Vista not releasing resources..

Stevev · 24 Mar 2008 at 13:49

This has been bugging me for a few days now, so hopefully someone might be able to help.
The problem is after i've run a program e.g anti-virus scan, my computer won't release the ram it's used for the program.. When i first turn on my computer and leave it idle for about 5mins the computer uses about 650-700mb. After i've run an anti-virus scan it's goes upto about 800-900mb, but no matter how long i leave the computer doing nothing it never returns to what it was when idle even if i leave it 10-15mins. If i do another scan it increases ram usage to about 1.1gig, then after thats finished the ram won't drop below 1.1gig untill i restart.
I've only noticed this since i installed SP1, might of been happening before that but not sure.

Also done numerous scans and its not virus releated. really appreciate any help.

Dolph · 24 Mar 2008 at 13:59

What virus scanner is it?

Stevev · 24 Mar 2008 at 14:02

Anti-vir , but it seems to do it with Ad-aware and spybot search & destroy aswell

Stevev · 24 Mar 2008 at 15:31

I think its Superfetch, would it be safe to stop & the restart superfetch or would that cause problems ?

Dolph · 24 Mar 2008 at 15:34

If it's superfetch, then it's doing what it's supposed to (namely using your memory intelligently). It will release the memory if it's required, but will load programs it predicts you will load soon in the meantime.

Mattus · 24 Mar 2008 at 15:37

My Vista does this all the time.. the more RAM I put in, the more it shows is used. Task Manager frequently shows 2GB or so used, but I've always found Vista to be faster than XP so I presume it's using it intelligently, whatever it's doing with it.

Rackerz · 24 Mar 2008 at 16:26

Try and run a game such as CoD4, then close it. You should have your RAM back.

Dolph · 24 Mar 2008 at 17:01

Mattus said:
My Vista does this all the time.. the more RAM I put in, the more it shows is used. Task Manager frequently shows 2GB or so used, but I've always found Vista to be faster than XP so I presume it's using it intelligently, whatever it's doing with it.

That's exactly what it should be doing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offline_Files#SuperFetch

Burnsy2023 · 24 Mar 2008 at 17:04

Dolph said:
It will release the memory if it's required,.

Just a small point: it releases it by simply overwriting superfetch space so there is absolutely no performance overhead

Burnsy

Stevev · 24 Mar 2008 at 17:35

Rackerz said:
Try and run a game such as CoD4, then close it. You should have your RAM back.

Just did, now its idle at 650 again.
Appreciate the info guy's