Does Win7 hog RAM?

Kev M

Kev M

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I was doing some stuff last night and had the task manager running at the same time. With no programs running it was using a steady 1.25GB of RAM. The only thing that might have been running was the wifi, the AV and the firewall (microsoft security essentials and windows firewall I think). Surely these can't be using all that RAM when there's nothing else going on?:shrug:
 
to be honest i havent noticed it using too much.. i'll reboot my laptop tonight and do some checking for you.

but at the moment im using 2.3gb thats windows processes, 6x IE8, Firefox, Outlook 2010, Notepad, 2x AS400 Emulators, 3x Remote Desktop, SQL Management Studio, FileZilla, AnyDVD, HTCSync, Display Fusion.. so its memory management isnt too bad.. :)

(just been reminded how bloated FF is mind looking at my processes..)
 
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Well the AV and firewall are programs plus how many windows "processes" are you running.

Have a look at www.blackviper.com
 
neil_g said:
thats why i said i'll reboot later and see what mine is "at rest" to try and get some sort of comparison.

forgot AV but thats avast so its only like 3mb :lol:
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Yes but depending on what he has installed even without running programs he may have a vastly different number of processes in operation.

Many programs have an auto updater running constantly in the background as an example.

3mb wow I remember my BBC Micro with less than that in total:)
 
At rest my windows 7 uses 780MB, inc' Norton A/V, with CS5/LR3 and Phase One Capture 6 open and loaded with files 1.5GB. to give you some sort of bench mark..;)
 
I think it uses much less than vista anyway.:)
 
Mine (7 Enterprise) uses 1.5GB out of 8GB at rest, after it's been on for a few days that might go up to 2.5GB but it does have a whole pile of stuff installed.

If you're comparing it to XP then yes, it will use a lot more memory. If you're comparing it to Vista then IMO (and to be honest I had a Vista machine for about a day) then it should use a little less.

How much RAM do you have in the PC?
 
PsiFox said:
Yes but depending on what he has installed even without running programs he may have a vastly different number of processes in operation.

Many programs have an auto updater running constantly in the background as an example.

3mb wow I remember my BBC Micro with less than that in total:)
Click to expand...

yup its not a completely accurate comparison..

mine uses 1.3gb on a fresh boot at rest. but as mentioned previous it will use more memory than XP because of the newer feel and additional background processes. itll use about the same as vista on the latest service pack to be honest, that wasnt too bad for memory.
 
Windows Vista and 7 "reserve" a portion of memory for their own use. It does not necessarily mean it is being used.
 
Like Vista it tends to find "stuff" to fill the RAM with so it apparently loads your programs and stuff faster. If you ran it on a computer with 512M of RAM, it would appear to use nearly all of it regardless what you are doing. Likewise with a computer equipped with 2G of RAM, the same would happen. With lots of RAM it might not be so extreme, but generally speaking it will try to use as much as it can to help performance. The way the graph in task manager shows memory use is different to XP though, and the two are often confused .
 
Cheers for the info folks. Sounds like mine is about normal then, that's reassuring.
 
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