Weird Memory Usage

I have two computers. One is a Dell Dimension 8100 desktop with an intel pentium 4 processor (1.4 ghz) and 128megs of RAM. The other is an Averatec 3250 notebook with an Mobile AMD athlon XP-M 2200+ processor (1.26 ghz) and 512megs of ram. Both run XP home.

I've noticed that just about ever process on the notebook uses significantly more RAM than the same process on the desktop. Explorer.exe for instance uses an average of 4megs on the desktop and an average of 30megs on the notebook. iTunes.exe averages 30megs on the desktop and 40megs on the notebook. Firefox (by FAR the worst offender, but I believe this is specific to the software) averages 15-30megs on the desktop and anywhere from 30-90megs on the notebook. AVG ~ 1.5 megs on the desktop and 10megs on the notebook. The list continues, but you get the idea. Please note that variables such as, say, the size of the music library in iTunes, are controlled for. All things being equal, processes simply consume for RAM.

So my question is 1) what causes this and 2) is there anything I can do about it. I have a couple of theories about what might be causing it. Could it be that windows simply distributes more RAM when there is more RAM available? Or could it have something to do with the processor speed? Or could it have something to do with the bus width (I believe the two chips are equal in this regard)? Or could it be that all these programs are optomized for pentium processors?

Even if, as I suspect, this cannot be changed without a hardware change, it would be nice to find out why.

 

Hi MKorostoff,

Yes this is a direct result of having more memory available. The short answer to if it can be changed is no. You should also notice that processes run significantly faster on the machine with 512 megs of ram. The reason for that is they are given more memory space to use when they are running.