IE8: Excessive memory allocation and usage?

IE8
WinXP Pro SP3 all MS updates
2GB RAM
Dell Latitude D600 laptop, fyi.

In reviewing the Task Manager processes it appears that IE8 allocates and
uses an excessive amount of memory. For example, sorting the Processes by
Mem Usage currently yields one iexplore.exe as using 651K and another one at
157K. Still others at 67K, 57K and 26K. The smaller one's seem fine but the
651K and 157K seem excessively high.
1) Is this actually the result of IE8 or is it the websites (Yahoo etc.)?
I've got 4 tabs and this "New Question" open for IE8.
2) Is there a BETTER way to determine which tab is the 'offending' memory
and CPU usage since ALL processes for iexplore.exe have the same Image Name.
When I've terminated the process of iexplore.exe all the processes
terminate. It appears that any open window related to IE8 has an associated
iexplore.exe Image Name.
3) I've also noticed that I'll have IE8 pegged at 100%. Any reason why or
some perspective here?

I have found that I normally need to take IE8 down during my normal work day
and work functions. Currently, with the above IE8 information my Performance
tab shows Physical Memory (K) with 2GB, Available 514K and System Cache of
445K.

I also recently received a system warning on low resources which caused the
Paging file to expand. [This may not be totally true as I'm recalling it
from memory relative to my Windows message.] The Event Viewer for IE does
not show any entries - which seems odd in some ways! I also didn't find any
entry into any of the Event Viewer logs for the low-resources message.
TIA!

See if this explains what you're seeing:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/200...liability.aspx
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-IE, Mail, Security, Windows Client - since 2002

Tom wrote:
> IE8
> WinXP Pro SP3 all MS updates
> 2GB RAM
> Dell Latitude D600 laptop, fyi.
>
> In reviewing the Task Manager processes it appears that IE8 allocates and
> uses an excessive amount of memory. For example, sorting the Processes by
> Mem Usage currently yields one iexplore.exe as using 651K and another one
> at
> 157K. Still others at 67K, 57K and 26K. The smaller one's seem fine but
> the 651K and 157K seem excessively high.
> 1) Is this actually the result of IE8 or is it the websites (Yahoo etc.)?
> I've got 4 tabs and this "New Question" open for IE8.
> 2) Is there a BETTER way to determine which tab is the 'offending' memory
> and CPU usage since ALL processes for iexplore.exe have the same Image
> Name.
> When I've terminated the process of iexplore.exe all the processes
> terminate. It appears that any open window related to IE8 has an
> associated
> iexplore.exe Image Name.
> 3) I've also noticed that I'll have IE8 pegged at 100%. Any reason why or
> some perspective here?
>
> I have found that I normally need to take IE8 down during my normal work
> day
> and work functions. Currently, with the above IE8 information my
> Performance tab shows Physical Memory (K) with 2GB, Available 514K and
> System Cache of 445K.
>
> I also recently received a system warning on low resources which caused
> the
> Paging file to expand. [This may not be totally true as I'm recalling it
> from memory relative to my Windows message.] The Event Viewer for IE does
> not show any entries - which seems odd in some ways! I also didn't find
> any
> entry into any of the Event Viewer logs for the low-resources message.
> TIA!

I'm not too sure I found what you were thinking about. The link covers quite
a bit on IE8 beta and S7 beta testing.
Can you be more specific at least relative to your link? Got any ideas
without the link?
Thanks!

"PA Bear [MS MVP]" wrote:

> See if this explains what you're seeing:
> http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/200...liability.aspx
> --
> ~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
> MS MVP-IE, Mail, Security, Windows Client - since 2002
>
> Tom wrote:
> > IE8
> > WinXP Pro SP3 all MS updates
> > 2GB RAM
> > Dell Latitude D600 laptop, fyi.
> >
> > In reviewing the Task Manager processes it appears that IE8 allocates and
> > uses an excessive amount of memory. For example, sorting the Processes by
> > Mem Usage currently yields one iexplore.exe as using 651K and another one
> > at
> > 157K. Still others at 67K, 57K and 26K. The smaller one's seem fine but
> > the 651K and 157K seem excessively high.
> > 1) Is this actually the result of IE8 or is it the websites (Yahoo etc.)?
> > I've got 4 tabs and this "New Question" open for IE8.
> > 2) Is there a BETTER way to determine which tab is the 'offending' memory
> > and CPU usage since ALL processes for iexplore.exe have the same Image
> > Name.
> > When I've terminated the process of iexplore.exe all the processes
> > terminate. It appears that any open window related to IE8 has an
> > associated
> > iexplore.exe Image Name.
> > 3) I've also noticed that I'll have IE8 pegged at 100%. Any reason why or
> > some perspective here?
> >
> > I have found that I normally need to take IE8 down during my normal work
> > day
> > and work functions. Currently, with the above IE8 information my
> > Performance tab shows Physical Memory (K) with 2GB, Available 514K and
> > System Cache of 445K.
> >
> > I also recently received a system warning on low resources which caused
> > the
> > Paging file to expand. [This may not be totally true as I'm recalling it
> > from memory relative to my Windows message.] The Event Viewer for IE does
> > not show any entries - which seems odd in some ways! I also didn't find
> > any
> > entry into any of the Event Viewer logs for the low-resources message.
> > TIA!
>
>

Everything in the blog entry (including Loosely-Coupled IE & Automatic Crash
Recovery) applies to IE8 Final.

"Combined, LCIE and Automatic Crash Recovery provide a really innovative and
graceful way to recovery from crashes."

In Task Manager | Processes tab, you will see two (2) instances of
IEXPLORE.EXE for every one (1) IE8 window open at the time. I suspect this
may be the reason you consider the amount of memory being used at the time
to be excessive, Tom.


Tom wrote:
> I'm not too sure I found what you were thinking about. The link covers
> quite a bit on IE8 beta and S7 beta testing.
> Can you be more specific at least relative to your link? Got any ideas
> without the link?
> Thanks!
>
> "PA Bear [MS MVP]" wrote:
>
>> See if this explains what you're seeing:
>> http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/200...liability.aspx
>> --
>> ~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
>> MS MVP-IE, Mail, Security, Windows Client - since 2002
>>
>> Tom wrote:
>>> IE8
>>> WinXP Pro SP3 all MS updates
>>> 2GB RAM
>>> Dell Latitude D600 laptop, fyi.
>>>
>>> In reviewing the Task Manager processes it appears that IE8 allocates
>>> and
>>> uses an excessive amount of memory. For example, sorting the Processes
>>> by
>>> Mem Usage currently yields one iexplore.exe as using 651K and another
>>> one
>>> at
>>> 157K. Still others at 67K, 57K and 26K. The smaller one's seem fine
>>> but
>>> the 651K and 157K seem excessively high.
>>> 1) Is this actually the result of IE8 or is it the websites (Yahoo
>>> etc.)?
>>> I've got 4 tabs and this "New Question" open for IE8.
>>> 2) Is there a BETTER way to determine which tab is the 'offending'
>>> memory
>>> and CPU usage since ALL processes for iexplore.exe have the same Image
>>> Name.
>>> When I've terminated the process of iexplore.exe all the processes
>>> terminate. It appears that any open window related to IE8 has an
>>> associated
>>> iexplore.exe Image Name.
>>> 3) I've also noticed that I'll have IE8 pegged at 100%. Any reason why
>>> or
>>> some perspective here?
>>>
>>> I have found that I normally need to take IE8 down during my normal work
>>> day
>>> and work functions. Currently, with the above IE8 information my
>>> Performance tab shows Physical Memory (K) with 2GB, Available 514K and
>>> System Cache of 445K.
>>>
>>> I also recently received a system warning on low resources which caused
>>> the
>>> Paging file to expand. [This may not be totally true as I'm recalling
>>> it
>>> from memory relative to my Windows message.] The Event Viewer for IE
>>> does
>>> not show any entries - which seems odd in some ways! I also didn't find
>>> any
>>> entry into any of the Event Viewer logs for the low-resources message.
>>> TIA!

Thanks for the insight that for each tab I have two (2) IEXPLORE.EXE
processes. I never would have figured that one out.
Any idea on the 600K+ memory allocated for a tab? Seems very high to me.
Is this a Yahoo 'feature' or someone else's?
TIA!

"PA Bear [MS MVP]" wrote:

> Everything in the blog entry (including Loosely-Coupled IE & Automatic Crash
> Recovery) applies to IE8 Final.
>
> "Combined, LCIE and Automatic Crash Recovery provide a really innovative and
> graceful way to recovery from crashes."
>
> In Task Manager | Processes tab, you will see two (2) instances of
> IEXPLORE.EXE for every one (1) IE8 window open at the time. I suspect this
> may be the reason you consider the amount of memory being used at the time
> to be excessive, Tom.
>
>
> Tom wrote:
> > I'm not too sure I found what you were thinking about. The link covers
> > quite a bit on IE8 beta and S7 beta testing.
> > Can you be more specific at least relative to your link? Got any ideas
> > without the link?
> > Thanks!
> >
> > "PA Bear [MS MVP]" wrote:
> >
> >> See if this explains what you're seeing:
> >> http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/200...liability.aspx
> >> --
> >> ~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
> >> MS MVP-IE, Mail, Security, Windows Client - since 2002
> >>
> >> Tom wrote:
> >>> IE8
> >>> WinXP Pro SP3 all MS updates
> >>> 2GB RAM
> >>> Dell Latitude D600 laptop, fyi.
> >>>
> >>> In reviewing the Task Manager processes it appears that IE8 allocates
> >>> and
> >>> uses an excessive amount of memory. For example, sorting the Processes
> >>> by
> >>> Mem Usage currently yields one iexplore.exe as using 651K and another
> >>> one
> >>> at
> >>> 157K. Still others at 67K, 57K and 26K. The smaller one's seem fine
> >>> but
> >>> the 651K and 157K seem excessively high.
> >>> 1) Is this actually the result of IE8 or is it the websites (Yahoo
> >>> etc.)?
> >>> I've got 4 tabs and this "New Question" open for IE8.
> >>> 2) Is there a BETTER way to determine which tab is the 'offending'
> >>> memory
> >>> and CPU usage since ALL processes for iexplore.exe have the same Image
> >>> Name.
> >>> When I've terminated the process of iexplore.exe all the processes
> >>> terminate. It appears that any open window related to IE8 has an
> >>> associated
> >>> iexplore.exe Image Name.
> >>> 3) I've also noticed that I'll have IE8 pegged at 100%. Any reason why
> >>> or
> >>> some perspective here?
> >>>
> >>> I have found that I normally need to take IE8 down during my normal work
> >>> day
> >>> and work functions. Currently, with the above IE8 information my
> >>> Performance tab shows Physical Memory (K) with 2GB, Available 514K and
> >>> System Cache of 445K.
> >>>
> >>> I also recently received a system warning on low resources which caused
> >>> the
> >>> Paging file to expand. [This may not be totally true as I'm recalling
> >>> it
> >>> from memory relative to my Windows message.] The Event Viewer for IE
> >>> does
> >>> not show any entries - which seems odd in some ways! I also didn't find
> >>> any
> >>> entry into any of the Event Viewer logs for the low-resources message.
> >>> TIA!
>
>

YW.

Try this:

1. Reset your IE home page to BLANK then close all IE windows.

2. Open one (1) IE window to the new (about:blank) home page: Does TaskMan
show two (2) instances of IEXPLORE.EXE? What's the memory level for each?

3. Now, tell me what your original home page had been.


Tom wrote:
> Thanks for the insight that for each tab I have two (2) IEXPLORE.EXE
> processes. I never would have figured that one out.
> Any idea on the 600K+ memory allocated for a tab? Seems very high to me.
> Is this a Yahoo 'feature' or someone else's?
> TIA!
>
> "PA Bear [MS MVP]" wrote:
>
>> Everything in the blog entry (including Loosely-Coupled IE & Automatic
>> Crash
>> Recovery) applies to IE8 Final.
>>
>> "Combined, LCIE and Automatic Crash Recovery provide a really innovative
>> and
>> graceful way to recovery from crashes."
>>
>> In Task Manager | Processes tab, you will see two (2) instances of
>> IEXPLORE.EXE for every one (1) IE8 window open at the time. I suspect
>> this
>> may be the reason you consider the amount of memory being used at the
>> time
>> to be excessive, Tom.
>>
>>
>> Tom wrote:
>> > I'm not too sure I found what you were thinking about. The link covers
>> > quite a bit on IE8 beta and S7 beta testing.
>> > Can you be more specific at least relative to your link? Got any ideas
>> > without the link?
>> > Thanks!
>> >
>> > "PA Bear [MS MVP]" wrote:
>> >
>> >> See if this explains what you're seeing:
>> >> http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/200...liability.aspx
>> >> --
>> >> ~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
>> >> MS MVP-IE, Mail, Security, Windows Client - since 2002
>> >>
>> >> Tom wrote:
>> >>> IE8
>> >>> WinXP Pro SP3 all MS updates
>> >>> 2GB RAM
>> >>> Dell Latitude D600 laptop, fyi.
>> >>>
>> >>> In reviewing the Task Manager processes it appears that IE8 allocates
>> >>> and
>> >>> uses an excessive amount of memory. For example, sorting the
>> >>> Processes
>> >>> by
>> >>> Mem Usage currently yields one iexplore.exe as using 651K and another
>> >>> one
>> >>> at
>> >>> 157K. Still others at 67K, 57K and 26K. The smaller one's seem fine
>> >>> but
>> >>> the 651K and 157K seem excessively high.
>> >>> 1) Is this actually the result of IE8 or is it the websites (Yahoo
>> >>> etc.)?
>> >>> I've got 4 tabs and this "New Question" open for IE8.
>> >>> 2) Is there a BETTER way to determine which tab is the 'offending'
>> >>> memory
>> >>> and CPU usage since ALL processes for iexplore.exe have the same
>> >>> Image
>> >>> Name.
>> >>> When I've terminated the process of iexplore.exe all the processes
>> >>> terminate. It appears that any open window related to IE8 has an
>> >>> associated
>> >>> iexplore.exe Image Name.
>> >>> 3) I've also noticed that I'll have IE8 pegged at 100%. Any reason
>> >>> why
>> >>> or
>> >>> some perspective here?
>> >>>
>> >>> I have found that I normally need to take IE8 down during my normal
>> >>> work
>> >>> day
>> >>> and work functions. Currently, with the above IE8 information my
>> >>> Performance tab shows Physical Memory (K) with 2GB, Available 514K
>> >>> and
>> >>> System Cache of 445K.
>> >>>
>> >>> I also recently received a system warning on low resources which
>> >>> caused
>> >>> the
>> >>> Paging file to expand. [This may not be totally true as I'm
>> >>> recalling
>> >>> it
>> >>> from memory relative to my Windows message.] The Event Viewer for IE
>> >>> does
>> >>> not show any entries - which seems odd in some ways! I also didn't
>> >>> find
>> >>> any
>> >>> entry into any of the Event Viewer logs for the low-resources
>> >>> message.
>> >>> TIA!
>>
>>

Tom wrote on Wed, 17 Jun 2009 04:01:01 -0700:

> IE8
> WinXP Pro SP3 all MS updates 2GB RAM
> Dell Latitude D600 laptop, fyi.

> In reviewing the Task Manager processes it appears that IE8 allocates
> and uses an excessive amount of memory. For example, sorting the
> Processes by
> Mem Usage currently yields one iexplore.exe as using 651K and another
> one at 157K. Still others at 67K, 57K and 26K. The smaller one's
> seem fine but the 651K and 157K seem excessively high.
> 1) Is this actually the result of IE8 or is it the websites (Yahoo
> etc.)?
> I've got 4 tabs and this "New Question" open for IE8.
> 2) Is there a BETTER way to determine which tab is the 'offending'
> memory and CPU usage since ALL processes for iexplore.exe have the
> same Image Name.
> When I've terminated the process of iexplore.exe all the processes
> terminate. It appears that any open window related to IE8 has an
> associated iexplore.exe Image Name.
> 3) I've also noticed that I'll have IE8 pegged at 100%. Any reason why
> or some perspective here?

> I have found that I normally need to take IE8 down during my normal
> work day and work functions. Currently, with the above IE8
> information my Performance tab shows Physical Memory (K) with 2GB,
> Available 514K and System Cache of 445K.

> I also recently received a system warning on low resources which caused
> the
> Paging file to expand. [This may not be totally true as I'm recalling
> it from memory relative to my Windows message.] The Event Viewer for
> IE does not show any entries - which seems odd in some ways! I also
> didn't find any entry into any of the Event Viewer logs for the
> low-resources message.
> TIA!


Try running IE in No-Addons mode, and check the memory usage. With IE7Pro
running on my home PC IE8 often runs around 150MB per process (a lot of that
appears to be due to Easy Home Page, but I find it really useful), yet in
No-Addons mode they use around 20KB each. While IE will adjust it's memory
usage to accomodate the page being rendered, if you find that it's using a
lot as soon as you start it then it'll be due to add-ons being loaded.
However, the figures you've given are all under 1Mb which to me seems small
if that's a complex page being rendered.

--
Dan

"Daniel Crichton" wrote:

> Tom wrote on Wed, 17 Jun 2009 04:01:01 -0700:
>
> > IE8
> > WinXP Pro SP3 all MS updates 2GB RAM
> > Dell Latitude D600 laptop, fyi.
>
> > In reviewing the Task Manager processes it appears that IE8 allocates
> > and uses an excessive amount of memory. For example, sorting the
> > Processes by
> > Mem Usage currently yields one iexplore.exe as using 651K and another
> > one at 157K. Still others at 67K, 57K and 26K. The smaller one's
> > seem fine but the 651K and 157K seem excessively high.
> > 1) Is this actually the result of IE8 or is it the websites (Yahoo
> > etc.)?
> > I've got 4 tabs and this "New Question" open for IE8.
> > 2) Is there a BETTER way to determine which tab is the 'offending'
> > memory and CPU usage since ALL processes for iexplore.exe have the
> > same Image Name.
> > When I've terminated the process of iexplore.exe all the processes
> > terminate. It appears that any open window related to IE8 has an
> > associated iexplore.exe Image Name.
> > 3) I've also noticed that I'll have IE8 pegged at 100%. Any reason why
> > or some perspective here?
>
> > I have found that I normally need to take IE8 down during my normal
> > work day and work functions. Currently, with the above IE8
> > information my Performance tab shows Physical Memory (K) with 2GB,
> > Available 514K and System Cache of 445K.
>
> > I also recently received a system warning on low resources which caused
> > the
> > Paging file to expand. [This may not be totally true as I'm recalling
> > it from memory relative to my Windows message.] The Event Viewer for
> > IE does not show any entries - which seems odd in some ways! I also
> > didn't find any entry into any of the Event Viewer logs for the
> > low-resources message.
> > TIA!
>
>
> Try running IE in No-Addons mode, and check the memory usage. With IE7Pro
> running on my home PC IE8 often runs around 150MB per process (a lot of that
> appears to be due to Easy Home Page, but I find it really useful), yet in
> No-Addons mode they use around 20KB each. While IE will adjust it's memory
> usage to accomodate the page being rendered, if you find that it's using a
> lot as soon as you start it then it'll be due to add-ons being loaded.
> However, the figures you've given are all under 1Mb which to me seems small
> if that's a complex page being rendered.
>
> --
> Dan

I think what Tom meant in his first post was that he was having iexplore
processes with 651K (~638MB), 157K (~152MB) and other little ones with 67K
(~64MB), 57K (~55MB) and 26K (~25MB) of RAM usage. If you add them up, the
number produced looks painful on a system with only 2GB RAM.

wombat wrote on Sun, 21 Jun 2009 04:29:01 -0700:

> "Daniel Crichton" wrote:

>> Tom wrote on Wed, 17 Jun 2009 04:01:01 -0700:

>>> IE8
>>> WinXP Pro SP3 all MS updates 2GB RAM
>>> Dell Latitude D600 laptop, fyi.

>>> In reviewing the Task Manager processes it appears that IE8
>>> allocates and uses an excessive amount of memory. For example,
>>> sorting the
>>> Processes by
>>> Mem Usage currently yields one iexplore.exe as using 651K and
>>> another one at 157K. Still others at 67K, 57K and 26K. The smaller
>>> one's seem fine but the 651K and 157K seem excessively high.
>>> 1) Is this actually the result of IE8 or is it the websites (Yahoo
>>> etc.)?
>>> I've got 4 tabs and this "New Question" open for IE8.
>>> 2) Is there a BETTER way to determine which tab is the 'offending'
>>> memory and CPU usage since ALL processes for iexplore.exe have the
>>> same Image Name.
>>> When I've terminated the process of iexplore.exe all the processes
>>> terminate. It appears that any open window related to IE8 has an
>>> associated iexplore.exe Image Name.
>>> 3) I've also noticed that I'll have IE8 pegged at 100%. Any reason
>>> why or some perspective here?

>>> I have found that I normally need to take IE8 down during my normal
>>> work day and work functions. Currently, with the above IE8
>>> information my Performance tab shows Physical Memory (K) with 2GB,
>>> Available 514K and System Cache of 445K.

>>> I also recently received a system warning on low resources which
>>> caused the
>>> Paging file to expand. [This may not be totally true as I'm
>>> recalling it from memory relative to my Windows message.] The
>>> Event Viewer for
>>> IE does not show any entries - which seems odd in some ways! I
>>> also didn't find any entry into any of the Event Viewer logs for
>>> the low-resources message.
>>> TIA!


>> Try running IE in No-Addons mode, and check the memory usage. With
>> IE7Pro running on my home PC IE8 often runs around 150MB per process
>> (a lot of that appears to be due to Easy Home Page, but I find it
>> really useful), yet in
>> No-Addons mode they use around 20KB each. While IE will adjust it's
>> memory usage to accomodate the page being rendered, if you find that
>> it's using a lot as soon as you start it then it'll be due to
>> add-ons being loaded.
>> However, the figures you've given are all under 1Mb which to me seems
>> small if that's a complex page being rendered.

>> --
>> Dan

> I think what Tom meant in his first post was that he was having
> iexplore processes with 651K (~638MB), 157K (~152MB) and other little
> ones with 67K (~64MB), 57K (~55MB) and 26K (~25MB) of RAM usage. If
> you add them up, the number produced looks painful on a system with
> only 2GB RAM.

651K is not 638MB - it's 0.638MB! Same goes for your other figures, you're
off by a long shot. When you add those up IE is using a small fraction of
the total system memory. Where did you get the idea that Tom meant MB
instead of K? Or do you think that the K in Task Manager is actually M? If
so, why have I currently got, for instance, explorer.exe using 108,704k,
which by your terms would be 106GB, on system with only 1GB of RAM?

--
Dan