Why is chrome eating up so much of my physical memory

[extaca]

I have a relatively new Toshiba laptop with 4 mgs of RAM. It is running very slow. I have Chrome and Excel open now and the physical memory usage is at 95%. Granted I have 15 tabs open in chrome but some of the tabs are using much more memory than others, Yahoo mail for instance. Beside changing browsers or buying more ram, is there anything I can do to lower the RAM usage?

 

[Tilan04]

What is your OS?

 

[extaca]

Windows 7

 

[Tilan04]

I advise to test if the same thing happens with other browsers. If that doesn't happen the same is something that you put in Chrome for sure.

 

[extaca]

I will do that.

 

[TheFluffyDog]

Could be memory leaks. you could try a reinstall of chrome. sometimes a messed up installation can cause memory leaks.

 

[jjs0891]

15 tabs depending on the amount of "content" would range from 1 GB to 2 GB of memory used from what I know.

 

[DarkSable]

Chrome, while I love it, is one of the most memory-intensive browsers out there.

(There's a reason why I use it when quoting that 8GB of ram can simultaneously run battlefield 3, photoshop, and 30 tabs in chrome.)

 

[extaca]

Interesting, when I closed Firefox and restarted Chrome, the physical memory usage dropped to the mid 50's. However after opening and closing a few tabs, the usage began creeping up. Now at 74%, my guess the next stop will shortly be over 80%. I suppose I can always shut down and reopen Chrome every time it begins to get overloaded but that seems a bit cumbersome. There has to be a better way.

 

[extaca]

I appreciate the input. I think the best solution for me is to buy another 8 MB of Ram. I won't be running Battlefield 3 or photoshop but 30 tabs of chrome is a possibility. Thanks.

 

[Major_Trouble]

Please don't buy 8 MB of ram. Get yourself another 4 GB instead.

 

[extaca]

Why only 4?

 

[Major_Trouble]

As you probably have 4 GB already and not 4 MB as you state. Usually it will be 1 x 4GB sodim on a newer laptop and you will have a spare ram slot which you can add another 4 GB to give you 8 GB. Try to buy the same ram or at least matching spec. Check out what you have with CPU-Z.

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z/versions-history.html

 

[extaca]

You are right of course, I have 4 GB of ram. I went on Crucial and ran the compatibility scanner and, among others, an 8GB chip was recommended. I take it if you have two slots that it isn't good to have 8 in one and 4 in the other.

 

[Major_Trouble]

You are right of course, I have 4 GB of ram. I went on Crucial and ran the compatibility scanner and, among others, an 8GB chip was recommended. I take it if you have two slots that it isn't good to have 8 in one and 4 in the other.

Just be sure it is a single 4GB with a spare slot free for an additional 4GB sodim and not 2 x 2GB filling two slots. CPU-Z will help you with that. Maybe the Crucial scanner detected your configuration I have not used it myself.

You can use 4GB + 8GB sodims to give you 12GB without problem but they should have the same speed ratings. Why spend the extra for an 8GB sodim when an extra 4GB would be sufficient.

Now if you have 2 x 2GB they would need replacing with either 2 x 4GB or 1 x 8GB to get you the 8GB you are looking for. Just be sure what you need before purchase to save yourself some headache.

 

[extaca]

I delved further into the scan and they recommended I add another 4GB chip or replace the existing 4 with two 8's. Thank you for all your help. I will run the CPU scan just to be sure.

 

[Major_Trouble]

As you aware the net is a great source of info. Check it out for any help you need in installing your purchased ram. Some laptops can be tricky. Also be careful handling the ram with regards to static and not touching the chips themselves.

I basically touch a ground source (radiator) before handling electronic components and don't move around on carpets and only handle the items by their PCB. Never had a problem with these simple precautions.

 

[amthenia]

I wrote something about memory optimisation and on how to speed up Chrome dramatically:
http://www.andsotomarket.com/2014/02/Top-10ways-to-speed-up-your-web-browsing-with-google-chrome-dramatically.html

 

[TheFluffyDog]

Interesting, when I closed Firefox and restarted Chrome, the physical memory usage dropped to the mid 50's. However after opening and closing a few tabs, the usage began creeping up. Now at 74%, my guess the next stop will shortly be over 80%. I suppose I can always shut down and reopen Chrome every time it begins to get overloaded but that seems a bit cumbersome. There has to be a better way.

based on what you said, opening and closing tabs caused memory usage to go up, it is 90% gonna be a memory leak. to be honest i dont know the deets of memory leaks, but the predominant problem is that memory usage continues to rise even when your not asking anymore of the process. so opening a new tab should increase usage, but closing it should get rid of that extra usage. however, with a memory leak, the usage wont drop, it will stay. so opening and closing tabs will slowly build memory usage without allowing it to fall. i had this problem with a game client. The client would use nearly 2G of ram. and if i repeatedly opened and closed it i could get it to reach 3-4. reinstall fixed it.

 

[TheFluffyDog]

yeh dude, i just opened chrome and checked the usage for one tab. i opened 30 more tabs, including email facebook, newegg, toms forums etc. memory usage went up by about 20%. but X'd the tabs down to one again, it returned to the original usage. You have a problem, its not ur ram amount

 

[badr333]

Hi,
I think its depend on how many extension you have
Hit shift+Esc to see the memory usage of any extension

 

[R_Gla]

I had the same issue for a long time on my desktop w/Win8.1 and 4GB.. Before I had easily 20 tabs in Chrome open, now I am at end of my RAM with 10 tabs open. And the machine started swapping all the time with disk use at 100%.
A lot of research I did and found nothing that helped.
Today i spent some time on the issue and tried to remember what the turning point was - it might have been replacing the 32bit Chrome with the beta of the 64bit version some time ago. I deleted the 64bit version and installed the 32bit version. Alas. Much better performance. Disk activity very low...

 

[thilanz]

i have 8gb ram on my pc 4gb on my lap
on pc ram usage goes for 25% to 28% with tabs including facebook
on lap ram usage goes for 72% with 4gb
still too much using ram these days by chrome, it wasn't happened before same goes to few of my friend they have the same issue. i still couldn't find the problem

 

[R_Gla]

i have 8gb ram on my pc 4gb on my lap
on pc ram usage goes for 25% to 28% with tabs including facebook
on lap ram usage goes for 72% with 4gb
still too much using ram these days by chrome, it wasn't happened before same goes to few of my friend they have the same issue. i still couldn't find the problem

I had been using the 64-bit beta of chrome. Deleted that and installed the 32-bit version. Works much better for me, got RAM-usage down to ~3 GB (on my 4 GB machine) with 10-15 open tabs...

 

[MADD617]

Have you tried cleaning your ram? I use Advanced System Care 8 to clean RAM. It gets rid of unnecessary stuff that takes up your RAM.
I'm running at 22% (1.75/7.96GB) with Gmail, another forum in Chrome, Speedfan, Skype, Core Temp, Origin, Razer Synapse, ASC8, Iobit Malware Fighter and Avira.

I have even more things open when running Battlefield 3 (Evga Precision X 16, Bandicam, sometimes Teamspeak) and my RAM stays at around 50%.