how to reduce my RAM usage on Vista?

Question

I've got a 1gb RAM desktop pc running on windows vista premium with a 1.86ghz processor but my computer is so slow , when idle my computer uses about 70% of my RAM ,when being used it uses 80% of my RAM.
Is there any intermediate ways of reducing RAM usage?

Answer 1

if you get rid of the aeroglass effect it should reduce the RAM usage, right click om your desktop, go to personalize, click window colour & Appearance, and unlick where it says "enable transparancy"

Answer 2

Do you have an Intel video card? Vista's Aero desktop requires a good video card, a good video card requires VRAM, intel's video cards use system RAM instead. I.E. without a good video card, Windows Aero will eat system RAM. This is actually the video card's fault and not windows'.



It has already been suggested to turn down or off Aero desktop features.



Also reduce the number of programs running needlessly in the background. Windows Side-Bar (gadget thing) usually eats a lot of RAM, I disable that feature.



Honestly though, I wouldn't run Vista on anything less than 2GB of RAM. People often complain that Vista is not good because it requires more out of PCs. However, following their logic, Windows 98 will eat Windows XP anyday. Even still, if your PC does not sufficiently support Vista, you would be better off with XP.

Answer 3

definitely. But I think with windows ultimate there are more background services running. And disable those which you don't use. eg: print spooler. If no printer, then no need for that. But at a later point when you connect a printer don't forget to enable it. like wise the digital input (tablet stuffs.. etc) Not using aero reduces the system load. A fresh Windows Vista ultimate takes up around 700 mb of ram in idle case.

Answer 4

was your pc like this ever?

has it started using so much of ram recently?

if yes

what programs you have installed recently?

task manager can show you which programs / services are taking so much ram

start task manager, sort the grid by memory usage, my vista says iexplore.exe is using the maximum memory

is the cpu usage also high?



in case you feel that some application is doing this

analyse which applications are running by default?

use autoruns by microsoft to find out which applications run by default



how much memory it consumes in safe mode?



does your vista shuts down properly?



hope answer would give you a clue

Answer 5

You can change the theme to windows vista basic, it will lower your RAM usage but you'll lose the transparency and the thumbnail view of open windows and the 3D flip features.



Oh yeah, real player uses a lot of resources, just for having it open it uses up to 50% of CPU.

Answer 6

vista's minimum system requirements require at least 1 gb of ram. my main issue with vista is that it uses too much cpu and ram, even when idle. i wouldnt expect anything special out of that hardware and vista anyway, but theres not too much you can do. perhaps more ram would help you. also preinstalled software and processes running in the background eat up cpu and ram. without knowing what you have installed, you can stop processes through task manager. but before you stop any processes, make sure you know what they are and that it is safe to stop them. usually what i do is google the name of the process, and that tells me alot (if i dont already know.)

Answer 7

If your running the Aero theme change it to one of the less graphical themes.

If your running spybot tea timer it hogs resources, find a better solution. I use SuperAntiSpyware.

Press Ctrl+Alt+Del and check your task manager, order by CPU usage and processor usage to see what's generally slowing down your comp.

Answer 8

Open Task Manager ( alt+contorl+delete) and go to processes and close things that are not being used such as:

real player

msn

hidden applications that are running like

apple

Just be careful not to close important things !

Answer 9

Vista is very hungry. Save up and put another 2GB of ram in there.

Answer 10

Disable some services.

Answer 11

Hi there

Increase your RAM. its not expensive

go to this site and have your system analysed

http://www.crucial.com/

Flakes

Answer 12

Switch to xp or use these programs. Advanced system optimizer or tuneup utilites

Answer 13

remove vista