware for them at this point.

I have run windows without anti-virus (only scan manually online once a month) and I haven't had a virus in like 3 years.

Edited August 31, 2008 by ViperAFK

[Athlonite]

It is a very good selection to delegate experience in choosing 101 MB Memory Free in Vista.One of the first things I did in light of that was to read up on the ReadyBoost function in Windows Vista. If you haven't heard of ReadyBoost, there's a number of good sources that describe it in detail; some of them I'll be referencing here for your after hours reading."Windows ReadyBoost lets users use a removable flash memory device, such as a USB thumb drive, to improve system performance without opening the box. Windows ReadyBoost can improve system performance because it can retrieve data kept on the flash memory more quickly than it can retrieve data kept on the hard disk, decreasing the time you need to wait for your PC to respond."

Mike

WideCircles

but only if you readyboost usb mem stick and your USB2.0 chipset makes the grade as with me for example my USB mem stick is 4GB it's also readyboost enhanced (which means its faster than the min req) and i have a ULI south bridge for usb2.0 now i know the stick works i seen it in the shop when i bought it i asked to test it first and here now is the problem my socalled usb2.0 enabled chipset is crap it wont let data in the chunk sizes that ready boost requires ie : 128KB and 512KB transfer quick enough so vista just say nope sod off this usb disk is a sack of sludge

[dragon2611]

Personally I don't like superfetch as it seems to increase the amount of needless disc thrashing.

[ViperAFK]

Are your hard drives really that loud? When superfetch is loading the cache I can't even hear it and it doesn't effect the speed of the pc in anyway because it is done in low priority. It also doesn't even last very long, a minute or two to fill the cache.

[MasterC]

You are known to be a nonsense Vista hater,Windows Vista's superfetch uses the momery more efficiently than MAC does

More efficiently than Media Access Control? :rolleyes:

To the OP- Just a side note on the situation, but maybe you could put another 512 of RAM in there to make it an equal 2GB? Then it would run in dual channel mode.

[roadgeek9]

I originally just wanted to know why I had only 101 MB of memory free - I don't think we had to make a huge discussion out of it.

[ViperAFK]

I originally just wanted to know why I had only 101 MB of memory free - I don't think we had to make a huge discussion out of it.

:laugh:

[dragon2611]

Personally I don't like superfetch as it seems to increase the amount of needless disc thrashing.

[soldier1st]

Personally I don't like superfetch as it seems to increase the amount of needless disc thrashing.

you already said that twice,with superfetch i don't hear my hard drives making noise,perhaps your imagining it.i like superfetch as it puts my memory to use unlike xp which does not fully use it.

[dragon2611]

you already said that twice,with superfetch i don't hear my hard drives making noise,perhaps your imagining it.i like superfetch as it puts my memory to use unlike xp which does not fully use it.

Sorry must have posted it, probably then hit the back button for some reason (there is one on the mouse) gone off done something else, come back and hit submit again having forgotten i'd already posted.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Your memory usage looks normal enough. In fact, 617MB of memory usage is fairly low by Vista standards.

There is nearly 1GB of RAM available for allocation according to your screenshot, not 101. The 101MB number is meaningless, you need to add it and the "cached" number to see the available physical memory. You also have a 1.5GB page file (which can expand if needed) to accomodate allocations beyond what can be servied by physical memory.

So no, there is nothing wrong with your memory usage.

Are you sure the error you saw wasn't referring to storage space? ie. disk space on a particular drive?

[roadgeek9]

Are you sure the error you saw wasn't referring to storage space? ie. disk space on a particular drive?

I have 40.1 GB free on my 60 GB system partition and 8.3 GB free on my 13 GB data partition.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

you already said that twice,with superfetch i don't hear my hard drives making noise,perhaps your imagining it.i like superfetch as it puts my memory to use unlike xp which does not fully use it.

If you have a large amount of memory, you may hear your drive reading lots of data after start-up has completed (and all apps have loaded), or after you exit a program that committed large amounts of memory (typically a game or something).

However, most people have hard drives they can't really hear, so this makes no difference. The I/O happens in the background and should not interfere with user-requrested I/O operations.

If you have drive noise while your machine is idle (and you haven't just copied or changed thousands of files), then the noise is more likely caused by something like Defender, a virus scanner, or background defrag.

I have 40.1 GB free on my 60 GB system partition and 8.3 GB free on my 13 GB data partition.

What was the exact error and when was it encountered? Is it reproducible?

Lots of applications use the E_OUTOFMEMORY error as the default error for when creating an object fails. It's possible this is simply the incorrect error message being shown for an unexpected error case. Do you have the latest version of AVG? Do you have problem with any other applications?

[jjrambo]

Only 617mb are used and the rest are cached for smoother usage.

Unused memory, is a wasted memory.

The stupidest statement which came from Microsoft world.