Samsung Galaxy S3 always at 80% RAM usage / Google Now problems

[bvh13]

So, it's been bothering me for a while but my now 2-year-and-2-month old Samsung Galaxy S3 always just runs incredibly slowly. Not only that, but I tend to burn through the battery easily within 6 hours. For the past year and a half, or so, I've had to resort to carrying around two spare batteries with me as it has a tendancy to run out of charge in the middle of the day, let alone if I'm out at a music festival or something. I'm not a particulaly heavy user, as in I rarely play video games on my phone, nor do I really watch videos or ever use bluetooth. Occassionally I do use GPS or WiFi, but I try to keep them turned off when I'm not using them. I tend to use my phone for music when I'm in the car, or texting / whatsapp / occasional snapchatting, or checking Pulse News or my internet banking. I don't have a particularly huge amount of apps installed, I don't think. And I regularly hold the Home button, & press the close-all-apps button to make sure that they're not running in the background.

 

Yet, my phone is so laggy. It's like there's a constant 3 or 5, or even sometimes 10, second delay for whatever action you've initiated to actually occur. You'll press Messages, and it'll take about 4 seconds for my text messages to show up. You'll press Home, and it takes about 3 seconds for it to close. Facebook just took about 8 seconds to load. It doesn't sound alot, but it can be quite infuriating when you're trying to get things done in a hurry. It's even worse when apps are running in the background!

So, I got to check my running processes and there's just loads of things running that both don't appear to be running when I hold the Home button but also shouldn't be running because I haven't used them in forever. It appears my phone has approximately 850MB of RAM, yet my phone tends to ALWAYS run at around 725MB used (currently it's at 751MB, as can be seen in the screenshot attached). But when I do go through the list of things running, the right hand side it tells you how much RAM is supposedly being used. Yet if I total up all of the RAM being used by all of the apps that are apparently running, it only comes to about 300MB. So where the heck is this other 450MB of RAM being used?! THIS is what is slowing down my phone, I think.

 

Nor only that, but there are things in this list that are running that shouldn't be running, & I don't understand why they are. Facebook, sure I can understand, in case you get a notification or something. But TuneIn Radio... I'm not listening to the radio at the moment, nor have I used the app in weeks (and my phone has been restarted numerous times since then), why is it running? S Voice, too? Video Hub? Google Play Music, I've never even used it. And then there's loads of things I haven't got a clue what they are, like Exchange Services, ELM Agent, SmartcardService, etc. Now I understand it's like a computer, where there are a number of background processes that have to run to make the OS work, but why are all these other apps running that I'm not using?!

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Furthermore, I've started trying to use Google Now because I would like to get a Moto 360 (but I'll ask questions about that in a seperate thread). So, it seemed to work fine a few weeks ago. It gave me stocks, news updates, ETA to work or home, started remembering where I was parking. But now a few days ago I go back to it, after not using it for a little while, & it's all reset; Asking me to set it up again. So I did, & it mostly works but I can only ever seem to get the first "page" of cards up. When I click "More" at the bottom I just get an endless spinning circle & then the message "No Internet Connection - Content was last updated X minutes ago" appears as the top card, when infact I know I do have an internet connection. Exiting the app, closing it down, & then re-opening does not fix the issue either. I'm at a complete loss as to what to do.

 

Furthermore, it always asks me to "Improve my location: For more accurate location, let google search for Wi-Fi connections, even when Wi-Fi is off." I don't understand how this works, and what it's trying to do? If I turn it on, is that not going to be effectively the same as leaving my WiFi turned on at all times? Well, except without the benefits of being connected via WiFi. It's just going to drain my battery more, as leaving WiFi on usually does.

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So tldr:
- Why is my RAM mysteriously using 450MB that I can't vouch for? Where is it going? How I stop it?

- Why is Google Now not letting my manually update the cards?

[QueenDemetria]

So tldr:

- Why is my RAM mysteriously using 450MB that I can't vouch for? Where is it going? How I stop it?

- Why is Google Now not letting my manually update the cards?

So I'll start with the ram issues. The 450Mb that isn't accounted for is the OS itself. This can use up to 500Mb and there really isn't much that you can do about it, other than controlling your programs. With the screenshot that you provided, the top 5 apps are accounting for over 100Mb, and all of the background processes fill up the rest. Your main options is to uninstall unneeded programs or upgrade to a better phone with at least 2Gb ram. 

 

Okay, Google Now. Google Now can act a little freaky, but it only gets worse with Samsung devices. Sometimes GN will conflict with S-Voice, so if you can disable S-Voice that would be great, but if not it will be something to live with. When I had this problem on the Note 2, uninstalling GN then rebooting the device fixed if for me.

[Mew]

IIRC, the Galaxy S 3 has 2gb of ram, at least in the US. RAM is also meant to be used. I think Android will keep apps open in the background for your to resume back to them faster rather than reloading it from scratch which is probably why it takes so long for your apps to open.

 

As for closing apps that are running in the background, Android should be able to automatically stop apps that are in the background when you need more ram. Back when I used to use Android, I used AutoKiller Memory Optimizer which let Android multitask more like iOS and be smarter with background apps to maximize performance. For your performance problems, have you tried factory restoring your phone to stock or try a different ROM that is lighter than TouchWiz?

 

As for your poor battery life, are you using genuine Samsung batteries or batteries purchased from eBay and the likes?

 

Your Google Now problem, I don't really know much about since I don't actively use Android, but it does seem strange.

[bvh13]

So I'll start with the ram issues. The 450Mb that isn't accounted for is the OS itself. This can use up to 500Mb and there really isn't much that you can do about it, other than controlling your programs. With the screenshot that you provided, the top 5 apps are accounting for over 100Mb, and all of the background processes fill up the rest. Your main options is to uninstall unneeded programs or upgrade to a better phone with at least 2Gb ram. 

 

Okay, Google Now. Google Now can act a little freaky, but it only gets worse with Samsung devices. Sometimes GN will conflict with S-Voice, so if you can disable S-Voice that would be great, but if not it will be something to live with. When I had this problem on the Note 2, uninstalling GN then rebooting the device fixed if for me.

 

I'm so bloody sick of S-Voice, it always goes off in my pocket and it's just the worst. Even when I do actually try to use it, it's just so bloody bad. I wish there was a way to fully disable or get rid of it, or whatever, entirely! I suppose I could try re-installing Google Now too and seeing if it works any better afterwards?

 

IIRC, the Galaxy S 3 has 2gb of ram, at least in the US. RAM is also meant to be used. I think Android will keep apps open in the background for your to resume back to them faster rather than reloading it from scratch which is probably why it takes so long for your apps to open.

 

As for closing apps that are running in the background, Android should be able to automatically stop apps that are in the background when you need more ram. Back when I used to use Android, I used AutoKiller Memory Optimizer which let Android multitask more like iOS and be smarter with background apps to maximize performance. For your performance problems, have you tried factory restoring your phone to stock or try a different ROM that is lighter than TouchWiz?

 

As for your poor battery life, are you using genuine Samsung batteries or batteries purchased from eBay and the likes?

 

Your Google Now problem, I don't really know much about since I don't actively use Android, but it does seem strange.

 

GSM Arena seems to say that it comes with 1GB of RAM, & so I assume they've just rounded up? Or that whole thing of "a GB is actually 1024MB"?

 

That being said, I've seen this comment around the various forums where I've been asking for help, that RAM is "meant ot be used" or "unused RAM is wasted RAM". I don't understand. On my PC, I wouldn't want my RAM to be working at 100% all of the time. So, why would I want it to be a much lower power device such as a phone?

Hmm, I'm interested in the sound of this Memory Optimizer! I do very much prefer how my iPad handles multitasking & dealing with things in the background, than I do my phone. Definitely sounds like it's worth giving a shot! I haven't tried restoring my phone though, or using a different ROM, as until I get a new phone, ideally I'd rather not have to wipe & delete everything off of my phone. Suppose I'll need to do it eventually though, so suppose this would be as good a time as any!

Erm, I have the one genuine battery that came with the phone as well as two Anker purchased off Amazon. They were the best ones I could find at the time, and I think the one of the only ones that supported NFC as Samsung had put the chip into the battery and not the phone or something? I'm not quite sure. They weren't particularly cheap & nasty batteries though, they were on the more expensive end of the spectrum I can remember that.