Windows Vista 64-bit leeching memory while idling

Hi,

I have recently purchased a computer and installed Windows Vista Home
Premium 64-bit on it. My machine has a Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 processor with
2x2GB of RAM. For some reason, after leaving the machine on for more than two
days, the memory usage increases to approximately 70~80% with almost no
applications running (firefox, msn, windows media player... etc.). Page files
is turned down to 16 Mb but enabled and firefox is only taking up roughly 120
Mb of memory. When I launch a game that takes up 600 Mb of memory, the memory
usage increases to around 85%. During this time, an error window pops up,
indicating "low memory" and prompting to terminate the program. Can anybody
tell me what is wrong? Thank you.

"ADC" <> wrote in message
news:6D04DA6C-3A1C-4D24-A6C1-...
> Hi,
>
> I have recently purchased a computer and installed Windows Vista Home
> Premium 64-bit on it. My machine has a Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 processor
> with
> 2x2GB of RAM. For some reason, after leaving the machine on for more than
> two
> days, the memory usage increases to approximately 70~80% with almost no
> applications running (firefox, msn, windows media player... etc.). Page
> files
> is turned down to 16 Mb but enabled and firefox is only taking up roughly
> 120
> Mb of memory. When I launch a game that takes up 600 Mb of memory, the
> memory
> usage increases to around 85%. During this time, an error window pops up,
> indicating "low memory" and prompting to terminate the program. Can
> anybody
> tell me what is wrong? Thank you.

Don't know what's wrong, but I can offer a few suggestions:

1) Install more memory, or install what you do have in Dual Channel mode.
To do this, make sure there is one 2GB stick in Channel A, slot 0, and one
stick in Channel B, slot 0. Don't listen to anyone else about this, since I
am POSITIVE that this is how one sets up his memory to use Dual Channel mode
(at least for my Intel DG33TL). DON'T put them both in the same channel,
since this will STOP you from using your memory as Dual Channel memory.
Read your user manual. It should show you how to set up memory to be dual
channel.
2) Install a memory optimizer of some sort. Vista, like XP, seems to not
want to let go of memory no longer in use. I'm currently using Advanced
Vista Optimizer, and almost always have a minimum of 2GB free RAM.
3) Let Vista handle your page file size. Normally, the page file needs 1/2
the size of installed memory. This will allow more virtual memory. Unless
you have beau coup (like, exceeding 8GB) GBytes of Dual Channel memory, 16MB
is MUCH TOO SMALL for a Windows page file. You should know by now that
Vista (either x32 or x64) drinks up memory like hackers drink up Jolt Cola.

Hope this helps somewhat...

Donald L McDaniel
Please reply to the original thread and newsgroup.
====================================