Vista uses up 4gigs of memory and freezes my computer

[+Mystic MVC]

This problem has now happened twice in two days now. I will be randomly doing something on my computer when it practically seizes up. After getting the task manager to come up (takes about a minute), it shows that 3.8 out of my 4 gigs of ram are currently being used while the CPU is at 2-3% usage.

I have done AV and antispyware scans and come up with nothing. What could cause this?

[Kami-]

Any idea which processes/tasks are using the RAM?

[+Mystic MVC]

When I look at the task manager (processes) and sort by the far column, the most two things only have around 130,000k it looks like.

[MMaster23]

Vista probably is caching your memory. This is normal.

Post a screenshot of your taskmanager.

[neufuse Veteran]

You sure you arnt looking at the wrong info when it comes to used memory? whats your physical memory usage? Total Cached and Free? remember that in Vista Free doesnt mean "available for use".. that is free + cached

[Son of Hook]

Aye. Vista's memory management is much better than in XP. It uses most of what's available and frees it up when it's needed. This is normal behavior.

Are the drivers for your hardware up to date?

[kl33per]

His problem is that his computer is slowing to a crawl, not the high RAM usage. SuperFetch should not be causing HDD I/O problems thanks to low priority I/O. Have you upgraded any drivers lately, be it intentionally or via Windows Update?

[Son of Hook]

His problem is that his computer is slowing to a crawl, not the high RAM usage. SuperFetch should not be causing HDD I/O problems thanks to low priority I/O. Have you upgraded any drivers lately, be it intentionally or via Windows Update?

The OP is correlating the slow performance to memory usage hence all the replies about Vista's memory management.

[shockz]

Vista probably is caching your memory. This is normal.

Post a screenshot of your taskmanager.

It's normal for Vista to seize up his computer to an unusable state??

[+Mystic MVC]

Vista probably is caching your memory. This is normal.

Post a screenshot of your taskmanager.

I will next time it happens but the computer pretty much comes to a screeching halt so I don't think it is normal.

His problem is that his computer is slowing to a crawl, not the high RAM usage. SuperFetch should not be causing HDD I/O problems thanks to low priority I/O. Have you upgraded any drivers lately, be it intentionally or via Windows Update?

I think it somehow stems from Nvidia's newest forceware but I can't remember if it happened before that, either that or I have an inkling it might be Dreamscene. I think that because yesterday I didn't run it at all and I didn't have the issue. My computer is more than capable of handling Dreamscene so I'm not sure what the issue is.

[rdxg0d]

Might want to run a memtest using the windows cd , or memtest86.....check ur ram

[REM2000]

i would have thought if it was bad memory it would crash out the machine not slow it down.

Sounds like the HDD is being thrashed for some reason? Does your hdd light flash consistently when you have the slow down?

[Brandon Live Veteran]

It's normal for Vista to seize up his computer to an unusable state??

Of course not.

OP - what applications do you have running at the time?

I know from experience that the Trillian Astra alpha causes Windows to get into an unusuable state sometime, and the only thing you can do is Ctrl+Alt+Del and select Log Off.

[+Mystic MVC]

i would have thought if it was bad memory it would crash out the machine not slow it down.

Sounds like the HDD is being thrashed for some reason? Does your hdd light flash consistently when you have the slow down?

I will check next time if it happens again. I have plenty of things to check for thanks to you guys so please keep checking back this week as I will try to say if it happens again.

Can you run a memtest off of a USB?

[rdxg0d]

you could also look into how to use xperf to fix issues with certain aspects pertaining to driver issues, slow downs, and bottlenecks within vista.

[darkmanx21]

When did it start? Do you have a restore point that you can go back to? Drivers can be the problem so we have to figure it out one by one...

[rdxg0d]

xperf can show you a great deal of information to determine whats wrong under the hood ...

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc305218.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/pigscanfly/archive/2...indows-sdk.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/Driver/tips/DPC_ISR.mspx

[+Mystic MVC]

How should I exactly run xperf? Have it running all the time or only try to bring it up (would probably be painfully slow) when the computer is at a near halt?

[primexx]

do you run real time AV? sometimes scanning a huge file would take up all your ram.

[rdxg0d]

How should I exactly run xperf? Have it running all the time or only try to bring it up (would probably be painfully slow) when the computer is at a near halt?

xperf runs in the background and runs a trace on your system while your using it...if you run it this way it will run all the way through the halt, that way you can then stop the trace and look at the logs using the xperf viewer and see where its stopping and find out if its a software, or driver issue. If none of those are the culprit then i'd start stress testing your hardware to see if its one of your components.

[+Mystic MVC]

do you run real time AV? sometimes scanning a huge file would take up all your ram.

I have Kaspersky 2009 running and only scanning when I choose it to.

rdxg0d: I will definitely start running it if this happens again. Thanks

[soldier1st]

vista uses all your memory for a good reason, if it slowing you down then try to run less programs, also have you installed sp1 and all updates?have you changed any default settings?

[+Mystic MVC]

vista uses all your memory for a good reason, if it slowing you down then try to run less programs, also have you installed sp1 and all updates?have you changed any default settings?

Pretty sure running two small programs at the same time isn't causing it (Alice and WMP) and yes I have all the updates.

[majortom1981]

The OP should really post a screenshot of his task manager. It is most likely caused by a bad program. Rarely is it caused by the OS itself.

[aussiefloyd_fan]

It's normal for Vista to seize up his computer to an unusable state??

yep :p

i have 242 MB free out of 2 gigs currently with 1.2 gigs cached.