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Investigate memory usage with
Windows 7 Resource Monitor
By Greg Shultz in Windows and Office, October 5, 2010, 1:24 AM PST
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3
Greg Shultz shows you how to use the
detailed information displayed in
Windows 7 Resource Monitor to
investigate memory usage.
In last week's blog post, "Learn How to Use the Windows 7
Resource Monitor for Effective Troubleshooting," I introduced you
to the Resource Monitor tool's powerful features and explained
how you can use it to get a better understanding of how system
resources are used by processes and services. I also indicated
that you can use Resource Monitor to delve into specific
problems, such as investigating memory usage.
In this edition of the Windows Desktop Report, I'll show you how
to use the detailed information displayed in Windows 7 Resource
Monitor to investigate memory usage.
This blog post is also available in PDF format in a TechRepublic
download.
Memory basics
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Memory basics
Without getting too technical, let's take a moment to briefly look
at memory management in Microsoft Windows 7. Doing so will
help you to interpret the information displayed on the Memory tab.
To begin with, Windows 7 operating system's memory manager
creates a virtual memory system that is made up of available
physical memory and a page file system on the hard disk. Using
this virtual memory system allows the operating system to
allocate fixed-length blocks of memory, called pages, that are
contiguous in both physical memory addressing and virtual
memory addressing.
Getting started
To get started with Resource Monitor, click the Start button, type
Resmon.exe in the Start Search box, and press [Enter]. When
you see the Resource Monitor user interface, select the Memory
tab, as shown in Figure A.
Figure A
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The Memory tab in Resource Monitor provides detailed
information about Windows 7's memory usage.
The Processes table
On the Memory tab, the Processes table, shown in Figure B,
lists all the currently running processes and breaks down each
process' memory use in several categories.
Figure B
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The Processes table breaks down each process' memory use in
several categories.
Image
Of course, the Image column shows the process' executable file
name. As you can see, Processes that represent applications are
easy to identify. For example, it's easy to tell that the
notepad.exe process corresponds to Notepad. Processes named
svchost.exe represent various services being run by the operating
system. You can find the name of the service enclosed in
parenthesis adjacent to each instance of svchost.exe shown in
the Image column.
PID
The PID column shows the process' Process ID number, which is
simply a number that uniquely identifies a process while it runs.
Commit
The Commit column shows the amount of virtual memory in
kilobytes that the operating system has reserved for a process.
This number includes the amount of physical memory that is in
use as well as any pages that have been saved in the page file.
Working Set
The Working Set column shows the amount of physical memory
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in kilobytes that is currently in use by the process. The working
set can be broken down into Shareable and Private categories of
memory.
Shareable
The Shareable column shows the amount of physical memory in
kilobytes that is currently in use by the process and is shared
with other processes. Sharing sections or pages of memory for
common processes saves memory space because only one copy
of the page is required. More specifically, one copy of the page is
physically in memory and it is then mapped to the virtual address
space of other processes that need access. For example,
system DLLs, such as Ntdll, Kernel32, Gdi32, and User32, share
memory among all processes.
Private
The Private column shows the amount of physical memory in
kilobytes that is currently in use by the process that is not shared
with other processes. This number provides you with a pretty
accurate measure of the amount of memory that a particular
application needs in order to run.
Hard Faults/sec
The Hard Faults/sec column shows the average number of hard
page faults per second that have occurred in the last minute. If a
process attempts to use more physical memory than is currently
available, the system must write, or page, some of the memory
contents to disk. If the process later needs and accesses the
memory contents that exist on the disk, it is called a Hard Fault.
Watching Hard Faults
Now that you have a good idea of the memory information
presented in the Processes table, let's take a look at what to look
for if you want to monitor memory usage. As you load
applications and work with files, the operating system's memory
manager monitors the Working Set of each process and watches
for requests for additional memory resources. As the Working Set
of a process grows, the memory manager balances the process'
demand for more memory against requests from the kernel and
other processes. If available address space becomes scarce, the
memory manager must scale back the size of the working set.
This typically means paging some of the memory contents to
disk.
If that page must be read back from the disk, it causes a Hard
Fault. While Hard Faults are a pretty normal occurrence, multiple
Hard Faults typically require additional time so that the system
can read pages from the disk. When Hard Faults occur too
frequently, the resulting disk reads will decrease system
responsiveness. If you have ever been working on your system
and suddenly everything seems to run in slow motion and then
just as suddenly comes back to regular speed, chances are good
that your system is busily swapping memory around so that it
can continue working.
can continue working.
As such, if you notice an excessive number of Hard Faults related
to a particular process on a regular basis, chances are your
system needs more physical memory.
To more closely watch processes that are encountering a large
number of Hard Faults, you can use the Filtering system built in
to Resource Monitor. Select the check box adjacent to that
process, and it will move to the top of the list. You'll then see
those Hard Faults appear in orange in the graph.
(Keep in mind that there are many other factors that come in to
play when it comes to memory usage and that monitoring Hard
Faults isn't the only or the best way to monitor memory
use. However, it does provide you with a good starting point.)
The Physical Memory table
While the Processes table provides you with a more granular view
of memory usage, the Physical Memory table gives you a global
view. The main feature of the Physical Memory table is a bar
graph that lets you see a unique view of memory usage, as
shown in Figure C.
Figure C
Physical Memory table's bar graph provides you with a global
view of win 7's memory usage.
As you can see, each section of the bar graph is labeled and
represents a list of pages of memory. As you use your system,
the memory manager is at work in the background moving
memory back and forth between these lists in order to maintain a
delicate balance between using physical memory and the hard
disk in order to allow your system to work efficiently and
effectively. Let's take a closer look.
Hardware Reserved
Beginning on the left, in gray, is the Hardware Reserved list,
which shows the amount of memory reserved for hardware. This
list represents the amount of memory that the various hardware
devices installed in your system have reserved so that they can
communicate with the operating system. Of course, memory
reserved for hardware is essentially locked and as such is not
available to the memory manager.
Typically, the amount of Hardware Reserved memory ranges from
10MB to 70MB but can vary depending on the system's hardware
configuration and might be several hundred MB. Examples of
components that can affect the amount of memory reserved
include:
System BIOS
Motherboard resources, such as I/O advanced programmable
interrupt controller (APIC)
Sound cards or any other devices that require memory-
mapped I/O
PCI Express (PCIe) bus
Video card
Various chipsets
Flash devices
(Some folks have reported inordinately huge amounts of memory
being allocated to the Hardware Reserved list. While I haven't
encountered this situation myself and can't verify the suggested
solution, many have reported that upgrading the system BIOS
firmware solved the problem.)
In Use
The In Use list, shown in green in Figure C, represents the
amount of memory being used by the operating system, drivers,
and the various running processes. In Use memory is calculated
by adding the sizes of the Modified, Standby, and Free values
and subtracting this from the amount of recognized memory,
which is listed as Total in the section just below the graph. The
Total memory is calculated by subtracting any Hardware
Reserved memory from the Installed RAM.
Modified
Shown in orange, the Modified list represents the pages of
memory that contain data that has been modified but not been
accessed for a while. As such it is not technically in use but can
still be pulled into service quickly if needed. If memory in the
Modified list has not been accessed in a long time, the memory
manager will write the page to disk and then move it to the
Standby list.
Standby
The Standby list, which is shown in blue, contains pages that
have been removed from process working sets but are still linked
to their respective working sets. As such, Standby list is
essentially a cache. However, memory pages in the Standby list
are prioritized in a range of 0-7, with 7 being the highest.
Essentially, a page related to a high-priority process will receive a
high-priority level in the Standby list.
For example, processes that are Shareable will be a high priority
and pages associated with these Shareable processes will have
the highest priority in the Standby list.
Now, if a process needs a page that is associated with the
process and that page is now in the Standby list, the memory
manager immediately returns the page to that process' working
set. However, all pages on the Standby list are available for
memory allocation requests from any process. When a process
requests additional memory and there is not enough memory in
the Free list, the memory manager checks the page's priority and
will take a page with a low priority from the Standby list, initialize
it, and allocate it to that process.
Free
The Free list, shown in light blue, contains pages of memory that
have not yet been allocated to a process or were previously
allocated but returned to the memory manager when the process
ended. (While "not yet been allocated" and "previously allocated"
memory both show in the Free part of this bar graph, the "not yet
been allocated" pages are actually part of another list called the
Zero Page list. These are so-called because they have been
initialized to zero and are ready for use when the memory
manager needs a new page.)
The question of Free memory
Now that you have a good idea of how the memory manager in
Windows 7 works on a global level, let's take a few minutes to
discuss a common misconception with Windows 7's memory
management scheme. As you can see in Figure C, Free memory
is the second smallest list in the graph. The misconception is to
look at that small value and think that Windows 7 is a memory
hog and that a system cannot run effectively when there is hardly
any Free memory.
But just the opposite is true, in the case of Windows 7's memory
management scheme, Free memory is wasted memory. The
more memory that Windows 7 keeps in play, the better. By
keeping memory full and juggling pages between the various lists
along with using its Standby priority system, Windows 7 improves
efficiency and does its best to keep memory pages from hitting
the page file where Hard Faults and sluggish performance
are more likely to occur.
Watching memory use
Do you want to see Windows 7's memory management scheme
in action? To do so, restart your system. As soon as you get
logged in, launch Resource Monitor, select the Memory tab, and
immediately take note of the size of each of the lists shown on
the Physical Memory bar graph.
Then begin loading applications -- lots of them -- the bigger, the
better. As each application is loading, switch over to Resource
Monitor and watch the size of the lists on the Physical Memory
bar graph change. Once you have loaded as many applications
as you want, begin closing them. As each application is closing,
switch over to Resource Monitor and watch the size of the lists on
the Physical Memory bar graph change.
Once you go through this exaggerated scenario, you'll have a
good, front-row idea of how Windows 7's memory management
scheme works on your system. Now that you know what to look
for, you can use Resource Monitor to keep tabs on memory
usage as you use your system during the course of a normal
computing session.
What's your take?
What do you think about using Resource Monitor to keep tabs on
memory usage? As always, if you have comments or information
to share about this topic, please take a moment to drop by the
TechRepublic Community Forums and let us hear from you.
Stay on top of the latest Microsoft Windows tips and
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About Greg Shultz
Greg Shultz is a freelance Technical Writer.
Previously, he has worked as Documentation
Specialist in the software industry, a Technical
Support Specialist in educational industry, and a
Technical Journalist in the computer publishing
industry.
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Dec 30, 2013 Rajdeep218
A very informative article.
A small note to those, who found faults in sentence
formations and the grammar. ....How many " informative
" articles of yours are available on the net ? Rise up to
26 comments
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the occasion to digest whatever you can, instead of
finding faults !!
Nov 13, 2013 kkmo13
i have 8 total gigs in my computer and is says there is 4
gigs of it given to hardware help?
Apr 30, 2013 jackob49
thanks again Greg, as always you sparked my memory
usage. Regards
Jul 25, 2012 cazzycool
Good overview, An example of what I have is: 1mb
allocated to hardware, 3082mb in use 5mb modified,
standby 995mb and free 13mb right now. underneath it
says: Available 1008mb Cached 1000mb Total 4095mb
Installed 4096mb I get freezing up problems and go
slows all the time, everything takes forever, do I need
more memory? [img][/img]
Like Reply
Feb 21, 2012 gr71cj5
Thank you for the basic level of insight. Is there a more in
depth article that would explain why all memory "In Use"
is not accounted for in the Processes window, even when
"Commit, Working, Shareable, & Private" are displayed
and how to find what processes are using that memory?
Example: I have 16GB in unit, RM shows 9.4 "In Use",
2.8 "Available", yet total of all memory in the "commit"
column only comes to 527.3 MB. What is using the
other 8.9GB of memory? Even if I add up all columns like
they were unique amounts the total is still a small
fraction of this "In Use" amount. Thank you, Glenn
Nov 24, 2011 telliamed
1. In the Processes table, shouldn't the Commit value be
always greater than the Working set? 2. Is there a way
to find the total number of Hard faults (and not the per
sec rate) for a process? 3. Is there a way to find how
much swap is being currently used? 4. If there is
sufficient physical memory in the system (e.g. 16GB)
there shouldn't be any swapping/hard faults happening in
the system. But it is still happening. Why is it so? Under
what circumstances does Windows decide to swap even
when there is free memory in the system? 5. Linux
provides a sysctl (swappiness) to control the usage of
swap and cache ("standby + modified" in Windows).
Does Windows provide a similar mechanism? Thanks for
an insightful article; now at least I understand what each
term means.
Like Reply
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Sep 10, 2011 simclardy
I just learned a good deal about the resource monitor and
memory. Thanks.
Aug 3, 2011 benw
Thanks for the very informative article. I never knew there
was a Resource Monitor in Windows 7 and your
explanation of each column was very helpful.
Oct 7, 2010 fisico
La verdad bastante ilustrativo, entiende uno mejor el
proceso del manejo de la memoria, muy bueno
felicidades.
Oct 7, 2010 dsgoodrich
After noting all the grammatical errors in just the first two
paragraphs, I stopped reading the article. Since it is clear
the author lacks a basic grasp of the written word, it
leads me to question his knowledge of the subject. I
would have expected more from a TechRepublic writer
Like Reply
3 Like Reply
2 Like Reply
Oct 7, 2010 darkstate
Obviously you are not a regular because if you
were, You would surely know the author has a
great grasp of knowledge he tries to share with
people. He gets my praise and I always look
forward to his articles. All great people have an
off day now and again, Its part of being human
you know.
Oct 8, 2010 Mark W. Kaelin
While the first sentence in the first paragraph is
arguably too long and could be split into two
separate sentences, I would not consider it
grammatical error. As an editor for TechRepublic
I have to walk the fine line to keep from inserting
my voice into another author's written word.
Sometimes this means we run afoul of the
"grammar police" and get comments like yours.
This is a technical site, so our emphasis is
always on the technical facts of a blog post. We
tend to have a relaxed approach to stringent
grammatical laws that do not add to the
technical understanding of a topic.
2 Like Reply
2 Like Reply
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Nov 14, 2010 1Rab
Boo Hoo. I thought it was an informative piece.
Oct 20, 2012 jdbarras
This is a technical article. Your comment would
be relevant if this was, say,
howtospeakenglish.com. Your mother was a
hamster, and your father smelled of elderberries.
Now, go away before I taunt you a second time-
ah. By the way, your last sentence is missing
the period. It made it difficult to understand your
comment. Had that mistake been made at the
beginning of your post, I would have had to stop
reading it. Since it is clear you lack a basic
grasp of the written word, it leads me to
question your rank in the grammar police. If I
had to guess, I would say that you're the rookie
that makes the coffee runs for the proper
grammar policemen. Brush up cadet!
Oct 7, 2010 richard
nice article
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Oct 7, 2010 richard
You say "Some folks have reported inordinately huge
amounts of memory being allocated to the Hardware
Reserved list. While I haven?t encountered this situation
myself and can?t verify the suggested solution, many
folks have reported that upgrading the system BIOS
firmware solved the problem" On my system, I have
1027MB Hardware Reserved. I assume this is due to the
twin 512MB video cards, and therefore am not surprised
to see it. Surely I would have thought that values in this
range are not too uncommon? I have 4GB installed on
Win7 32bit - with 1GB of video, I can only access 3GB,
but it is at least there if I go 64bit.
Oct 7, 2010 gak
Yes, you will see all 4 gigs with 64 bit. With 32
bits all you can use is about 3 gigs, with or
without video cards.
Oct 7, 2010 tenorman12
My system only shows 1MB of hardware
reserve. according to all what I read here this is
very small. Do I need more physical memory
installed? I only have one and a half gigs of
memory. Windows runs very smoothly with this.
Like Reply
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Oct 8, 2010 gak
If you do not have integrated graphics or
other integrated chips that use system
memory, it is OK. Hardware will reserve
its memory anyway, so do not worry.
Oct 7, 2010 captgreg
My new installation of 7 crashes in Resource Monitor
when it hits the media exam stage. I think it worked once
just after I installed an ATI graphic card to add a monitor.
Oct 6, 2010 sysabod
Hi Greg:i found a strange scene that every time from
booting the os, i launched my visual studio
2010,many(nearly 100) hard faults occurs, but my
machine obviously have sufficient memory to meet the
program,actually 2GB memory is installed.Also,if i close
it and launch it again,the program runs efficiently with
only zero or one hard faults So how to resolve this?
Oct 6, 2010 oldfield
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Like Reply
Since launching vs2010 on first use is thowing
hard faults it is most likely asking for shared
memory already available to an existing process
but never used. The shared memory got paged
out from the other process - then got paged
back once you launch vs2010 - since it is now
actively used. This is quite likely with MS
products as they are designed to share common
libraries. If you launch it a second time then you
don't get the page faults since win 7 will not
have paged this memory out. How to resolved
this - is not "solvable" - it is meant to do that. If
it used its own private library (not shared) then it
would have to creat it anyway - and page load is
much quicker than just starting from scratch.
Oct 6, 2010 gak
Or is there any other reason why MS, in its everlasting
wisdom, made resource Monitor an administrative task?
Oct 6, 2010 MagusWRM
So "Hard Faults/sec" is the access to virtual memory per
second? Well, my Windows is in Portuguese, and the
translation is something like "severe faults" ("Falhas
Graves" in portuguese), bad translation... shame on you,
micro$oft's translators.
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Oct 6, 2010 bwills80
My Hardware reserve sits at 3149 MB. I think it is
because I run Windows Virtual WinXP on my Win 7
machine. I think this is how Win7 reserves space to run
Windows Virtual WinXP Mode. I set my virtual WinXP
memory at 1500 MB.
Oct 5, 2010 Mark W. Kaelin
Have you tracked changes in your system memory
resources using the Resource Monitor? What did it
reveal? What do you think about using Resource Monitor
to keep tabs on memory usage?
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