ram usage unusually high

assasin1999 · **Posted:** July 22nd, 2009, 6:49 am

well i was watching stuff on youtube when the videos began jumping a lot and something was causing a low bitrate and i checked my ram clock on my sidebar and it was 100% i only had internet explorer up and msn yet i have 2gigs of ram i checked task manager and it said there was 2 internet explorers running taking up almost 1`gig. add that to the gig taken up by vista and i have next to no ram. any ideas why it was displayinbg 2 ie's and they both were using ubsurd amounts of ram. i can fix it but opening task manager in vista is a pain so i would like to know ways to prevent this?

any help is appreciated

Adbot · **Posted:** July 22nd, 2009, 6:49 am

Sam · **Posted:** July 22nd, 2009, 5:52 pm

Well, the only thing I can think of is the fact that IE and Vista are just absurdly bloated programs. Also, was one of the IE processes called explorer.exe and not iexplorer.exe? Because, I think those are two different processes and you need explorer.exe running for windows to operate correctly. Also, how much RAM does your anti-virus or firewall use? Some AV programs tend to use a lot of RAM when they are just idle.

Sworder · **Posted:** July 22nd, 2009, 6:23 pm

You can open task manage by right clicking the taskbar and hitting Task Manager.

As for your problem, I'm not very sure what could be causing this. Try doing a virus scan.

I would suggest swapping browsers to Mozilla Firefox, as it doesn't use as many resources as Internet Explorer.

assasin1999 · **Posted:** July 23rd, 2009, 12:26 am

i can't use firefox if my memory serves me right it runs slower for me but i will try.

Sam wrote:

Well, the only thing I can think of is the fact that IE and Vista are just absurdly bloated programs. Also, was one of the IE processes called explorer.exe and not iexplorer.exe? Because, I think those are two different processes and you need explorer.exe running for windows to operate correctly. Also, how much RAM does your anti-virus or firewall use? Some AV programs tend to use a lot of RAM when they are just idle.

I hate to admit i currently no AV software i havn't installed it yet i have norton 09 somewhere but I'm really lazy so i havn't installed it. no sure about the firewall

Aquw VettelS 776 · **Posted:** July 23rd, 2009, 10:40 am

Just a couple of things to pick up on:

1) iexplore.exe is Internet Explorer. explorer.exe is part of the operating system- the task bar and file browsers. **

2) You can open task manager easily by pressing ctrl + shift + esc.

** Just as a side note, it's perfectly fine to close explorer.exe if you have problems with it (freezes, sudden slow-downs). Just make sure you restart it again by going to File > New task in task manager. I do this sometimes- it often does the trick, and have never had a problem with it.

assasin1999 · **Posted:** July 23rd, 2009, 11:16 am

aquw 776 wrote:

Just a couple of things to pick up on:

1) iexplore.exe is Internet Explorer. explorer.exe is part of the operating system- the task bar and file browsers. **

2) You can open task manager easily by pressing ctrl + shift + esc.

** Just as a side note, it's perfectly fine to close explorer.exe if you have problems with it (freezes, sudden slow-downs). Just make sure you restart it again by going to File > New task in task manager. I do this sometimes- it often does the trick, and have never had a problem with it.

it was definatly iexplorer but thanks anyway

Adbot · **Posted:** July 23rd, 2009, 11:16 am

Ninjaa · **Posted:** July 23rd, 2009, 11:20 am

Yea, if you closed explorer.exe your bottom bar would vanish... pain in the backside when I click the wrong one by mistake...

Pfkninenines · Global Moderator 12/4/08

I'm not sure how much they've improved Sidebar in SP2 with Vista, but I'd tend to say to disable it. It wasn't ever very efficient, though I know there were improvements in SP2. I haven't used the sidebar since SP1, and I've disabled enough services that I can't even use Sidebar.. Anyway, closing out of the sidebar app usually clears up 100mb+, depending on how much you have it doing.

Also, make sure you're using a paging file. Right click My Computer and select properties. Click Advanced System Settings (alternativly, search Advanced System Settings in Windows Search through the Start Menu) and then under Advanced, select the Settings button in Performance. Under advanced, make sure Virtual Memory is set to ~4000mb, which is typically a good amount for a system with 2gb of ram.

Also, when you're watching a flash video, the decoding is being done through the processor. I'm guessing the lag you were experiencing was mostly due to your processor struggling to keep up with the video decoding, and whatever else was running in the background.