# Reduce RAM consumption in Vista



## henryhenry

Hi... When I buy my laptop, I saw ram consumbed in windows vista is 40%. After 2 weeks,I say that the RAM consumed is almost 60%. I also heard from my friends that vista is slow. Can I have some advice in lowering my RAM back to normal or less than 20% perhaps. My RAM is 3 GB. I think that vista consume 40% of the RAM in its system. I think it is pretty much!!


----------



## chibicitiberiu

You should try deactivating the sidebar, which could use precious memory to run.
Go to msconfig and deselect some of the processes in there which are useless. Than don't use the stupid glass effect. Try the windows classic theme, or try some none-glass fx or transparent themes.


----------



## mep916

I've given you your own thread. 

That seems kinda high. Even with [email protected] running, my RAM usage is around 1GB. Can you post a screenshot of your running processes? Hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete, then select Task Manager. Should look something like this...


----------



## PC eye

It is too high to start with! The basic installation should see only 512mb. With a few basics on plus a few average programs you still shouldn't be hitting the 1gb mark. With a ton of small startups or some ram intensive processes then you could see 40% with 3gb available.

What are you going by when stating 40% the performance tab in the task manager or some 3rd party program?


----------



## OS Master

Yeah, we need to see what processes are taking up the most memory.  

If you want to reduce the amount of memory consumed by Vista, try disabling themes.  It's a multi-step process, which usually involves switching to the Classic theme, "Adjust[ing] for best performance", and disabling and stopping the Themes service.


----------



## PC eye

There's been a few different blogs on how to improve Vista's performance by doing this and that. One is seen at  http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/2007/10/19/10-simple-ways-to-speed-up-windows-vista/

MS has their own guide seen among the rest of the How Tos at  http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/default.mspx

The page for you to look over is seen at  http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/95f70af6-edd6-4f2f-9f02-7d6bdf0190611033.mspx


----------



## tlarkin

Well, that is how Vista technically works.  It caches things out to the RAM and to virtual memory on a constant basis.  So, you may see your RAM usage go up.  

I err, I don't know how to look at exactly what processes are using what type of memory in Windows.  I do in Unix via the top command.  Let me do a little research to see if there is a windows equivalent.  Maybe there can be some tweaking you can do, but for the most part eating up that RAM can be actually normal.  Most modern OSes do that.  

There are so many factors involved.  You could be running a crappy coded application that has what is called a memory leak and is slowly eating up your available memory.


----------



## tlarkin

OK, I do not have a vista box in front of me, so syntax and commands may have changed.

Click on start and in the run box type 'cmd' and hit enter.  This will toss you into the command line.

From there type this code:



		Code:
	

tasklist /svc


Copy and paste the results.  This will list all tasks running and their PID

Now, back to the command line, type in the command wmic.  This will put you into interactive mode with this command.  Type the following commands and copy/paste the results:

pagefile list full

startup list full

process list

Copy and paste the results from each command.  Again I can only verify that these syntax work in XP Pro, as I do not have a vista machine at my disposal at the moment.


----------



## speedyink

tlarkin said:


> Well, that is how Vista technically works.  It caches things out to the RAM and to virtual memory on a constant basis.  So, you may see your RAM usage go up.
> 
> I err, I don't know how to look at exactly what processes are using what type of memory in Windows.  I do in Unix via the top command.  Let me do a little research to see if there is a windows equivalent.  Maybe there can be some tweaking you can do, but for the most part eating up that RAM can be actually normal.  Most modern OSes do that.
> 
> There are so many factors involved.  You could be running a crappy coded application that has what is called a memory leak and is slowly eating up your available memory.



Your right, though it still shouldn't be at 60%, or even 40% at idle.  With 3.2gb of ram mine's at about 25% at idle.  My guess is applications running in the background.


----------



## tlarkin

speedyink said:


> Your right, though it still shouldn't be at 60%, or even 40% at idle.  With 3.2gb of ram mine's at about 25% at idle.  My guess is applications running in the background.



Well, it could be an application running that has faulty code and is causing a memory leak.  However, Vista, will cache things out to RAM and virtual memory so your usage will go up, and some of that stuff won't get totally cleared until a full reboot is done.


----------



## speedyink

tlarkin said:


> Well, it could be an application running that has faulty code and is causing a memory leak.



Very true


----------



## alexa

Hello My RAM is on 75%...how can i decrease it...I  have read these threads...but I am a complete novice and need to know how to do it in dummy language
please
thank you
alexa


----------



## Aastii

alexa said:


> Hello My RAM is on 75%...how can i decrease it...I  have read these threads...but I am a complete novice and need to know how to do it in dummy language
> please
> thank you
> alexa



press ctrl+alt+del and click task manager (of right click the clock in the bottom right and click task manager). Click the processes tab and then click the memory heading so it sorts it in order of how much memory is being used. Max sure the box at the bottom saying show processes from all users is checked. Look at if anything is using alot that isn't necessary and find out how you can get rid of it

If it doesn't seem that anything is out of place then you will probably need more system memory. How much do you currently have?


----------



## linkin

Dude... 2 year old bump


----------



## lucasbytegenius

alexa said:


> Hello My RAM is on 75%...how can i decrease it...I  have read these threads...but I am a complete novice and need to know how to do it in dummy language
> please
> thank you
> alexa



What OS?
And why didn't you make your own thread?


----------

