[Ham-Computers] RE: Question abt Ram

[Hsu, Aaron (NBC Universal)]

Brian,

This thread brought up two different things, so I'll try to answer your
question about how to determine if you're running low on RAM.  I'll
address "RAM Defragging" in a seperate post.

If you have Win2K/XP, bring up the Task Manager (press
<CTRL><ALT><DELETE>, or, Right-Click the System Tray -> Task Manager)
and select the "Performance" tab.  On the bottom section of the
Performance tab, you'll find 4 sections - we'll focus on two of them.

The bottom left section is "Commit Charge" - this section shows three
counters - "Total", "Limit", and "Peak".  Basically, these three
counters shows how much system memory is currently in use, total
available (including pagingfile), and the highest amount actually used
since the last boot.

The top right section is "Physical Memory" - this section also shows
three counters - "Total", "Available", and "Cache".  These three
counters show how much "Physical" RAM you have (nothing virtualized),
how much RAM is free/available, and how much is currently being used for
"System Cache" (where Windows stores commonly used progs/apps/dlls
rather than paging them to the paging file).  "System Cache" is low
priority, so Windows will lower (aka take away from) "System Cache" when
applications require more than what's available in "Available" RAM.  It
does this by paging "System Cache" items to the paging file or unloading
unused DLL's.

The key numbers to look for in determining if you're "running out of
memory" is the "Total Commit Charge" vs the "Total Physical Memory".  If
Total Commit is greater than Total Physical, then you're constantly
paging to the pagingfile and slowing down your system.  For example, my
system currently shows a Total Commit of 337988K and Total Physical of
1039856K (roughly 1GB).  I'm using up about 1/3 RAM and have plenty to
spare for apps.  For reference, I have my pagingfile set to zero (turned
off).

Another number to monitor is the "Peak Commit".  This number shows the
total amount of memory (RAM and virtual (pagefile)) that your system has
used/requested since the last reboot.  If your "Peak Commit"
consistantly comes within 80% of the "Total Physical", then I highly
suggest that you upgrade the amount of RAM in your system.  In this
situation, Windows is probably constantly paging to the pagefile (on
your HD) and this slows down your system.  For reference, my system
currently shows a "Peak Commit" of 737221K - about 1/2 RAM.  This system
has been up for about 3 weeks now without a reboot, so the 737MB number
is the peak use of RAM on my system for the past 3 weeks.  This includes
a running a 256MB VirtualPC session several times during the 3 week
timeframe.  Regardless, I am still under the "Total Physical" of about
1GB, so I'm good.


Now, if you have Win95/98, you'll want to Right-Click on "My Computer"
-> Properties to bring up the System Properties panel.  Click on the
"Performance" tab.  In Win9x, you want to keep the "System Resources"
number above 70% for a relatively stable system.  This is not easy to do
at the same time these days, especially with Anti-virus and personal
firewall software running.  There are ways to try to "bump" this number
back up over 70%, but it's beyond the scope of this post.  If you're
consistanly down below 60% (or worse, 50%), then a careful look at
what's installed/running is definitely required.  BTW, in Win9x, adding
RAM will not cure this situation - System Resources is not linearly tied
in with physical RAM.  Check the Ham-Computers archive on my posts about
Win9x memory management.  Also, Win95/98 works best at 512MB or LESS of
physical RAM (320MB or less is preferred).  At some point, additional
memory "breaks" Win95/98 and you'll need to set a value in the
SYSTEM.INI to tell Win9x not to use the additional RAM.


As mentioned earlier, I'll post about "RAM Defragging" in another
message.  Let me know if you have any other Q's about determining RAM!


73,

  - Aaron Hsu, NN6O (ex-KD6DAE)
    {nn6o}@arrl.net
    {aaron.hsu}@nbcuni.com
    No-QRO Int'l #1,000,006
    . -..- - .-. .-   ".... . .- ...- -.--"
 


-----Original Message-----
Sent: Saturday, November 26, 2005 12:06 PM
Subject: [Ham-Computers] Question abt Ram 


What a good indication that ram may be running low on a computer? I
think I know the answer but asking anyway.

I think also you can do in task manager and it will also tell you, but I
don't know exactly what to look at in there.

Thanks,
Brian