I have 4gb of ram and my usage is 94%

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npdewy

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my largest process right now is chrome.exe by far (67,000) and my computer says that 90-97% of my ram is being used. WHY? and what should i do. This is not affecting the performance at all and norton detected no viruses and ran a PC tune-up diagnostic test and said that everything is fine.
 
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doped

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Shadow was using an inside joke. If it's not affecting performance, why care? browser, especially firefox and chrome really eats up ram, and fast. Close some tabs, and it should be fine.
 
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npdewy

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well that was with nothing running, then i restarted it and it was at 30 for a minute than jumped back up and I restarted it again and it went to 90 and it is slowly lowering (its at like 60 now and the normal is 20 something
 
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ricno

ricno

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How do you actually see that 97% of the memory is being used? From which program and what counter gives you this?

I would say that it is an issue, as Windows will base for example decisions of how much should be swapped out the the pagefile depending on available RAM.
 
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etk

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Windows Vista and 7 use what is called a pre-fetcher, they store things in memory that you might use in the future, so no matter how much ram you get, they will fill it. This is done to increase performance. In Vista, they didn't change the labels in task monitor, so it says all of it is being used (which is technically true), even though most of it is just pre-fetching, and can dump that data at any time without consequence. If you are using Vista, and looking in task manager, don't worry about it
 
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ricno

ricno

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Surely it does not fill the RAM to 97%. He has 4 GB and is posting in the Windows 7 forum, so it should be Win7.
 
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andrern2000

andrern2000

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Look under Task Manager:
Used: This is used memory
Cached: This is 'cached' memory, meaning data is stored for future use.
Free: memory that is not cached.
Available: Cached + Free, meaning memory available to use for programs.

If you see 97% usage you saw is maybe Used + cached. Cached memory takes lots of memory area in most cases.
 
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Shadow703793

Shadow703793

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Yup. Windows 7/Vista both use a much different approach to RAM management than XP/2000. Windows will use as much RAM as it can to improve performance (ie. less paging >> faster file access,etc). However, this should not use 94% of the RAM.
 
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npdewy

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nope it see s like its working fine
 
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damasvara

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Okay, let's do the math. 4,076 MB is your total RAM size, Windows 7 uses 2,323 MB for that prefetching thing. :heink:

Which leaves you 1,195 MB, with free RAM only 129 MB.

Logically, with 2,323 MB of Windows allocated RAM, you will think that you only got the 1,196 MB left. According to Windows 7, the 2,323 MB is also free RAM. The difference is, it's pre-allocated to improve performance, which makes the 1,196 MB pretty much unburdened to process the programs you're running.

How's that for a simple theoretical explanation? :lol: Don't worry, even though I haven't actually use the OS myself, I believe it's part of Windows 7 performance improving features. Anyone, correct me if I'm wrong. I'm open for improving critics. :D
 
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andrern2000

andrern2000

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Look. Somewhat maybe the 94% means cached + available = 2323+1195 = 3518 K.
The "Cached" memory is pre-fetched recently used data by Windows. It's to improve the next time loading of your program. So basically this "Cached" memory is useable too.

@damasvara: The Free Ram is the Ram that's not cached or touched entirely. But I dunno the difference between Available, and Free. Cached RAM is also useable memory.

Maybe if you run a game, then Alt-Tab and Ctrl-Alt-Del and sees this number again you'll understand.
 
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ricno

ricno

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Are you sure about these numbers? They do not really match up for me.

Normally you should see that:

Total - Available = Used by you (by processes)

And get about the same with:

Total - Free - Cached = Used by you (by processes)

That number should also roughly match what you see in the Memory Graph in Task Manager.
 
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Newkidontheblock

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Hi.I have Win 7 Home Premium,64 bit,4 gig ram,and I sometimes have MAJOR problems with sluggish performance,and RAM is pegged at 97 % (according to my desktop RAM meter: http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/6408/gadgetmeter.jpg ) -the computer is basically useless,and even rebooting takes > 5 minutes. Other times,like as I am writing this,performance is fine.When it starts getting really slow again,can you suggest what to look for,and what I could try to remedy it? I have run Malwarebytes and found nothing.I regularly run CCleaner,if that makes a difference. Here's a current shot of my running processes: http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/3329/quietperiod.jpg
http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/3996/processesduringnormalop.jpg
Thanks!
 
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