The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Vista 32bit ram issue

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by crazychu, Jan 9, 2008.

  1. crazychu

    crazychu Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    186
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    where is all my ram going? in the screenshot below, it says that i have 2045 mb (2gb) of total ram, but its only cached 1403mbs of it, and that it has 16mbs free, where is the rest of my ram? i should have about 600mbs left or ram right?
    is there a way to control how much ram is being used or..
     

    Attached Files:

    crazychu, Jan 9, 2008
    #1
  2. wullger

    wullger Notebook Guru

    Reputations:
    2
    Messages:
    64
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    wullger, Jan 9, 2008
    #2
  3. Pureknight

    Pureknight Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    50
    Messages:
    157
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Did you even read his post? His problem is clearly not the 4 gig ram issue. Your 600 mb might be used for open applications, and the remaining ram is cached, ready to be used when necessary. I wouldn't worry, as long as you don't get ''out of memory'' errors.
     
    Pureknight, Jan 9, 2008
    #3
  4. John Ratsey

    John Ratsey Moderately inquisitive Super Moderator

    Reputations:
    7,197
    Messages:
    28,841
    Likes Received:
    2,166
    Trophy Points:
    581
    The problem is with understanding the info provided by Task Manager, which doesn't seem to add up.

    Actual physical memory usage in this example is 810MB and, I would hope, is consistent with the total physical memory being used by all the processes and programs. I am assuming this is Vista which uses space RAM as a cache to pre-load files which Vista thinks you might use. This is shown as 1403MB. Sensibly, 810+1403 should equal the total physical RAM, but does not (maybe some of the cache is in the paging file?).

    If you start up more applications you should see the physical RAM usage increase and the Cached RAM decrease.

    John
     
    John Ratsey, Jan 9, 2008
    #4
  5. klutchrider

    klutchrider Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    21
    Messages:
    538
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    You have a gremlin living inside your system, but really that is weird and I don't know, but as long as your computer still runs without any issues I wouldn't concern myself over it to much.
     
    klutchrider, Jan 10, 2008
    #5
  6. Bog

    Bog Losing it...

    Reputations:
    4,018
    Messages:
    6,046
    Likes Received:
    7
    Trophy Points:
    206
    The operating system itself as well as the programs it is running are using that 600MB. Vista is using the other 1400MB as cache space.
     
    Bog, Jan 10, 2008
    #6
  7. allan_huang

    allan_huang Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    25
    Messages:
    1,030
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    Download FreeRAM XP Pro to keep track of your free ram.
    Works with Vista
     
    allan_huang, Jan 10, 2008
    #7
  8. JCMS

    JCMS Notebook Prophet

    Reputations:
    455
    Messages:
    4,674
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    105
    When you run a game /app, the memory this app needs will be taken from the cached memory

    Let me do an exemple

    In this pic, you ahve 1400MB cached, if you run a game that needs 700MB of RAM, the cached memory will drop to 700MB :)
     
    JCMS, Jan 10, 2008
    #8
  9. Luposian

    Luposian Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    1
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    I installed 4Gb of RAM into my Compaq laptop (Compaq says it will only take 2Gb but the BIOS, as well as Vista, SAYS it sees all 4Gb), but now, when I boot it up, the drive light is lit for a long time after reaching the desktop. I discovered, this is because it's supposedly copying (caching?) a bunch of stuff from the HD. But what is it caching and why? And why is it so slow in doing it? I have a Compaq Presario F500-series laptop w/ Athlon 64 X2 (TK-53 @ 1.7GHz) CPU. and it's "copying" (caching) at around 15-20Mb/sec. on a 5400RPM 2.5" SATA drive! Isn't that REALLY slow for SATA?

    My 4Gb of RAM is 800Mhz DDR2 SODIMMs (I had two 512Mb 667Mhz DDR2 SODIMMs (1Gb total) originally).

    Is there a way of turning this "feature" off or is it simply inherent to Vista and completely unavoidable?

    How much of my 4Gb is it ACTUALLY using/seeing? Am I simply wasting memory it can't see/use? Can adding in more RAM than Vista 32-bit can use, negatively affect performance?

    Latre!

    Luposian
     
    Luposian, Jun 26, 2008
    #9