2 GB RAM never fully in used?

Vista Home Premium
2 GB RAM
2x 320 GB
Dual Intel 4300 1.8 GHz
2 Monitors on Dual View

Hi all,

I am using Vista H P on this machine very intensively on the Stock Exchange, always having 6-8 apps
active, Maxthon Browser with 35 tabs open, Windows Mail, Word, Teletext Browser, networking, AVG,
Vista Sidebar etc. some 60/70 processes, all under Windows automatic management, so not best
performance or best display; just highest CPU speed set.

All is running well but , when switching apps I sometimes get black screen parts, some pics are slow
to show up so I suspect a RAM underrun.

When testing using System Task Manager as well as IARSN TaskInfo 6.0 I find that RAM is never
utilised fully; always around 700 kB Free Physical RAM unused.
Swap sits at 1 GB in use on max. 2.4 GB, see snapshot below.

For many reasons I would certainly like Windows to always fill my RAM to the full, say 95%, rather
than swap!
It does not do that, it is always wasting RAM space.
Is this perhaps my nVidia GeForce 8400 GS videocard eating RAM away?
How can I change that?

Looking forward,
Maria







[System Pane]

CPU Clock MHz 1.804 % Idle Pri Threads
% CPU 13,60% % Idle 86,40%
CPUs Number 2 Queue for CPU 0
Processes 61 Threads 786
Thread Sw/s 9.464 HW Ints/s 2.495
Total Ph KB 2.094.976 Free Ph KB 853.068
File Cache KB 155.680 File cache peak KB 233.812
Free Virt KB 2.184.120 Committed KB 2.244.704
Paged Pool KB 99.768 NonPaged Pool KB 54.384
Max Swap KB 2.402.176 Swap in Use KB 1.024.440
Page Faults/s 963
Page Ins KB/s 0 Page Outs KB/s 33
File Read KB/s 117 File Write KB/s 27
File Reads/s 66 File Writes/s 23
Client Read KB/s 0 Client Write KB/s 0
Srv Transmit KB/s 0 Srv Receive KB/s 0

"MPS" <> wrote in message
news:%232NWPE%...
> Vista Home Premium
> 2 GB RAM
> 2x 320 GB
> Dual Intel 4300 1.8 GHz
> 2 Monitors on Dual View
>
> Hi all,
>
> I am using Vista H P on this machine very intensively on the Stock
> Exchange, always having 6-8 apps active, Maxthon Browser with 35 tabs
> open, Windows Mail, Word, Teletext Browser, networking, AVG, Vista Sidebar
> etc. some 60/70 processes, all under Windows automatic management, so not
> best performance or best display; just highest CPU speed set.
>
> All is running well but , when switching apps I sometimes get black screen
> parts, some pics are slow to show up so I suspect a RAM underrun.
>
> When testing using System Task Manager as well as IARSN TaskInfo 6.0 I
> find that RAM is never utilised fully; always around 700 kB Free Physical
> RAM unused.
> Swap sits at 1 GB in use on max. 2.4 GB, see snapshot below.
>
> For many reasons I would certainly like Windows to always fill my RAM to
> the full, say 95%, rather than swap!
> It does not do that, it is always wasting RAM space.
> Is this perhaps my nVidia GeForce 8400 GS videocard eating RAM away?
> How can I change that?
>
> Looking forward,
> Maria
>

Normally, 2GB of RAM is the sweet spot for Vista with few users seeing much
of a performance gain from going to 4GB, but you are one of the types of
users that would definitely benefit from installing an additional 2GB of RAM
in your system because of all the apps and windows you have open
concurrently on a normal basis.

RAM is dirt cheap these days, and although Vista-32 won't be able to see and
use all 4GB due to 32-bit addressing limitations, you should get to about
3.25GB - 3.7GB usable depending on your system.

You ought to be able to pick up 2GB of Ram for less than $60.

BTW - Vista will always keep a certain amount of free RAM available as it
needs it to perform various system functions. XP (or any full featured OS)
does the same thing.

Good luck.

-Riff

Ah ... 700KB of available memory is far less than 5% of 1024MB of memory.
If you only have 700KB free you need more physical memory because you're
hitting the virtual memory rather heavily.

--
Richard G. Harper [MVP Shell/User]
* NEW! Catch my blog ... http://msmvps.com/blogs/rgharper/
* PLEASE post all messages and replies in the newsgroups
* The Website - http://rgharper.mvps.org/
* HELP us help YOU ... http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm


"MPS" <> wrote in message
news:%232NWPE%...
> Vista Home Premium
> 2 GB RAM
> 2x 320 GB
> Dual Intel 4300 1.8 GHz
> 2 Monitors on Dual View
>
> Hi all,
>
> I am using Vista H P on this machine very intensively on the Stock
> Exchange, always having 6-8 apps active, Maxthon Browser with 35 tabs
> open, Windows Mail, Word, Teletext Browser, networking, AVG, Vista Sidebar
> etc. some 60/70 processes, all under Windows automatic management, so not
> best performance or best display; just highest CPU speed set.
>
> All is running well but , when switching apps I sometimes get black screen
> parts, some pics are slow to show up so I suspect a RAM underrun.
>
> When testing using System Task Manager as well as IARSN TaskInfo 6.0 I
> find that RAM is never utilised fully; always around 700 kB Free Physical
> RAM unused.
> Swap sits at 1 GB in use on max. 2.4 GB, see snapshot below.
>
> For many reasons I would certainly like Windows to always fill my RAM to
> the full, say 95%, rather than swap!
> It does not do that, it is always wasting RAM space.
> Is this perhaps my nVidia GeForce 8400 GS videocard eating RAM away?
> How can I change that?
>
> Looking forward,
> Maria
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [System Pane]
>
> CPU Clock MHz 1.804 % Idle Pri Threads
> % CPU 13,60% % Idle 86,40%
> CPUs Number 2 Queue for CPU 0
> Processes 61 Threads 786
> Thread Sw/s 9.464 HW Ints/s 2.495
> Total Ph KB 2.094.976 Free Ph KB 853.068
> File Cache KB 155.680 File cache peak KB 233.812
> Free Virt KB 2.184.120 Committed KB 2.244.704
> Paged Pool KB 99.768 NonPaged Pool KB 54.384
> Max Swap KB 2.402.176 Swap in Use KB 1.024.440
> Page Faults/s 963
> Page Ins KB/s 0 Page Outs KB/s 33
> File Read KB/s 117 File Write KB/s 27
> File Reads/s 66 File Writes/s 23
> Client Read KB/s 0 Client Write KB/s 0
> Srv Transmit KB/s 0 Srv Receive KB/s 0
>
>

On Sat, 05 Jan 2008 22:22:12 +0100, MPS wrote:

> Vista Home Premium
> 2 GB RAM
> 2x 320 GB
> Dual Intel 4300 1.8 GHz
> 2 Monitors on Dual View
>
> Hi all,
>
> I am using Vista H P on this machine very intensively on the Stock Exchange, always having 6-8 apps
> active, Maxthon Browser with 35 tabs open, Windows Mail, Word, Teletext Browser, networking, AVG,
> Vista Sidebar etc. some 60/70 processes, all under Windows automatic management, so not best
> performance or best display; just highest CPU speed set.
>
> All is running well but , when switching apps I sometimes get black screen parts, some pics are slow
> to show up so I suspect a RAM underrun.
>
> When testing using System Task Manager as well as IARSN TaskInfo 6.0 I find that RAM is never
> utilised fully; always around 700 kB Free Physical RAM unused.
> Swap sits at 1 GB in use on max. 2.4 GB, see snapshot below.
>
> For many reasons I would certainly like Windows to always fill my RAM to the full, say 95%, rather
> than swap!

700k/2147483648 = .03% free - it would seem you have exceeded your fondest
wishes!


> It does not do that, it is always wasting RAM space.
> Is this perhaps my nVidia GeForce 8400 GS videocard eating RAM away?
> How can I change that?
>
> Looking forward,
> Maria
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [System Pane]
>
> CPU Clock MHz 1.804 % Idle Pri Threads
> % CPU 13,60% % Idle 86,40%
> CPUs Number 2 Queue for CPU 0
> Processes 61 Threads 786
> Thread Sw/s 9.464 HW Ints/s 2.495
> Total Ph KB 2.094.976 Free Ph KB 853.068
> File Cache KB 155.680 File cache peak KB 233.812
> Free Virt KB 2.184.120 Committed KB 2.244.704
> Paged Pool KB 99.768 NonPaged Pool KB 54.384
> Max Swap KB 2.402.176 Swap in Use KB 1.024.440
> Page Faults/s 963
> Page Ins KB/s 0 Page Outs KB/s 33
> File Read KB/s 117 File Write KB/s 27
> File Reads/s 66 File Writes/s 23
> Client Read KB/s 0 Client Write KB/s 0
> Srv Transmit KB/s 0 Srv Receive KB/s 0