Windows 7 host process using almost 130mb RAM

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I have Windows 7 64bit Home Premium.

I have 4GB Corsair Dominator 1600Mhz DDR3 Dual Channel memory.

Some days I check task manager and see 22%. I'm like, ahhh so sweet in comparison to what Vista used. But sometimes it's around 38% which is what Vista tended to use a lot. I checked task manager and it didn't total up so I viewed processes from all users. I'm the only user, also being the administrator so I browsed the SYSTEM usage. Turns out one of the host processes for Windows uses a wopping 132,000 K + of memory!

Do Microsoft know of this disaster? Memory management and recycling has by far improved over previous Windows environments but WHAT THE HELL is that!? That throws memory management out of the window! (or Windows for that matter!) - Check it!

HostProcessesusingtoomuchMemory.png


Truly, this is a disappointment. 2 of my RAM slots are cut short by my CPU cooler, not entirely but it's risky to bend RAM or the CPU cooler, and I cannot afford 2x 4GB 1600Mhz DDR3 to fit in the last free memory slots. NO chance! I've got 2x2GB in the last two slots and the price of a single 4GB DDR3 Slot at 1600Mhz is through the roof!

Anyone get the same thing from time to time, in regards to Window's host process using far too much memory?

What do you think? Maybe sorted in a Service Pack?

Peace

FX
 
Here's mine (Vista SP2):

zwYGe.png


It's normal.

You have to remember that one of the services which SvcHost hosts is the Desktop Window Manager (DWM.exe) and this can have a rather large reported memory usage because it is responsible for storing the desktop composition textures of each running application. Of course the vast majority of these aren't stored in main memory but in the graphics card memory. Only when the GRAM starts to get low will the Vista/W7 start using main memory to store the textures. And then of course if main memory gets low it will start swapping them out to disk.

Generally speaking, you need to stop worrying about memory usage. Unless your memory is right up to >90% usage then there is no problem.
 
Nothing to worry about, as Nathan has said Windows 7 handles memory management differently from previous versions for Windows and in general much better (from my personal experience.)
 
Nothing to worry about, as Nathan has said Windows 7 handles memory management differently from previous versions for Windows and in general much better (from my personal experience.)

W7 handles memory identically to Vista. And Vista handles memory pretty much (there were some small changes to make way for Superfetch and Readyboost concepts) to XP.

Windows NT's memory model was fine right from v3.51. It has only received incremental changes ever since.
 
It says Desktop Windows Manager is using 17,000 K seperate, yet a process for DWM is used in svhost? :| That sucks.

I worry because I play games. I have enough RAM no problemo, even for Bad Company 2 which runes beautiful on my system (check specs) although it makes pretty much no sense why my system starts at 22% and after many hours is around the low 30 mark. Now it's at 38% because of the increase of memory for this process or processes.

I have 1GB Video card. Purposely to take extra pressure off system RAM should a game go crazy on visuals and texture memory.

I guess I just have to deal with it. Wish it'd recycle it's own memory better. Still makes no sense why some days it can just remain at low 30's. :(

Thanks folks.
 
At 38% your system doesn't yet know the meaning of memory pressure.

As soon as memory pressure occurs the kernel's memory manager will start looking for pages of memory which haven't been accessed recently and it will page them out to disk. In fact, the memory manager does this autonomously all the time. If you leave a web browser or something minimised for about 3 days... when you do finally restore/maximise it you will notice it is a bit slow because quite a lot of it is being swapped back in from the disk.
 
Thanks for the heads up. I just didn't want to have 10mb of system RAM left over because Windows 7 got a little too frisky.

MY SIGNATURE! WTF!!!!!! WHY GUYS, WHYY?! It was hardly a big signature! OMG
 
Wouldnt matter if you only had 10.

Tbh I kind of thought after 2 years these "omg windows is actually using the ram I bought" threads would have gone away, but it seems using 10 year old xp has addled peoples brains :p
 
Hardly. I was plauged with a system for 7 years which was completely inadequate 8 months ago. Running windows live and Facebook in IE on XP with 256 DDR RAM an 64mb shared video memory on the worst integrated graphic chip was hard to run stuff. Not to mention the terrible Intel Celeron 2.5Ghz I was running.

Got this thing and had Vista for a while, free upgrade game me Windows 7 where I heard memory management was better. Did not expect almost 130mb to be eaten up by a group of services.

An it would matter if I only had 10mb. Did you not hear I play games?

Anyhow, thanks for the information. An "TBH" I hardly go on forums so I don't expect to come across "omg window is actually using the ram I bought". Especially since it's a stupid amount when half the time it isn't that size anyway.

FX
 
I did hear, but you need to hear what others are telling you.

Your initial post, and subsequent ones, complain of windows memory management. What you seem to have missed is windows is managing your memory, better than vista I might add. It doesn't matter if it uses 130mb or 1.3 GB if the memory if that memory can be cleared in half the time it takes for the arm to swing across the disk in the hard drive containing your games files. Don't worry about it.

Proximity to these forums is irrelevant. Since vista was launched, particularly vista :S, people were going out, buying the os and 4/8GB ram then complaining when they install it and it uses the ram they paid for. Essentially they were unhappy when the memory they paid for was not empty. Why spend money on memory if you want it using power but not improving the system?
 
I play games too along with lots of other people here.

This kind of memory usage is nothing to ever complain about. In fact complaining about such a trivial thing could be considered petty and failing to accept that it's a trivial thing not worth complaining about is pretty foolish.

Memory is meant to be used. When you load a game Windows 7 (and Vista) will instantly allocate as much memory as the game requires (which will be 2GB maximum on any game except Crysis x64 edition but even then Crysis doesn't use close to 2GB RAM at 1920x1200).
 
I wasn't necessarily "complaining" about the memory usage, I was just disappointed to see so much being used in one area. My wishes were of better memory management, not stamping my feet and having a cry because of it.

I know memory is supposed to used don't speak to me as if I am a child. I asked for a bit of insight, I didn't expect indirect remarks as a result of everyone's assumptions.

End thread please.

Thanks.

FX
 
Well, sensible attitudes towards how RAM is utilised needs to be taught!

In this thread, you've been told ;)
 
When you hear of people praising Vista/W7 excellent "memory management". This does not mean these operating systems use "less" memory. It merely means that the memory which they do use is better managed.

It's like, say you've got two stock brokers... the stock broker which handles stress, multi-tasking and pressure better is going to make more money than the stock broker who is worse at those three things.

Personally, apart from Superfetch, I've seen no significant differences between Vista/W7's memory management and Windows 2000/XP. Windows NT has always been very good with memory. Probably because NT was put together by the same key guys that designed VMS.. Dave Cutler etc.
 
It is using less than 4% [3.22% to be exact] of your total RAM. The whole system is only using 37% in your screenshot.

Perhaps some of the replies in this thread are somewhat impolite, but when you get someone going "WTF" to an insignificant blob of their RAM being used and saying Windows memory management isn't working, what do you expect?

Software you use every day, such as browsers and Office applications can use just as much memory, if not more. Get some perspective! :)
 
It is using less than 4% [3.22% to be exact] of your total RAM. The whole system is only using 37% in your screenshot.

Perhaps some of the replies in this thread are somewhat impolite, but when you get someone going "WTF" to an insignificant blob of their RAM being used and saying Windows memory management isn't working, what do you expect?

Software you use every day, such as browsers and Office applications can use just as much memory, if not more. Get some perspective! :)

The problem is that "memory usage" is incredibly subjective. Windows has all manner of ways of measuring it because of all the complexities introduced by a virtualised memory table, memory mapped files, shared code regions and even the new concept (as of Vista) where GPU memory is mapped into the virtual memory address space (for the purpose of storing DWM textures) and accounted for by the OS using the same counters as main memory.

It is very much a black art to be able to successfully "read" what all the figures mean, and hence be able to determine whether they are good or bad.

You need to be a systems level programmer to do it. The OP isn't.

There are a number of "guides" on the Internet which try to decipher it but I've never seen one which wasn't written by a complete cluebie.
 
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