Understanding memory usage in windows 7

As you can see, the Associated Handles and Associated Modules tables are currently hidden. Each table contains multiple columns that display pertinent data. You can view definitions of data by hovering your mouse pointer over the column title you want more information about. When you are analyzing the data presented in a table, you can manipulate the columns to focus on specific data using several techniques:. On each of the tabs, you'll see a set of pertinent graphs on the right panel. These graphs display a minute's worth of activity and run continuously.

If you want to take a closer look at the activity on a particular graph before it scrolls out of view, you can pull down the Monitor menu and select the Stop Monitoring command. Select the Start Monitoring command to resume. You can hide the graph's panel by clicking the arrow on the left side of the title bar. On the other hand, you can choose the size of the graph by clicking the Views button to choose between small, medium, and large graphs.

In Figure D, I am using the medium-sized graphs. You'll also see small bar graphs in many of the table title bars that show current results from the corresponding graphs. For example, the Physical Memory table title bar contains two bar graphs -- one showing memory in use and the other showing available memory. When you're tracking down a specific problem, you can use the Filtering features to highlight certain processes or services. When you select a process, all other processes are filtered out so that it is easy to see where and how the selected process is coming into play.

This makes it easier to focus on tracking and ultimately solving the problem at hand. In the key table on each tab, you'll notice that there are check boxes adjacent to each of the listed processes. If you select a process, each place that particular process occurs will be highlighted in orange on all of the tabs where the process or service comes into play. There are many ways that you can reconfigure Resource Monitor's display so that you can pinpoint specific areas that you want to look at.

It is very troublesome to watch my available ram go to 0 and NOT release it, ever. Brandon — This was an incredibly informative article. The entire idea of understanding how memory is used is a challenge. I wonder — might this entire discussion of how Windows 7 is used be essentially the same in Windows 10 or have there been fundamental changes to memory management with this overhaul?

Is there any thing missing needed to compile like include or require lines? Any information is appreciated. Thanks Brandon. Maybe you know why that may happen and most importantly, what can be done to prevent such crashes?

A good article — but one that still leaves me with a question — what of the available data tells me whether more RAM would be useful? You do not mention this, but I believe it records the number of times the memory manager cannot satisfy clients from physical RAM, and has to use the disk page file. My answer to why no page file is bad follows. For simplicities sake the system is assumed to use a steady 2G.

Suppose we have 8G of RAM physical memory — just to make this example concrete. If there is no page file all of this Commit ment is to provide RAM — leaving just 1G available for other applications.

At this time app1 is only actually using say 1G. Now app2 requests 4G. Windows cannot supply this since it has only 1G RAM uncommitted, and has no page file, so app2 is stalled. App 1 asks for 5G. Note that, as before, app1 is only using 1G so it is running fast in RAM.

App2 now asks for 4G. Suppose App2 actually uses 2G. As a result having a page file to absorb potentially used but committed memory it is often the case that more of the actually used memory can be accommodated in RAM.

The page file is just there is case all the Commitments are actually called in — and only then do things slow down — but can at least run! Thank you for this great article. I have one question, why after running this example code at end, the commited memory does not go back to previous value?

Will running it again eat some more from commited limit? The views expressed within my blog are my own - and are not in any way indicative of those of the company I work for or its employees. No warranties or other guarantees will be offered as to the quality of the opinions or anything else offered here. Titan Theme by The Theme Foundry. Follow: RSS Twitter. Tags Microsoft , Windows 7. The most interesting bits are here: What do these values tell us? Total — This is the total amount of physical memory available to Windows.

This is a hole in virtual memory. This hole still exists in x64 just for people with 4GB. Installing more Ram than 4 GB should fix it. Hi, I am having the exact same issue. However I have 6GB installed memory as reported in system properties. Otherwise I get a blue screen that reports a problem with atikmdag.

I've tried enabling and disabling memory hole remapping to no avail. I'm full out of ideas, any suggestions would be appreciated. Friday, July 3, AM. I'm having the same problem. I have 6 GB of ram installed, BIOS reports it correctly, even windows reports it correctly, however it says it only has 3.

Anyone found a solution to this problem? This was the whole reason I upgraded to a 64 bit OS. Saturday, July 18, AM. It could also be faulty ram, have you tried to run a ram diagnostic tool to see if your ram may not be functioning properly?

I just installed a new mainboard and using all the same components, 7 runs great!!! The board should have supported up to 8GB, but in practice it did not seem to be the case.

I don't know the exact reason, memory timings perhaps?