Decrease RAM usage

srjanoski

New Member
I have an HP Probook 4520 that I just purchased in Jan. It has i3 core processor. It is 32bit Windows 7. It had 2GB of RAM installed, and I added 2 more GB of RAM to it.
My RAM usage is 50-70% consistently, even when I am just on the internet with a spreadsheet brought up.
When I installed the extra 2 GB of RAM it only brought it down from 57%-80%.
How can I bring this down?
 
Why do you want to? Are you having performance issues?

In theory you would almost want 100% usage. Unused RAM is wasted RAM. The reason you want some slop is for the unexpected demands and freely available. I could make an application that would keep your RAM usage under 10%. Sure lots of pagefile hits to the HDD which ironically is exactly what more RAM tries to reduce.

Not to in any way be rude but I think you are missing some understanding of how a system works. Feel free to ask any questions you have as that is what this forum is about, learning.
 
Maybe I am misunderstanding. I want my RAM usage to be 100%??

I tried opening up a budget for work, it was an excel book with 10 or so workbook pages in it, and my computer couldnt load this. I had to restart the program. This is why I thought i needed more RAM...
 
Maybe I am misunderstanding. I want my RAM usage to be 100%??
No that was an example/hypothetical expressing a point. You should disregard that comment with your current situation.;)

I tried opening up a budget for work, it was an excel book with 10 or so workbook pages in it, and my computer couldnt load this. I had to restart the program. This is why I thought i needed more RAM...
OK this is your real issue. I do not see it having anything to do with RAM. This is most clear as your usage is very far from any critical point. Did you disable pagefile? If so that is the first thing you fix. Enable it. Without dwelling or name calling disabling pagefile is the most misguided common suggestion on the Internet and in Tech in general.

That said and maybe off base. How large is the file? I mean not a rational database that could crash many a system? This is Excel?

I don't have an explanation for your issue at this time. I will ponder. I hope others have insight. Did this happen once or multiple occasions? Post back.
 
Im not sure if pagefile is enabled or disabled. How do I check this??

The file is only 708 KB. Nothing too big.
This happens everytime I try to open up a new budget. I can never load them up.

Also, when I go to my System info, under "Installed memory (RAM)" : 4.00GB (2.92GB usuable)""

Why is all the RAM not usable? Is it because I am on a 32-bit system?
 
Yes the reported RAM is lower because of 32bit OS/chipset no worry. What OS? Is it this file or all Excel ones?

708KB is not even going to have an effect on a system with half your RAM. Something is going on. The trick is figuring it out.
 
Windows 7.
It only happens when I try to open budgets, which have multiple (10-15) worksheets included.
Any other excel sheet I have no problem with.

Ok guys, now that I know i want my RAM level up, how do I get it there?
Any tricks?
 
No increasing RAM usage is not the issue, much like we said reducing is not either. Something is not working correct right now. I do not know at this time.
 
Windows 7.
It only happens when I try to open budgets, which have multiple (10-15) worksheets included.
Any other excel sheet I have no problem with..
Could it be that when trying to open those 10-15 worksheets, there's not enough ram available so when swap happens it hangs?
I wonder if adjusting pageflie size would make a diff?
Wouldn't hurt to try.
Im not sure if pagefile is enabled or disabled. How do I check this??
"If you want to prevent the page file from changing size and run at the best performance, you should set the initial and maximum size of the file to the same value."
http://www.recipester.org/Recipe:Set_proper_page_file_size_for_Windows_32033540
 
Benny after the second quote you need to understand that disabling or controlling pagefile size is the absolute worst thing you can do.
 
It's normal.
As "powerpack" said, Unused RAM is wasted RAM.
That's how Windows handles RAM since Vista.
Read here: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/09/why-does-vista-use-all-my-memory.html

This is an honest question. How in the heck is unused RAM wasted RAM? If I have 1 GB of RAM, and I'm using 80% of that RAM, I'm pretty sure that means that I should upgrade the amount of RAM, or, cut down on how many programs I'm using. Because when I use over 100% of RAM, my computer runs like crap because it has to write virtual memory to the hard drive, which is much slower than RAM. It isn't "using all of the RAM to its fullest." Again, that is an honest question, and I would like you to clear that up if I'm incorrect, and elaborate for the OP, as well, please.
 
This is an honest question. How in the heck is unused RAM wasted RAM? If I have 1 GB of RAM, and I'm using 80% of that RAM, I'm pretty sure that means that I should upgrade the amount of RAM, or, cut down on how many programs I'm using. Because when I use over 100% of RAM, my computer runs like crap because it has to write virtual memory to the hard drive, which is much slower than RAM. It isn't "using all of the RAM to its fullest." Again, that is an honest question, and I would like you to clear that up if I'm incorrect, and elaborate for the OP, as well, please.

They stated unused ram was wasted ram, you gave an example of using more ram then you had. In which case, yes you would want more RAM. You want to have enough RAM for your needs, thats all they are saying. I'm unsure though, if using 90% of your ram constantly would eventually hurt your system.
EDIT: Just did some quick searching - and no it wont..
 
Last edited:
Windows 7 handles RAM and Virtual RAM in the same kind of way as its predecessors.

This means that, even though there might be enough RAM to run all processes in physical memory, Win is going to push a lot of that data into the swap file, and the more processes there are, the more paging Win will be doing to and from the drive, making things even slower.

This is one of the favorite things that 'penguin heads' hit on, since Linux doesn't resort to swap-file paging until the RAM is nearly full.

In the case of the OP, there may be an issue of too many processes running in the background combined with a slow drive and perhaps even a full drive-- Win will reserve only so much room on a drive and the more fragmented the pagefile gets, the slower things will go, as well.

32-bit Win is strictly limited in its RAM and Swap file sizes, the OP may want to upgrade to 64-bit Win (or try out some Linux distributions-- Open Office.org should be able to handle those Excel files).
 
This is an honest question. How in the heck is unused RAM wasted RAM? If I have 1 GB of RAM, and I'm using 80% of that RAM, I'm pretty sure that means that I should upgrade the amount of RAM, or, cut down on how many programs I'm using. Because when I use over 100% of RAM, my computer runs like crap because it has to write virtual memory to the hard drive, which is much slower than RAM. It isn't "using all of the RAM to its fullest." Again, that is an honest question, and I would like you to clear that up if I'm incorrect, and elaborate for the OP, as well, please.

It is at some level wordplay. But it is very serious. You do want some head room as you suspect so yes extremely high RAM usage can become a problem. With 50% to 70% I just was not seeing that as the primary problem most certainly with a 708KB file when his free RAM is from just under 1GB up to almost 1.5GB?

M$ recommends 1GB RAM for Vista (512MB for HB) he almost always has the entire recommended or more completely free. But M$ assumes you did not play with the pagefile. One reason I asked. Disabling can cause various erratic issues. I see Vista with his amount of RAM hovering close to 50%, yea he is a little above but still within the norm.

As such and with his stated issue I do not connect the two. Many people want their RAM usage as low as possible that makes no sense unless certain conditions. Yes if you know you have much useless stuff running either as applications or services yea remove them as much for the CPU polling as wasting RAM.

Nori had a good link earlier that I think you might want to read.

"Unused RAM is wasted" is a little tongue and cheek. But it holds a very real truth when understood in context. It is not 100% literal. Someone who has 4GB of RAM and sees only 50% is normally used is a fool to try and sell 2GB. But so is someone who wants to lower RAM usage without reason.

I wish we could resolve OP's original question but I just don't think RAM is the issue. Unless as I said pagfile is disabled. I do not think that would explain but willing to at least investigate.

Since pagefile has been mentioned (yea I know only me:D) I want to say I used to disable and/or set the size. That was 98SE it did make some sense then. But things were very different. We had 192MB/256MB RAM and 12GB HDD's. Since XP disabling or controlling swapfile size is of no value. The reasons people will tell it is beneficial is factually flawed.

Let me start with disabling. The argument is RAM is faster and we have so much so why not force RAM to be more used? Good theory, problem is when Windows goes to put things in page file and not there it dumps. So as slow as storage drives are if Windows wants it will not be in the most efficient place Windows would look. But it actually crashes the program does not even look in storage in many instances. So you get no benefit.

On fixed size. The theory is with a fixed size it does not fragment so it is faster. It is not spread all over the HDD. 2nd aspect of this is saves space. On the 2nd with the size of drives even going back a few years I hardly think a GB here or there matters. You have plenty of space. If you need a GB's for some mp3's you my friends need a new HDD. On the first, Windows creates a fixed contiguous pagefile so it does not fragment. It will if needed in crease the size if needed. And yes this will not necessarily be contiguous with the primary. But much as with the disabling no pagefile no save. So if not an option it will unload data. resulting in a less efficient retrieval or crash.

All that said, yes I could likely disable my pagefile and other than some legacy applications the require it I might be fine. But in no way would I benifit in anyway. I am not that hardup for storage. I do think my system might get little benefit but that is not the same as benefit as I have 8GB.

People who have SSD's and are concerned about finite write might want to consider. I wouldn't because if I got a billion dollars I find it hard to believe I would worry about running out of money anymore. SSD's have plenty of writes.;):)
 
Last edited:
... wordplay...

If one wanted to maximize the speed and efficiency of the pagefile, then one would be best served to throw in a small (1.5-2x max RAM capability) hard drive and assign the swap to it.

That is, have a dedicated swap drive that would do nothing but hold the pagefile-- no fragmentation issues, no worries about lack of space, maybe even a little performance boost because the swap could run at the same time as the main drive was pushing data (if they are on different controllers).

In the case of the OP, an 8GB drive would do the job nicely. Pop it in the 'slave' position on the second IDE bus, point the filepage to it, and go to town.
 
Wordplay was only meant to refer to "unused RAM is wasted RAM". Pagefile was meant to be a continuation but different comment.

Yes a different drive holding pagefile is supposed to be a good idea. I have not done and just don't have comment as I just don't know first hand.

If you want to consider something. Consider I have 8GB and use 30%. In Vista I could create a RAM drive. That means I could have 6GB and it would still be "dual channel" and have my 2GB swap on the RAM itself at RAM speeds?

I am thinking out loud right now. I doubt I will rush to do this but as long as we are talking.

Since you got me thinking what about very much like you suggest. Instead of 8GB drive on IDE how about 8GB USB memory stick?

Sounding a lot like Robson Turbo Memory (or whatever it is called) or Turbo Boost (or what ever it is called) but specialized. I don't think either one of those took off? But who knows, anyone want to test?

Edit: Just to be clear Windows managed swap will not fragment anymore than defined size unless the defined size is larger than Windows default. Windows default I believe is 2.5x the physical memory. For me 20GB? I am not sure I have ever heard of people defining swap size of this size. The entire point is people erroneously think Windows uses too much space. I have 1TB so I hardly concern myself with 20GB of used space.
 
Last edited:
It is at some level wordplay. But it is very serious. You do want some head room as you suspect so yes extremely high RAM usage can become a problem. With 50% to 70% I just was not seeing that as the primary problem most certainly with a 708KB file when his free RAM is from just under 1GB up to almost 1.5GB?

M$ recommends 1GB RAM for Vista (512MB for HB) he almost always has the entire recommended or more completely free. But M$ assumes you did not play with the pagefile. One reason I asked. Disabling can cause various erratic issues. I see Vista with his amount of RAM hovering close to 50%, yea he is a little above but still within the norm.

As such and with his stated issue I do not connect the two. Many people want their RAM usage as low as possible that makes no sense unless certain conditions. Yes if you know you have much useless stuff running either as applications or services yea remove them as much for the CPU polling as wasting RAM.

Nori had a good link earlier that I think you might want to read.

"Unused RAM is wasted" is a little tongue and cheek. But it holds a very real truth when understood in context. It is not 100% literal. Someone who has 4GB of RAM and sees only 50% is normally used is a fool to try and sell 2GB. But so is someone who wants to lower RAM usage without reason.

I wish we could resolve OP's original question but I just don't think RAM is the issue. Unless as I said pagfile is disabled. I do not think that would explain but willing to at least investigate.

Since pagefile has been mentioned (yea I know only me:D) I want to say I used to disable and/or set the size. That was 98SE it did make some sense then. But things were very different. We had 192MB/256MB RAM and 12GB HDD's. Since XP disabling or controlling swapfile size is of no value. The reasons people will tell it is beneficial is factually flawed.

Let me start with disabling. The argument is RAM is faster and we have so much so why not force RAM to be more used? Good theory, problem is when Windows goes to put things in page file and not there it dumps. So as slow as storage drives are if Windows wants it will not be in the most efficient place Windows would look. But it actually crashes the program does not even look in storage in many instances. So you get no benefit.

On fixed size. The theory is with a fixed size it does not fragment so it is faster. It is not spread all over the HDD. 2nd aspect of this is saves space. On the 2nd with the size of drives even going back a few years I hardly think a GB here or there matters. You have plenty of space. If you need a GB's for some mp3's you my friends need a new HDD. On the first, Windows creates a fixed contiguous pagefile so it does not fragment. It will if needed in crease the size if needed. And yes this will not necessarily be contiguous with the primary. But much as with the disabling no pagefile no save. So if not an option it will unload data. resulting in a less efficient retrieval or crash.

All that said, yes I could likely disable my pagefile and other than some legacy applications the require it I might be fine. But in no way would I benifit in anyway. I am not that hardup for storage. I do think my system might get little benefit but that is not the same as benefit as I have 8GB.

People who have SSD's and are concerned about finite write might want to consider. I wouldn't because if I got a billion dollars I find it hard to believe I would worry about running out of money anymore. SSD's have plenty of writes.;):)

That actually cleared it up for me lol thanks
 
Back
Top