Windows 7 x64 slow on 3GB of RAM

[djdelarosa25]

It ws a clean install, but sometimes I would find the RAM usage passing 90% in the Resource Manager. When I used 32-bit Win7, this rarely occured. I had just 5 Chrome tabs Chrome and Word running.

 

C2D E7400 OC

9400GT

3GB RAM

 

Also, would Windows 10 32 or 64-bit be better for my system?

[Venomz1337]

Get more ram dude

[Bulgarian004130]

Get more ram dude

Only G41 and up support more than 4gb ram.

Even with 4GB it won't be much better.

That's why I bought a 1155 pentium and a mobo to upgrade LGA 775 PC

[Josephdalepi]

32 bit is optimized for 3gb and only will use 3gb or ram

64 bit is made to use higher.  as a metter of fact, my ram usage never drops below 5 gigs

[Venomz1337]

Only G41 and up support more than 4gb ram.

Even with 4GB it won't be much better.

That's why I bought a 1155 pentium and a mobo to upgrade LGA 775 PC

 

Do the maths. Even 1 GB more will mean 30% less usage.

[Coaxialgamer]

64 bit software tends to have more memory leaks/usage.

 

It's one of the tradeoffs.It can use more ram , but won't fare well on low ram systems.

 

Maybe try linux instead?

[Sir Asvald]

It ws a clean install, but sometimes I would find the RAM usage passing 90% in the Resource Manager. When I used 32-bit Win7, this rarely occured. I had just 5 Chrome tabs Chrome and Word running.

 

C2D E7400 OC

9400GT

3GB RAM

 

Also, would Windows 10 32 or 64-bit be better for my system?

What is the HDD usage?

[djdelarosa25]

Should I go Windows 7 or Windows 10 32-bit?

 

This is an extremely old family PC. My parents don't want to upgrade it because "it does what it's supposed to do".

[Sauron]

Windows 10 uses relatively little ram, but 3gb are not ideal anyway. 32-bit windows might use a little less ram.

 

Given that you probably don't play games on that machine, my advice would be to install a linux distribution with a light DE such as xfce (or lxqt, but personally I like xfce more and it's not much heavier). On my laptop I run arch with kde, one of the most ram intensive DEs around, and I run a bunch of stuff in the background, and unless I run a vm I don't think I ever broke 3gb of ram usage.

 

An ssd would also do wonders.

[SkilledRebuilds]

Whats your 'Boot into Windows" idle usage? <curious

 

My W7 x64 is usually around 800Mb-1GB used after all is said and done.

W10 may be worse with its more aggressive than normal Superfetch service.

[manikyath]

i know win10 is a tad nicer than w7 on lower amounts of ram, but i feel like the c2d may be a show stopper either way.

 

while the ram usage difference shouldnt be that considerable, if you *can* get 32-bit on there without spending money or losing a ton of work, it'll defenately help.

[djdelarosa25]

What is the HDD usage?

Re-did the whole scenario, but made it more brutal. 15 Chrome tabs, 5 Office Windows, A bunch of other apps running, surprised the RAM never got to 2GB. What the? Could it be the HDD's fault?

[manikyath]

 My parents don't want to upgrade it because "it does what it's supposed to do".

Given that you probably don't play games on that machine, my advice would be to install a linux distribution with a light DE such as xfce (or lxqt, but personally I like xfce more and it's not much heavier). On my laptop I run arch with kde, one of the most ram intensive DEs around, and I run a bunch of stuff in the background, and unless I run a vm I don't think I ever broke 3gb of ram usage.

i feel like sadly linux is out of the question here.

 

linux would do wonders to that machine tho.

[manikyath]

Re-did the whole scenario, but made it more brutal. 15 Chrome tabs, 5 Office Windows, A bunch of other apps running, surprised the RAM never got to 2GB. What the? Could it be the HDD's fault?

it might just be windows doing fancy on a limited amount of ram.

 

back with my c2d 2gb ram windows vista laptop the ram wouldnt go beyond a certain point, and just straight off start working off of hard drive once i started to multitask like craycray.

[Sauron]

i feel like sadly linux is out of the question here.

 

linux would do wonders to that machine tho.

 

actually if all this is going to do is web browsing it's likely nobody would even notice mint isn't windows - just make sure all relevant shortcuts are on the desktop or readily available in the applications menu and you're done ^^

[manikyath]

actually if all this is going to do is web browsing it's likely nobody would even notice mint isn't windows - just make sure all relevant shortcuts are on the desktop or readily available in the applications menu and you're done ^^

well.. but parents are a strange creature. my mom thinks linux will steal her bank data because its opensource and everyone can see it...

[Sauron]

well.. but parents are a strange creature. my mom thinks linux will steal her bank data because its opensource and everyone can see it...

 

just tell them it's a new windows version...

[djdelarosa25]

Nope. No Linux. Here's another situation. Only 3 Chrome tabs, nothing else, but look at this.

 

 

What is wrong with this?

 

 

Just a few moments ago everything was brutal and it never went beyond 2GB RAM usage, now this?!

[manikyath]

just tell them it's a new windows version...

while yes, my parents are stupid, they're not *that* detached from the world yet...

 

--

are there any anomalies in ram usage of specific processes?

[Sauron]

Nope. No Linux. Here's another situation. Only 3 Chrome tabs, nothing else, but look at this.

 

 

What is wrong with this?

 

 

Just a few moments ago everything was brutal and it never went beyond 2GB RAM usage, now this?!

 

...do you have an anti-virus?

[djdelarosa25]

...do you have an anti-virus?

MSE, just installed it like an hour ago. But before that, it was already acting like this.

[SirDucksallot]

Maybe you're using your Pagefile?

[Sauron]

MSE, just installed it like an hour ago. But before that, it was already acting like this.

 

When you get a ram spike again check in the processes tab of task manager to see what's using the most ram

[Sir Asvald]

Re-did the whole scenario, but made it more brutal. 15 Chrome tabs, 5 Office Windows, A bunch of other apps running, surprised the RAM never got to 2GB. What the? Could it be the HDD's fault?

I think the HDD is slowing down showing it's old age. You can get cheap HDD's these days. 

[djdelarosa25]

Maybe you're using your Pagefile?

How do i disable it?