[RESOLVED] cached memory?

[drivenbywhat]

Can anyone tell me why windows has cached up to 1.5gb of memory? Or why my page file is 1.7gb? I've attached a screenshot so you can see.

First I turned off superfetch a long time ago and checked it today just to make sure it was still off. The reason the cached memory came to my attention was because I run virtual machines and all of a sudden I couldn't start one because it said I didn't have enough memory for it. When I checked the task manager cached memory was like at 5.5gb! I had to restart my pc so it would go down. It went down to about 800mb but it has steadily climbed to what it is now.

Second I have set my pagefile size to be 1gb a long time ago. I also set it as the maximum. So I'm not sure why it states it's at 1.7gb now? I did check the pagefile.sys file and it is only 1 gb though...

Any light on this matter is appreciated. Thanks.

[FireXtol]

That's not really helpful. The meaningful information will be on the Processes tab.

Not sure if they've changed the column headers, but the ones that should be most significant would be "VM Size" and "Mem Usage".

This will allow you to determine which processes are using large amounts of memory.

Perhaps you have a memory leak, but in my experiences VMs segregate large chunks of RAM for themselves(usually 512MB to 1 GB or more, for 'modern' OS), and this could certainly be causing a lack of resources. You may need to lower the amount dedicated to each VM in order to run more VMs.

[drivenbywhat]

Yes, they've changed the column headers. But as I understood it "private working set" was the real memory being used that used to be called "virtual memory" in xp. As you can see the most memory being used is about 140mb by firefox. Also, when I said I ran vms I didn't mean I have dozens of them. I have an 8gb system. I run different vms at different times. Right now I'm only allocating 1gb to server 2008 & I allocated 1gb to vista. My vista vm won't start because I have only 36mb free of ram! Something is eating up my memory in cached. So I currently only have 1 vm running. I don't have anymore running. Technically I should be able to run others because I'm using about 2gb of total memory. I've been able to run 3 vms at one time in the past. Now I can only run 1.

[TheBigB]

Have you by any chance moved the pagefile to another partition?

[drivenbywhat]

Nope. Pagefile is still in c drive.

[dilettante]

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/200...my-memory.html

Turn SuperFetch back on, stop using FireFox. You might be amazed at how smooth things run for you then.

[drivenbywhat]

Superfetch stays off and I will keep firefox.

[dilettante]

You might read a little more on these subjects:

SuperFetch: How it Works & Myths

FireFox: High memory usage

[FireXtol]

Have you considered calling Microsoft for support? Assuming you own a valid Windows license(because if you did you're paying for support!).

[dilettante]

Actually only if you bought a retail license. OEM editions require the OEM to provide support.

[drivenbywhat]

Microsoft charges you like 150$ for support. I forget how it works but they take your info (credit card, etc) and at the end depending on what the problem was they charge you. So no I do not have MS on speed dial.

But the issue is resolved. After a couple of reboots I got my memory to stay low. After running runmap I saw that most of my memory being taken up were from isos still hanging in cache. I'm not sure but I think vmware was still holding onto the iso for the os loads.

I still couldn't get more than 1 vm to run but figured it out. I'm so used to configuring xp & 2003 vms and giving them 512mb each that running 3 of them wasn't a problem. In vmware you can assign each vm a certain amount of memory but there is a higher setting that this memory is allocated from. I had that setting at 2gb. So running vista & 2008 vm was already at 2048mb, hence the error of not enough memory even though I clearly had enough free memory.

So, it was user error for at least part of this issue. Thanks for trying to help everyone.

PS - wished this forum allowed email notification without having to check the forum. Didn't know there were more replies to my question until I decided to stop by to close the thread.

[chris128]

PS - wished this forum allowed email notification without having to check the forum. Didn't know there were more replies to my question until I decided to stop by to close the thread.

Huh? I get an email every time anyone replies to a thread I have posted in...

Also, why have you turned SuperFetch off? Do you actually understand what it does?

[baja_yu]

Huh? I get an email every time anyone replies to a thread I have posted in...

Open User CP > under Settings & Options go to Edit Option > there look for 'Default Thread Subscription Mode', set to Do not subscribe.

[chris128]

No, I'm not saying I dont want to get an email. I'm saying I do get an email so I dont understand how someone can say they wish this forum allowed email notification...

[baja_yu]

Hehe. I didn't actually read the part you quoted. Thought you were having a problem with it.
Maybe drivenbywhat will find the info useful.

[drivenbywhat]

I guess I need to clarify what I mean by "not getting notified". Yes, I do get notified when someone replies to a thread I'm subscribed to. However, I am not notified of further replies until I log into vbforums and check the thread. Get it now? So I did get notified when you replied chris, the post of why I have superfetch off. But I did not receive a notification of baja_yu replying, you then replying to him & finally him replying one more time. We are all busy. Sometimes we can't check new replies right away or we check the reply but don't necessarily login to vbforums. So not getting notified of further replies is to say the least, a bit frustrating.

[drivenbywhat]

As to why I turned superfetch off, unless windows lets me specify what programs & files I would like preloaded then it will never fit my needs and just annoy me with a blinking light of my hd. For example, I used an iso, about 2-3gb, to install server 2008 on vmware. I will only use that iso that one time until at least another 30-60 days before I need to reload to "renew" my activation. Do you think I like seeing windows preloading 2-3gb of that iso everyday? Nope.

[chris128]

Why would it preload something like that every day? Have you actually read the link that someone else posted earlier that explains how it works: http://www.osnews.com/story/21471/Su...it_Works_Myths

[drivenbywhat]

No I did not read the link that was posted. I've read enough about superfetch when I was trying to decide whether to keep it or turn it off. As to why superfetch loaded my isos everyday is beyond me. I just know it did and it really irritated the crap out me. So like I said before, unless I can tell windows what to preload for me, it guessing & trying to adapt to my needs isn't there yet.