RAM Usage

nemesis4895

Distinguished
May 16, 2011
60
0
18,640
Immediately after booting up task manager shows 2.5GB of RAM usage. I've disabled all automatic non-windows essential services and nothing out of the ordinary shows up in the process list. I can't figure out any reason why it would be doing this? I've ran virus scans from different scanners as well.

Specs:
Core i5 2500k
16 GB RAM
GeForce 460GTX
2x 500GB WD Black in RAID 0 using Intel RST as the RAID controller.

Any suggestions?
 

Zero_

Distinguished
I'm pretty sure this is normal. Since you have a ton of memory available, WMM is allocating a large amount of memory to all programs running, so that the programs can 'stretch their legs' so to speak.

Also, a large amount will be allocated to your graphics card as backup video memory. Check total available graphics memory in system settings. It'll probably be around 2GB.
 

David 617

Distinguished
Apr 12, 2011
242
0
18,710
^incorrect. your video mem is dynamically allocated. not reserved.

procxp, from sysinternals, show a tab called virtual size which is significantly bigger than the memory size stated in task man.
4v0b50.jpg


but this is normal. like zero said, its leg room. no one likes flying coach ;)
basically there are two values, the processes actual usage and potential usage. windows reports the potential, to give everyone alot of room. if you had a small amt of ram >1gb, ur system would throw some things to pagefile to create room for the more accessed applications.
 
Windows uses free RAM as a file cache. This is a good thing - you paid for the memory, you might as well get some use out of it. If you run a program that requires the memory, Windows will release pages used for file caching so the program can use them.
 

Zero_

Distinguished

Like I said. Allocated. It's done even when the PC is idle.

Also, why buy a bazillion gigs of RAM if you don't want your PC using it?
 

nemesis4895

Distinguished
May 16, 2011
60
0
18,640
I do use all of it. I have a paid internship with a digital security company. I run 8 VM servers and 1 VM of Ubuntu as a testing ground to learn from. I couldn't afford to buy 8 actual servers, or even the power to run them all. So I a single fast PC and went with the VM route.
 

nemesis4895

Distinguished
May 16, 2011
60
0
18,640


No. I literally mean after Windows boots after pressing the power button on my computer it immediately allocates 2.5 GB of RAM. Yes there is lots of RAM available, but 2.5 GB is excessive with nothing running. My laptop uses 1.2 GB of RAM with Visual Studio Pro and SQL Developers edition running. My HTPC uses 800 MB's after first boot. I could understand "stretching it's legs" to maybe 1.5 GB, but 2.5 GB seems very excessive, like I said.
 
My system with 12GB of RAM runs around 1.8GB at idle.

The "working set" is the best measurement of the actual memory consumption of a particular process. When I run PowerShell as an Administrator and enter the following command:

get-process | measure-object ws -sum

It tells me that the sum of all the working sets on my system is about 1.2GB. That means there's about 0.6GB unaccounted for, most of which is probably the kernel.

But really, the difference between 1.8GB and 2.5GB is a drop in the bucket when you have 16GB of RAM. It's not something I'd loose any sleep over.
 

nemesis4895

Distinguished
May 16, 2011
60
0
18,640
It is when I actually utilize all of it. If it was cheaper than $175 per 8GB RAM stick I'd be running 32 GB. Like I said 8 VM's of server 2008 and 1 VM of ubuntu isn't like opening a few word documents and playing some music. It gets extremely resource intensive, which is the reason I have this. so yes 2.5GB over 1.5GB does matter to me.
 
So if you try the PowerShell command I listed in my previous post, what do the working set sizes of your processes add up to when the system is idle?

Windows releases memory used by its own services and for file caching when programs request it. Just because you've only got 13.5GB available when idle doesn't necessarily mean that's all you have available for your VMs. Looking at the WS of the VM processes when they're running will get you a better idea of where you stand.

And it might be more prudent to worry about the idle memory usage of the guest operating systems, since you have eight of them. Any wasted space there is multiplied 8-fold.
 

nemesis4895

Distinguished
May 16, 2011
60
0
18,640
I realize that. The VM's use a relatively small amount of RAM while idle, never seen the servers go over 600 MB while idle and Ubuntu is next to nothing at 150 MB. I guess they are low due to not needing RAM for the kernel.

I somehow managed to miss that you posted a powershell command. I'll run it and post an update.