My RAM usage?

Hi, I am currently running a windows vista premium and I have 3gb of ram. I just wanted to know why when i go to task manager and pess on performance, even when I am running nothing at all, my laptop still uses around 1gb of memory??? And what does cached memory mean? Thanks a lot!

 

Since RAM is a lot faster than the hard drive, Windows Vista and 7(I guess..) copies files that you often into RAM so they can be accessed faster.

A cache is basically a copy.

 

so...when i first get the new computer, there is like no cache right? how do i delete the cache?

 

I don't think you can. The cache size is automagically reduced when other programs need the RAM it is using.

 

Whenever Vista boots, it will preload application and Windows files that are often accessed into RAM, so your computer will feel faster and more responsive. I don't think there's a way to "delete" this memory cache, and there will only be negative effects even if this is possible.

The thing is, people feel that the less RAM that is being used, the better, but that is poor reasoning - why not use more RAM to speed up the overall experience of the end user? That philosophy is a major difference between how XP [poorly] handles memory and how Vista/Win7 handles memory - unused RAM is wasted RAM.

Don't worry about the 1GB used. On my computer with 2GB of RAM, typically 40-60% of it is being used with only one or two applications open. It's a good thing that the RAM is being used by Vista (and besides, Vista will free up the RAM that it uses if it really is necessary to do so).

 

^

+1 to that.

 

Pretty much everything seems to have been covered in this thread.

If you're interested in learning more about the various information that Task Manager offers, Windows Help actually has a lot of explanations.

 

Alright thanks guys.

 

On my Vista 64bit ultimate with 4GB of ram, I have 2GB memory used idling and 4GB + 2-8GB of page file used when I am doing serious things.