[theedaddy7]

Hi there. I have 3 GBs of DDR3 ram on my Windows Vista 64 bit Dell comp. W/ vista, windows sidebar , avast antivirus and norton antibot and firefox running, i'm using
40% of this memory. After closing avast, windows sidebar and norton antibot, leaving only 1 firefox browser and Vista running, the task manager shows that I am still using 1.08 GB of memory. I've determined using GEEks to go that I am not infected w/ a bot or any malware that is sucking up my computer's resources. So what is using all this memory? Please help! You guys are the greatest! Thank you

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Firefox. Definitely!

How many add-ons (extensions) do you run?

What are the extensions you run?

[DragonMaster Jay]

Firefox. Definitely!

How many add-ons (extensions) do you run?

What are the extensions you run?

[theedaddy7]

I suspect the problem is not so much firefox. w/ only vista running (at least from what I can see) i am consuming 44% of my 3gb ram. That is way too high, no?
Also, I do not have any firefox extensions...

[DragonMaster Jay]

Please download Process Explorer.

• Unzip the folder and open it.
• Double click on procexp.exe
• When you see a load of processes in the window, please click File>Save As, and save it to your desktop.
• Upload the file as an attachment to your next post, or open the file and copy+paste it in to your next reply.

We need information about your processes.

[Broni]

It's normal.
Vista handles RAM in very different way, than previous Windows versions.
Read here: http://www.codinghor...ves/000688.html

[DragonMaster Jay]

Thanks for the insight, Broni.

There you have it, theedaddy7.

[Broni]

You're welcome

[theedaddy7]

Thank you Broni and Dragonmaster Jay,

My little brother's labtop w/ Windows Vista says that w/ no other obvious applications running, he is consuming ~800 mgb of ram. 900 mgb of ram
was shown on the windows vista task manager screen shot on the link that Broni provided.

however, my task manager w/ no other obvious applications running shows 1.3 GB of ram. that's 500 more than my brother's and 400 more than
the windows vista screen manager. What is using that extra RAM on my computer? THANK YOU!

[Broni]

If you read my link, you'd know, that nothing is USING RAM.
In Vista, almost all available RAM is cached, ready for use, in simple terms.
In XP, for instance, the very same RAM would be listed as "free".
Vista's philosophy is: "free RAM is a wasted RAM".
Why to keep it as free, if it can be cached already, ready to go.

[DragonMaster Jay]

Well said!

[Broni]

[theedaddy7]

Broni,

Thank you for the help. I have read your link. One mystery still remains. My brother also uses Windows Vista. His comp's task manager reports 800 mg of ram being
CACHED. the screen shot from the article taken off a windows vista machine also shows approx 900 mg of ram being CACHED. Why does my vista machine report a mucher higher number of 1.3 gb. REmember, I'm comparing windows vista to windows vista here. Thank you!

[Broni]

It depends mostly on how much total RAM is installed.

[PedroDaGR8]

Yep as Broni said, it doesn't just say Cache 800MB of ram across all systems. It looks at each system and caches a certain amount based on the total amount of ram available (say you have 4gb of ram it caches 2.6 GB or whatever). This is a good thing because RAM is MUCH faster than your HD, this allows your programs to load much faster. Also, due to the nature of the current types of RAM being used, all spaces are continuously refreshed anyways so there is no energy usage penalty for caching like this, since it uses the same amount of energy to refresh an empty memory location as a filled one. So it is a win-win, faster loading times with no penalty.

[Broni]

Another difference comes from Vista allocating RAM for some other activities, like supporting on-board video, for instance.