[windows2000] Re: Memory Hog
- From: "Timothy Mangan" <tmangan@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <windows2000@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 19:13:22 -0400
First, adding up the sum of the "Mem Usage" column will actually give you a
larger number than the reality of what user processes are using. This is
because each line includes memory used by the process that is shared with
other processes. The OS does this, for example, when two copies of the same
executable (like svchost) run. Since the code is read-only, it lets them
share. Oh well! You are really missing a little bit more than you think.
The missing are a variety of things that are "general" as opposed to process
specific. Some obvious categories:
- Task Manager: Performance Tab: "Available Memory". This is memory
available for paging that has not been specifically allocated at this time.
As the OS sees that some pages that have been allocated have not been used
in a while, they get paged out. The system tries to keep free pages
available so that when something needs to page in, there is a free page
available and it only has to do a read (not a write to free up a page then a
read). There really is a lot of stuff that can be paged out and never asked
for again (like the initialization code of any program).
- Task Manager: Kernel Memory: "Total". This is not included in the
processes.
- File Cache pages not in use.
- the PTE (how the system maps virtual memory)
- Possibly drivers (I don't remember offhand, but I think they are not
included in the kernel memory figure.
400MB sounds like a lot to me. Available is probably under 40, Kernel 40,
file cache another 40. Maybe 20 for the remaining. You can investigate
further using tools such a pmon from the "Resource Toolkit" (the tools can
be freely download from Microsoft without buying the book -- although the
book will explain what things are), or you can get free tools from the folks
at SysInternals as well. The biggest problem with a lot of these tools is
that the names used for items are not always perfectly descriptive of what
they include, and they change from tool to tool.
The first thing **I** would look at, however, is in the Performance Monitor
(Administrator Tools->Performance). Look at the paging activity (PagesRead,
not PageFaults). If there aren't a lot of pages being read in from disk,
you don't have a problem! A reasonable level depends upon the setup.
Experts will quote 20/sec to 50/sec as being a indication of a problem.
Timothy R. Mangan - Founder, TMurgent Technologies
tmangan@xxxxxxxxxxxx www.tmurgent.com (+1)781.492.0403
-----Original Message-----
From: windows2000-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:windows2000-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Brian Hoppe
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2003 5:56 PM
To: windows2000@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [windows2000] Re: Memory Hog
Maybe I am not explaining myself clearly enough. I know how to use the task
manager. I know how to view the processes from all users and view different
columns. I AM looking at the "Memory Usage" column. In this column, SQL
Server is taking up 820MB. All of the other processes combine for about
100MB. This combines for about 920MB of memory usage. Now, if I switch
over to the performance monitor tab, this says that I am using over 1.3GB.
The problem is that it doesn't add up. I am trying to figure out where the
other 400MB is being used. Is there something else that I could be missing,
or something that could be running that could possibly not be reporting its
memory usage?
-----Original Message-----
From: windows2000-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:windows2000-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Mike Dillinger
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2003 4:36 PM
To: Brian Hoppe
Subject: [windows2000] Re: Memory Hog
--- Original Message
From: Brian Hoppe <windows2000@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Monday October 20 2003 02:32PM PT
BH> Yes, task manager, performance monitor... that's where I'm getting
BH> these figures. The problem is that in the task manager, the used
BH> memory is unaccounted for.
It's there. Go to View -> Select Columns and select Memory Usage.
-MikeD
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