RAM issue.

Cookeh

Cookeh

Cookeh

Soldato
Joined
21 Jan 2010
Posts
8,442
Location
Ceredigion
'lo,

Past few weeks I've been struggling to launch any application or game, due to the amount of "free" ram my PC has. (See screenie below - a typical value).

I use Vista (trash I know) and 4GB of ram, which should be more than enough to handle Vista and other apps - certainly used to be.

Can anyone think of a reason why its so low and if there is anyway of clearing my ram?

scaled.php


Thanks in advance,
Cookeh
 
Are you getting an error message when you try to launch applications/games?

Have you looked at the Processes tab to see how much RAM is being used by each process?

Have you had a look at the Resource Monitor to see what information that gives?
 
Try 'msconfig' from the run menu. Disable any programs in the startup menu that you do not need to boot the machine. Reboot the computer.
 
Surveyor said:
Are you getting an error message when you try to launch applications/games?

Have you looked at the Processes tab to see how much RAM is being used by each process?

Have you had a look at the Resource Monitor to see what information that gives?
Click to expand...


The game will or app will often boot, then crash out on loading screens, with no common error message. BF3 crashed with the message that amdkmdap drivers had failed and recovered - although from my reading that's associated with graphics memory.

In terms of processes, svchost is the largest using about 350mb (in total, i.e. from all 12 svchosts) and of the other ~50 processes the highest is 20mb (explorer) and the average for them is 7mb.

Resource Monitor shows almost the exact same thing.


nkata said:
Try 'msconfig' from the run menu. Disable any programs in the startup menu that you do not need to boot the machine. Reboot the computer.
Click to expand...

Already done on several occasions - Vista is slow enough to boot without a load of other programs running at start-up :p
 
You've obviously been getting by with 4GB for a while so unless something has suddenly started hogging it all perhaps the RAM has become faulty.

You could try using one stick at a time. It'll only give you 2GB (I assume you have 2x2GB) but at least you'll see if things start without crashing.

Or give Memtest a whirl.
 
Surveyor said:
You've obviously been getting by with 4GB for a while so unless something has suddenly started hogging it all perhaps the RAM has become faulty.

You could try using one stick at a time. It'll only give you 2GB (I assume you have 2x2GB) but at least you'll see if things start without crashing.

Or give Memtest a whirl.
Click to expand...

Wouldnt happen to know if the auto-installs works on Vista would you? Every other Windows OS is listed xD
 
Cookeh said:
Wouldnt happen to know if the auto-installs works on Vista would you? Every other Windows OS is listed xD
Click to expand...

Sorry I don't.

On the occassions I've had to use Memtest I've just burnt the ISO image to CD and then booted from that.

No harm in trying.

Whatever media you put Memtest on then that's what you need to boot from.
 
Get the same amount of 'free' memory with every configuration of ram.

Mounting memtest now, to give that a go.
 
Cookeh said:
Get the same amount of 'free' memory with every configuration of ram.
Click to expand...

Vista is trying to pre-emptively populate every byte of system memory with what it thinks you might need next.

There's an article about it here: Why Does Vista Use All My Memory?

If you read towards the bottom you can see there were some issues with games.

You could try disabling the caching options and see if it does anything: Windows7/Vista: Enable/Disable Superfetch

Superfetch caches data to RAM so that it can be immediately available to your application. Sometimes this can affect the performance of certain applications. It tends to not work well with gaming, but can improve performance with business apps.
Click to expand...
 
Memtest didnt work, odd. Mounted the image, booted from usb drive, and nothing happened :p

I'll give the SuperFetch idea a shot, nice find :D
 
Dont own a CD haha - all my blanks are back at home, hundred and fifty miles away :p

It worked perfectly, 2.5GB free now - all games and apps *seem* to be fine atm
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom