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Tom4Panic

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T

Tom4Panic

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March 19th, 2007 13:00

Memory Usage

 
I have a Dell XPS 410 with 2 Gb's of RAM running Windows XP Home and AVG Free Edition as my Virus Protection.  I have 2 external Harddrives connected, one through USB and the other through FireWire.  When I scan my computer for Viruses the PF Usgage goes from 256 MB(that is right after a restart and nothing else running) to 503 MB's.  It goes up the most when it scans the External Harddrives, especially the one connected through Firewire.  After it is finished its scan, 503 MB stays and does diminish back to 256 MB.
 
Why is this happening?
 
Is this happening to other users with kind of the same setup? 
 
I asked this question on the AVG Forum boards and they said it was a Windows Page File setting.
  • J

    JRosenfeld

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    Posted March 19th, 2007 13:00

    May I ask why it worries you? Memory is there to be used. Unused memory isn't doing anything.
     
    As long as there is memory available, Windows will load things into memory as you need them and so long as there is unused memory, it may keep things that you have recently used in memory in case you need them again (for much faster access than from hard drive).
     
    If some app requires more memory than is currently available, Windows XP will gracefully move less recently used or less necessary things out to the pagefile, to free up the needed memory. The strategy is designed to make the best use possible of available memory for fast access to what is currently needed or is likely to be called on, depending on what you are doing.
     
    Similarly with the pagefile. As long as there is room, Windows will not waste time moving things out of it that it has recently put in and that are not currently needed.
     
    With 2GB of memory, the pagefile is of secondary importance as it will not be used much (unless you run an app that does intensive computing of one kind or another, such as video editing).
     
    You may find this useful reading
     


    Message Edited by JRosenfeld on 03-19-2007 03:56 PM

    Message Edited by JRosenfeld on 03-19-2007 04:02 PM
  • T

    Tom4Panic

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    Posted March 19th, 2007 14:00

    I guess it worries mr because if I was to do other things like run Photoshop with IE open and have music play in the background, I don't want to have my computer running slow becuase it just wants easy access to backed files on my external Harddrives.
     
    But as you stated above, sounds like Windows XP will dump unnecessary MB's out of the Page File to make room for Larger Software Apps.
     
    It is just weird seeing so much RAM being used up while idling.
     
     
  • A

    anonim

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    Posted March 19th, 2007 18:00

    When the antivirus scans for viruses, it is not a good idea to do other things as Photoshop editing or so. It is also good to plan a virus scanning schedule over night, while you sleep.

    Don't worry about memory usage. My XP uses almost 1 GB memory and the computer is still fast enough even to play games... :)
  • T

    Tom4Panic

    7 Posts

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    Posted March 20th, 2007 17:00

     
    I was playing some music on my computer lastnight through FooBar2000 and the Memory was going down.  It leveled off at 368 MB. 
     
    So I guess when it did hang on at 503 MB that one time, Windows was just doing it's job.
     
    Thanks for everyone's help and insight.
     
     

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