Something is hogging the memory.

Ok so my cousin just got a Dell Inspiron 1510 (I think) for Christmas and it has 1GB of ram and Vista Home Basic and for some reason even when the thing is idle it uses at least 750MB of ram and the task manager doesn't show anything using abnormal amounts of ram. Even in safe mode it uses 250MB. Is this just Vista being a system hog or what? I mean I run XP Home and right now I'm only using about 350MB of ram.

 

Yes Vista can do this.For example:if you want to install Xp on your machine recomended RAM is 512,but for Vista is double.This is cos Vista is bundled with too many applications(to catch on eye),that sucks memory like hell.But for peace of mind,go to Task mmanager and see if some app is playing around with your memory.Post what you have done.

 

If you are looking under performance, then under Physical Memory under there, you'll see:

Total
Cached
Free

Well, free is just what is not really needed (sorta). Cached is what is available. For instance. I have 6 gigs of ram (64 bit).

Total: 6141
Cached :4870
Free: 15

Cached is what you want to look at.

Besides, why would one want to have free ram, just sitting there, not doing anything. It is always nice to see your ram doing something. If an app needs more ram, vista will give it to it.

 

Goran.P - I ran CCleaner, Spybot, AVG-AV, and AdAware which nothing major was found and I stopped some programs from booting up. I checked the task manager too and nothing abnormal is running nor is anything eating ram that I can see. Even in safe mode the computer uses at least 250MB or ram.

theefool - I'll have to check what it says for those values.

 

Here's what it says thefool

Total: 1014
Cached :253
Free: 7

 

Now, one could say, that you only have 253 megs of ram available for whatever app. But, the thing to do, is run the most memory intensive app you have, then alt+tab to the desktop (may take a bit). Then bring up task manager and check those stats again. Vista should free up that ram.