Windows 8.1 64bit Professional - Stupid memory usage at idle

[sujmaster2000]

Hello tom's hardware,

I recently installed windows 8.1 64 bit professional on my laptop as an upgrade to windows 7, as I heard that windows 8.1 uses significantly less system resources. Once installing I open my task manager to see how much system resources I had saved only to find that I was using over 1.2 gb, twice what I was achieving in windows 7. This is after closing all non essential processes in task manager. I have looked through each process to try and figure out what could be causing the problem but to no avail. Some googling around and I found that no one has had the same issue as me (as far as I know). So I now ask you tom's hardware, what could be causing this? Are there hidden processes on my pc that I don't know about? Whatever the reason could be, I eagerly await your responses.

Sujmaster2000

 

[ohim]

Using memory is not stupid! Memory is faster than hard drive...

 

[sujmaster2000]

Using memory is not stupid! Memory is faster than hard drive...

No offence intended, but are you an actual idiot? I wasn't complaining about using memory instead of hard drive space (who would) but about the fact that my computer uses 1.2gb of it at idle! Did you read the actual post or just comment based on the title.

 

[unksol]

Windows caches things it thinks it will need in free memory so they will open faster. Why would you want your memory to sit there doing nothing for you instead?

 

[sujmaster2000]

Windows caches things it thinks it will need in free memory so they will open faster. Why would you want your memory to sit there doing nothing for you instead?

So you find it normal that windows 8, the supposedly optimised os uses 1.2gb at idle? If this is the case then i will happily choose yours as the answer. I just found it strange considering how everyone everywhere is saying this uses much less ram....

 

[unksol]

Sounds normal to me. I find it odd your windows 7 usage was so much lower. You did hit the "show processes from all users" box and sort by memory usage right?

Windows 8 should use resources more efficiently. I wouldn't interpret that to mean it should use less. You shouldn't need to be manually terminating processes.

 

[sujmaster2000]

Sounds normal to me. I find it odd your windows 7 usage was so much lower. You did hit the "show processes from all users" box and sort by memory usage right?

Windows 8 should use resources more efficiently. I wouldn't interpret that to mean it should use less. You shouldn't need to be manually terminating processes.

I can't find that box on the new task manager, but on windows 7 my old os i was hitting 600mb at idle (is this low?). If this is the case then thank you very much for pointing out my mistake.

 

[johnbl]

here is what my windows 8.1 is using:
total physical ram 16 GB

reserved 59 MB
physical memory in use 1143 MB
standby 1410 MB
free 13558 MB

the standby memory what is cached.

this machine was setup a few days ago and only has a few programs installed on it.

 

[milkcartonkid]

My laptop uses 2gb id be happier if it didnt though. Is there anyway to adjust it?