Increased RAM - less allocation

Hello all!

RAM and pagefile usage has been discussed before and the meaning of the readings in Task Manager is not clear (to me, at least). When I start my old BOAC (1 GHz CPU - 512 MB RAM), 32 processes are running and allocated amount of memory has been approximately 190 MB. That is idling, after ~5 minutes when Windows Update and LiveUpdate have finished the respective session.

I had two sticks of 256 MB Samsung PC133 single sided and got my hands on another stick of the "same" but double sided. I installed it, increasing RAM to 768 MB. Now, when I start the BOAC, after ~5 minutes, allocated amount of memory has been reduced to approximately 170 MB.

This may be insignificant but it bugs me to not understand why. Is XP greedy and wants more when there is less? Does Task Manager know what beans it is counting?

Thanks for your time,
Christer

 

Hi Christer

You do come up with the most intriguing 'problems' I've no idea, but I'll throw this into the melting pot - the double sided stick is more efficient than single sided sticks, hence the reduction in allocated memory.

 

Hi toasale,
I don't think that I made any of those mistakes when seating the module. I don't think there is a problem with the RAM modules since they are detected correctly and the one I added worked OK in the previous system. There is no error message or any sign of trouble, just less allocated than before.

Christer

 

If you increased the amount of ram then the page file likely automatically increased as well, and windows may just be using more of that page file than previously.

I just rebooted my desktop:
2 GB ddr 4200
18 running processes
Physical memory (K):
Total: 2095072
Available: 1782520
System Cache: 154320

 

When I installed XP pro, 512 MB RAM was in the box. The installer set the pagefile to 768-1536 MB (1.5xRAM - 3.0xRAM). After adding 256 MB RAM, it has not changed. It would surprise me if pagefile usage should increase when adding RAM. On a second thought ... ... nothing would surprise me when Windows is involved ... ... !

Christer