Why So Much RAM Going to "File Cache"

Hi,
I seemed to be maxing out my RAM in my 5,1 Mac Pro when I had Adobe Lightroom, PhotoShop, and DxO's OpticsPro 10 open, which are the 3 apps I use in tandem quite a bit. So, I bought 8 GB's more RAM (not a great deal but as much as I can afford at the moment), popped it in on Saturday, and was happy to see that I seemed to have plenty of RAM when the 3 apps were open. By the end of yesterday, however, almost all of my RAM was being chewed up. I opened Activity Monitor this morning and saw that almost 12 GB is being used up by "File Cache". Is this normal? Right now - after installing the 8GB's and after 1.5 days almost being back to where I was before I bought the additional memory, it feels like I'm in a Memory Black Hole. Any insight?
Thanks,
Robert

Yes. OS X uses the file cache to store frequently used code and files in order to make the computer run a little bit faster instead of spending a lot of time loading and unloading data from disk. It improves memory management. It's a good thing.
About OS X Memory Management and Usage
Using Activity Monitor to read System Memory & determine how much RAM is used
OS X Mavericks- About Activity Monitor
Understanding top output in the Terminal
The amount of available RAM for applications is the sum of Free RAM and Inactive RAM. This will change as applications are opened and closed or change from active to inactive status. The Swap figure represents an estimate of the total amount of swap space required for VM if used, but does not necessarily indicate the actual size of the existing swap file. If you are really in need of more RAM that would be indicated by how frequently the system uses VM. If you open the Terminal and run the top command at the prompt you will find information reported on Pageins () and Pageouts (). Pageouts () is the important figure. If the value in the parentheses is 0 (zero) then OS X is not making instantaneous use of VM which means you have adequate physical RAM for the system with the applications you have loaded. If the figure in parentheses is running positive and your hard drive is constantly being used (thrashing) then you need more physical RAM.
Adding RAM only makes it possible to run more programs concurrently. It doesn't speed up the computer nor make games run faster. What it can do is prevent the system from having to use disk-based VM when it runs out of RAM because you are trying to run too many applications concurrently or using applications that are extremely RAM dependent. It will improve the performance of applications that run mostly in RAM or when loading programs.

Similar Messages

Kernel_task using too much RAM, which .kext files can i delete?

Please find the list of the .kext files below. Which ones can I delete?
file:///Library/Extensions/ArcMSR.kext/
file:///Library/Extensions/ATTOCelerityFC8.kext/
file:///Library/Extensions/ATTOExpressSASHBA2.kext/
file:///Library/Extensions/ATTOExpressSASRAID2.kext/
file:///Library/Extensions/CalDigitHDProDrv.kext/
file:///Library/Extensions/HighPointIOP.kext/
file:///Library/Extensions/HighPointRR.kext/
file:///Library/Extensions/PromiseSTEX.kext/
file:///Library/Extensions/SoftRAID.kext/
Thanks!

Please find the list of the .kext files below. Which ones can I delete?
file:///Library/Extensions/ArcMSR.kext/
file:///Library/Extensions/ATTOCelerityFC8.kext/
file:///Library/Extensions/ATTOExpressSASHBA2.kext/
file:///Library/Extensions/ATTOExpressSASRAID2.kext/
file:///Library/Extensions/CalDigitHDProDrv.kext/
file:///Library/Extensions/HighPointIOP.kext/
file:///Library/Extensions/HighPointRR.kext/
file:///Library/Extensions/PromiseSTEX.kext/
file:///Library/Extensions/SoftRAID.kext/
Thanks!

Why do we minimize windows file cache?

Hi,
Can anybody please explain why do we minimize the windows file cache?
help.sap.com has the below lines..
"The Windows file cache directly competes with SAP programs for physical memory by pushing them out of the memory. Therefore, you should minimize the file cache"
Can anybody explain what does this exactly mean?
Thanks,
Debasis.

Hi Debasis,
when I first read your question I thought:
"This must be a joke-question! Surely nobody who has to deal with highly complex system landscapes like the ones NetWeaver makes necessary would have a real issue with understanding this basic concept!"
But on the other hand, we all started working in this business with more or less sound knowledge about the technical foundations that influence the systems we work with.
So, here is my try on this:
Main memory (in most computers today also known as RAM) is a resource to store data shared among all programs that run on that computer at the same time.
The SAP NetWeaver workprocesses (disp+work.exe) are such programs. And the Windows filesystem management is also a kind of program in that sense.
Both of these two programs need RAM to do their work. The more memory they get, the better they can do their work.
If you decide to install NetWeaver to a computer the documentation developers assumed, that this will be the main use for this computer. For example, they did not expect that you use the same computer as a file- or print server or webserver or server for anything else (although this would be possible).
Therefore it was decided that, to make the NetWeaver program work best, it would be best to give it as much resources (like RAM) as possible. Obviously this means that these resources have to be taken from other programs, just like the filesystem cache of Windows.
And there we are: by reducing the file cache of the Windows server we allow other programs (like our NetWeaver) to use more RAM for it's own purposes.
Usually there are not so much 'file actions' on a server where NetWeaver is running that this is a problem. Most of the data processed in a workprocess is read over the network from the database and stored back to it, so no need to keep a big cache for 'file actions'.
If your question just refered to the "pushing out of the memory" part, no problem either!
As you may have realized by know the demand for RAM is large. In fact its so large, that most often it is too expensive to buy as much RAM for a computer as it would be needed to fullfill all the demand.
Fortunately, not all data stored into the RAM is needed all the time. Actually, most parts of it are not used for most of the time. This characteristic of the demand for RAM opens the opportunity to save parts of the data in the RAM into a file (no, you won't need the filesystem cache for this file ) and thereby make space for other data to be stored in RAM.
This functionality is also called 'paging' as the data is written to disks in chunks which are called 'pages'.
Ok, with this faboulous feature we got the option to put more data into the RAM than we actually have installed into our computer, which is really great.
Unfortunately when we want to access our data again, it has to be loaded back from disk into memory. And for that some other part of the data in RAM needs to be saved to disk first to make space for the data we want to access.
This 'writing out - reading in' of data takes time. Programs like the workprocesses need to wait until the operating system has done this for them. Until this is done, they can basically do nothing than wait - and so can the users that see a 'hourglass' mousepointer when they called a new transactiom.
So 'paging' is really bad for the system performance and for the response times of the system.
Therefore it is usally wanted to keep this paging down on a level where it does not affect the workprocesses too badly.
And this can only be done by either putting more RAM into the machine or reducing the demand for RAM - which is done e.g. by minimizing the filesystem cache.
I hope this lengthly explanation helped you to get the idea.
Best regards,
Lars

Implementing a file caching service

Hi,
I'm implementing a file caching service following this topic: http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-07-2001/jw-0720-cache.html
My question is which object should i cache? (a File or a FileReader/BufferedReader?)
Thanks and regards,
Robin,

I find this solution at the link you posted too much
overkill. Caching can be done much simpler and more
efficient. What's also missing here is the use of
weak references. In addition lazy loading of the
files is also a plus as the access to files is very
expensive and loading big files can take a while. If
you cache files, than cache just the File objects not
the FileReader or BufferedReader as they can still
claim resources. Just cache all the File objects you
need and load the file only if you really need it via
lazy instantiation of the corresponding data
containers. Also release the data as soon as possible
to avoid OutOfMemory or use at least WealReferences
for the garabage collector to have a chance to
through them out if memory is low.Sorry, but what good is it to cache the File object? As soon as the data is requested, you would still have to go and look it up.
(Not that I see too much sense in this file caching anyway, as long as the OP isn't creating a proxy server.)

File Cache taking too much RAM

I have been using Memory Clean to run when our family users log in and out to refresh RAM. Lately, I have noticed that our 8GB of RAM has been going down to between 10MB & 25MB often even with one user logged in and fairly inactive. File Cache is the culprit increasing shortly after login. Someone must have changed a memory allocation setting or something, but I cannot find a solution in Preferences.
Any ideas?

It's normal in Mavericks for all or almost all memory to be used by applications and the operating system. That's what you would want, since unused memory is going to waste. The relevant measure of whether memory is in short supply is "memory pressure." Apple's explanation of memory pressure is here. If you want a more detailed, technical description, see here.

Why is 6GB ram being used with barely anything going on?

So I'm looking at my Activity Monitor for the first time since I got the late 2013 Macbook Pro.
To my amazement it's showing 6GB being used or 75% of my 8GB?!
But looking at the activity monitor is showing that the highest ram use is Kernel Monitor at 600MB.
After that it's com.apple.ServiceAgent @ 170MB and Google Chrome at 140MB.
Than there are like 15 "Google Chrome Helpers" ranging from like 100-30MB. What in the world is "Google Chrome Helpers" this seems like some kind of operating system bug to me...
I have about 13 Google Chrome tabs open but even more Helpers than tabs in the Activity Monitor...
There's no way a small Google Chrome session should take up well over 1gb ram?!
Even still, if I estimate all the Memory usage displayed in my Activity monitor it should be low 2GB, defenitely less than 3GB.
So why is it saying 6GB in use? The MAC OS couldn't possibly be 3 GB right???
This is crazy and I've noticed my MAC is pretty sluggish today while I'm trying to work. What in the world is going on here?
Can I manually cancel all those " Google Chrome Helpers" for starters?
On Windows 7 I could have literally 100's of internet tabs open and see less than 6GB ram useage no joke! Need help here please.

That all sounds great in theory but I'm looking at my Activity Monitor right now and it says:
Compressed: 0 bytes
So it sounds like I'm not getting any of the benefits with the compression from that article?
My other stats are looking like:
App Memory: 3.41 GB
File Cache : 2.05 GB
Wired Memory: ~1GB
My memory pressure looks about 20% at least even with 6.65 GB active.
Is there a reason why I have no compressed memory? It sounds like that was the whole point of this system but it's not doing anything for me? Or does that only kick in once you use up all 8GB?
I'm not sure about all this. I've been a PC guy all my life and overall I'm EXTREMELY satisfied with both my macbook pro and the iPad air I just got. But I got this stuff so I can develope games for iOS using Unity 3D, and I need a laptop. So I didn't make this purchase for the heck of it, this is business to me. And recently I've noticed that Unity 3D and Monodevelop are becoming increasingly sluggish. Because I'm having some lag problems even with just using Monodevelop which is a simple IDE for my C# work, I have been trying to figure out what's the problem here.
Apparently lots of others are having trouble with Mac OS Maverick when using Unity 3D. I'm just hoping this stuff gets sorted out and doing my best to see if I can improve the performance.
Are there any guides for optimizing a macbook pro for faster performance? It's not acceptable for me to have lag while I work. Right now I'm trying to work only on the macbook pro so I get used to it and can hopefully work nearly as fast as the PC even without using duel monitors so I can work on the go.
Just such a big difference from PC where I am quite profficient. On MAC I have no clue what I can do to fix lag.
Is there a way to modify what progams launch on start up similar to on PC typing "msconfig" in start bar allows you to edit this kind of thing?
Unity 3D is a pretty big deal for iOS and MAC development so hopefully if it is just some kind of code problems with Unity and Maverick this get's sorted out ASAP. Until then I'm doing my best to see if there's any thing I can do on my end.
The huge RAM usage was a big red flag to me on first glance, but I guess you guys are saying this is fine. Still seems strange to me how much RAM is being used, on PC I can't imagine ever needing more than 8GB Ram, on Mac it seems like this could be pretty easy to accomplish, which explains why there is 16GB RAM models which to me seemed excessive.
So I'm guessing it's normal to have that many "Google Chrome Helpers" active at once?

Why is menu size so much larger than the files?

I am somewhat perplexed - I'm making a single-layer dvd and have a simple single screen theme (no animation) - it has one drop zone. The movie has 28 chapters so there are five of them, but so far I've added only one montage of photos to each menu page - it's a "mobile" quality in media browser and ave only 10 - 20 MB, then one song. On average these movie clips are 1:00 to 2:00 min long and the music is cut to that length. So, all told, it's probably less than 110 MB in files - but when I look at the project properties, the menus are 3301 MB!!!
The movie itself is only 1.1 GB so what is going on?
It's preventing me from doing the project and I've got no idea why it's making the menu size so much larger than the file sizes?
Can you please help me figure out what to do?
Alexa

The 2 min clips were natively 2 min - I had each one separate and actually converted to media browser in "mobile" size (b/c the drop zone was 4 x 6 in size in the theme). They were tiny - in most cases I was shortening the audio (e.g. the song was 4 minutes and I was setting the loop to only 1:30 b/c that's how long the video clip was on the menu).
BUT, to resolve the question (I always like to post the answer) - I ended up duplicating the project to try to reimport the video. It was a fresh iDVD project and I happened to click on the project tree of screens - and, lo and behold, the ENTIRE menu was duplicated for some reason (and the movie, actually). I went back to the original and it was the same! I have no idea how that would happen do you? It only had one main menu screen - and then an entire duplicate menu - which I wouldn't even know how to access if I didn't see it in the project menu tree?
The only think of is that at one point I added a title menu link to the scene selection - it gave me a warning that my menu was more than 12 minutes, did I want to fix or ignore and fix later - which confused me b/c it was under 12 min, then but I clicked ignore. Does that create an alternate title menu and send people back to something else?
Anyway, I deleted the entire extra scene selection menus (5 of them) and it was back to under 4 GB.
So, I was able to burn, but still wondering about creating the "title menu" link on scene selections? It drives me crazy that it doesn't automatically do that so I like to add "main menu" links.
Thanks for your help!
Alexa

Too much caching in 2008, how can I limit file-cache?

2008 Server with enough RAM, client copies a server stored file to the local drive, the server "eats" up all his ram, and when the server hits the limit it slows down to crawl speed, like he would be swapping out his cache too. Especially annoying if the server runs hyper-v guests, they nearly stop. I saw that effect on a lot of servers, but all my searches failed. 2008-R2 does not show that annoying effect, so I hope again it can be adjusted in 2008.
See this screenshot (Update interval of taskmanager is 5 seconds): http://csb-filderstadt.homepage.t-online.de/Too-much-caching.png
Server 2008 enterprise, 16 GB RAM, 2 Quad-core, uses 650 MB (the hyper-v guests are not running) when without load. One client copies a .vhd file of about 70 GB from the server to himself. The network speed is OK, about 100 MBytes/s, copy speed slows down to about 80 MB/s when the RAM limit is reached.
But how can I prevent that the simple file cache eats up all RAM, and then slows down the machine to crawl, including all hyper-v guest (if they are running). Opening a taskmanager takes about 1 minute when the limit is reached, normally less than a second.
Is there a setting in the registry so I can either limit the RAM used for caching, or a way to tell the filecache to leave more free RAM for the actual work?

Guys,
This is an old post but I have been looking everywhere for a solution.
Below is the server config:
Windows 2008 R2 Standard 64bit
12 GB Ram
HyperV - 2 Virtual
Virtual 1 - 1 GB - Virtual server only created and powered on not used
Virtual 2 - 2 GB - Virtual server only created and powered on not used
Exchange 2010 on Physical server
less than 10 users on exchange
Current Mail box per user - approx 3 GB
AV - Nod32
BES Express on Physical server
When I reboot the server the Memory usage is around 60% but slowly store.exe starts to eat the memory and finally it reaches 98% and then server hangs. This is so regular that sometimes I have to reboot the server 3 or 4 times a week.
BTW, I tried to limit the memory usage to 3GB via ADSI after googling but store.exe keeps on using and there was no use making this change.
ADSI change: msExchESEParamCacheSizeMax = 393216
Can someone please please help me.
Regards
J
Your setup is wrong for your usage.
My recommendation would be:
1 Virtual Exchange with 8 GB RAM (or 6GB with dynamic up to 8GB) and four virtual CPU's
1 Virtual Blackberry Server with 2 GB RAM and two virtual CPU's.
Host machine: Only AV and Hyper-V, nothing else, not even connected to an active directory domain if not REALLY needed.
This will solve your memory issues without requiring hacking 'round the cache settings of Exchange.

Why does my MBP have such a huge Memory File Cache?

My avaiable RAM keeps getting very low (<25 MB) and the Memeory File Cache is huge (5-6 GB). I have to run the Memory Cleaner several times just to get avaiable RAM back to 4-6 GB!

Normal in Mavericks. Delete "Memory Cleaner," which is worthless.

Why is my iMac (2.8.GHz Intel Core i7 w/ 4GBs RAM) using so much RAM?

Right now I have only Firefox open with 4 tabs. Firefox only has 1 extension (1Password). No other application open or running (that I know of). My dock has 17 icons (including basics like trash, finder, launch, etc). As mentioned I have a:
2.8 GHz
Intel Core i7
4 GBs RAM
21.5 Inch
Running on 10.7.3 (Lion)
My RAM situation is this:
1.83 GB Free
78 MB Inactive
1.40 GB Active
697 MB Wired
2.17 GB Used
4.0 GB Total
Image of my Activity Monitor (with user removed) here:
columns as follows: PID, Process Name, % CPU, Threads, Real Mem, Kind
I'm trying to figure out why my iMac is using so much RAM when I only have Firefox open? are any of these activities unnecessary and if so how might I turn them off and so they don't start automatically when I initially turn on the computer? This imac is two weeks old and so I haven't done a whole lot of customization yet. Please help if you can. Really appreciate it. Trying to optimize this baby. Thank you!!

Here's mine: I have 16 Safari tabs open, some with Flash junk, and 13 apps "open" according to the Dock indicator:
By the way the number of icons in your Dock has essentially no effect on memory. Only running apps - the ones with the little dot indicator - might be occupying memory. Even that is somewhat of an oversimplification, since "active" apps may or may not have any active processes associated with them. It's all a function of how Lion manages its memory resources, and that is a whole new world to most of us.
With Lion, Apple is seeking to eliminate the system effects of whether an app is even open or not. Just another trivial detail the average user ought not to be concerned with, in their opinion.
If you want a cursory introduction to that fascinating subject, Google the Ars Technica Lion review that was written a few months ago. It may ease your concerns about memory management. If you are an experienced computer user, it will rock your world.

My Macbook pro Mid 2012 Model Seems to be using too much RAM

Hello everybody, I recenlty bought a Macbook pro Mid 2012 Model and I absolutely fell in love with it! I use it everyday for school, work, and for my musical hobby.
I haven't had a single problem with it until recently, and it seems like the RAM memory is being all used up without me even running programs. This problem barely started rougly 2-3 weeks ago and it's becoming annoying. I do plan to upgrade the ram soon seeing as the extra RAM will help run my engineering software I'm going to be using.
Anywho I'm just looking for tips, suggestions or answers as to why this problem is occuring. Also heard from a fellow employee that Google Chrome can cause this problem with RAM and battery life as well.

Stop using Chrome for any number of reasons and stick to Safari. An aspect of OS X memory management is to take over as much memory as possible in order to better manage the memory, however, this does not mean you are running out of memory. You only run out of memory when you try to run too many applications concurrently given the amount of RAM you have. You will know when that happens because the computer will slow down, you will see the beachball a lot, everything you do takes forever, and the hard drive will be grinding away.
About OS X Memory Management and Usage
Using Activity Monitor to read System Memory & determine how much RAM is used
OS X Mavericks- About Activity Monitor
Understanding top output in the Terminal
The amount of available RAM for applications is the sum of Free RAM and Inactive RAM. This will change as applications are opened and closed or change from active to inactive status. The Swap figure represents an estimate of the total amount of swap space required for VM if used, but does not necessarily indicate the actual size of the existing swap file. If you are really in need of more RAM that would be indicated by how frequently the system uses VM. If you open the Terminal and run the top command at the prompt you will find information reported on Pageins () and Pageouts (). Pageouts () is the important figure. If the value in the parentheses is 0 (zero) then OS X is not making instantaneous use of VM which means you have adequate physical RAM for the system with the applications you have loaded. If the figure in parentheses is running positive and your hard drive is constantly being used (thrashing) then you need more physical RAM.
Adding RAM only makes it possible to run more programs concurrently. It doesn't speed up the computer nor make games run faster. What it can do is prevent the system from having to use disk-based VM when it runs out of RAM because you are trying to run too many applications concurrently or using applications that are extremely RAM dependent. It will improve the performance of applications that run mostly in RAM or when loading programs.

*Noob* Which of these would I use for a scratch disk? How much Ram?

Hello, I am fairly new to Photoshop as I have used Lightroom ever since I've been a photographer. I recently got into Photoshop with the cloud as well as layering multiple exposures together. I never KNEW anything about scratch disk, until yesterday.
First let me stress, please answer my questions in layman's terms. I search the net before I start a topic on a forum and I read a lot of answers that seem to be responding to people who have a general idea of what is already going on. Remember, I DO NOT. Here are my questions:
A:If the scratch disk acts like RAM, do I need to allow it to use any of my ram at all? If so, how much? I have two Macbook Pro's, they are the highest model Apple makes, both have SSD drives, Quad Core i7's, etc. I unchecked my Macbook hard drive and told it to use an external SSD drive that is plugged in via USB 3.0. Would it be better to use an HDD instead of SDD? I have lots of hard drives to choose from due to being a music producer.
B:When I exit the program does it delete all the data it created? This question is two fold, does it delete it regardless if I saved the project or not? If I save the project does it stay there? What if I delete the original photo, was the photo imported into photoshop upon camera raw?
C: Like question A, how much ram do I choose? I have 16GB of Ram in each of my MacBooks.

OK, I have now copied your hillbilly text and pasted it into a text editor to change the typeface so I can read it.
I'll try to address the lose ends here.
A:…I have two Macbook Pro's, they are the highest model Apple makes…
Please forgive me for not being impressed. I just happen to consider any laptop a sub-optimal choice for Photoshop photography work. My personal opinion. (Please don't ask me why.)
, both have SSD drives,… I unchecked my Macbook hard drive and told it to use an external SSD drive that is plugged in via USB 3.0. Would it be better to use an HDD instead of SDD?…
I assume you are talking about using the external drive as your primary scratch disk, not as your boot disk. That is the appropriate thing to do. HD or SSD will both do the job fine, as long as they're physically separate, dedicated Photoshop scratch disks.
Obviously the internal drive will be your boot disk. Adobe applications really like to reside on the boot disk, the drive where the OS resides.
B:When I exit the program does it delete all the data it created?
This question is two fold, does it delete it regardless if I saved the project or not?
If I save the project does it stay there? What if I delete the original photo, was the photo imported into photoshop upon camera raw?
NOTHING is ever imported into Photoshop, ever. You use Photoshop to open your files exactly where you put them in the Apple Finder. And you save them wherever you wish, in the Finder as well. Your images will always reside in the Finder.
You don't import files into Adobe Camera Raw either. You open them in or with ACR.
Of course you need to save your data, not only when you quit the application, but at frequent intervals while you're working on it. Nothing you saved will be deleted by Photoshop. How can you even conceive and ask such a question? ?? !
If you ever try to close a file or the application when you have open, unsaved files, the application will ask you for confirmation in an unmistakable way.
Your images will always reside in the Finder, wherever you put them.
Photoshop does not have the abominable "Libraries" scheme that made me detest Lightroom when I tried it. Nor does Photoshop hide your image files in "packages" like the even more abominable iPhoto does.
Please forget anything you may be accustomed to in Lightroom and/or iPhoto, and approach Photoshop with a fresh mind, respecting it like the granddaddy of image editors it is.
C: Like question A, how much ram do I choose? I have 16GB of Ram in each of my MacBooks.
Again, you don't "choose RAM", instead you select a percentage of dynamically changing Available Memory (not RAM; see above) to allow Photoshop to use. Leave at around 70%.
Please see the following post for an important tip.

Yosemite takes up so much RAM!

I have a MacBook Air 13", bought August 2014 (4GB RAM).
Just updated to Yosemite, and suddenly I hardly have any RAM! I've had Memory Clean installed on my machine for a while, but never had to use it, until this update, and now it's on all the time trying to save me some memory. Also, the mouse pointer disappears, predominantly when using Safari.
Currently under the info given by Memory Clean, "App Memory" is taking up 1.06GB (this has reduced from around 2GB earlier. Over the past few hours, "File Cache" has been at around 2GB. The "kernel_task" appears to be taking up a good 700-900MB, is this normal?
It's been running Mavericks without breaking a sweat, I've been able to message people via Facebook whilst also playing games. Yet after this update which is supposed to be "Every bit as powerful as it looks", it isn't!
What do I do?

I have same issue with the same model laptop. Very irritating that supposedly high end laptop in 2013 now struggling to do basic things thanks to Yosemite requiring so much RAM and the macbook air not able to upgrade RAM.
Main issues have been very slow internet operations, as well as blips when running apps. I notice it always happens when available ram running low. Took it to Apple store to ask why so many issues and that was where I was told about the RAM thing
I use memory clean running in the background and it has helped quite a bit so surprised about the other comments here. But have had to be more efficient in not having a bunch of stuff open at the same time.
My wife is now better off with my older macbook pro with a cheap RAM upgrade that she inherited from me than I am with my newer macbook air!!! Not the sort of progress I anticipated...
Not impressed with Apple over all this though...def seems to be a post Jobs situation happening in their efficiency (not that it was perfect before...)

Windows - too much RAM? Is this the root cause of many problems

I know this is going to sound counter intuitive, but I have reason to believe that there are problems with Windows systems with large amounts of memory (4 gb, if not something less than this).
Why? I just recently bought a new notebook - fully maxed out for performance in every conceivable way - including 4 gb RAM.
But since the first day, I noticed a problem with a particular piece of pre-installed software where MSVCR80.DLL would keep crashing everytime specific programs started to run. I liased with the vendor and went through all the usual troubleshooting, plus reinstalled Windows from both the factory config and from original disks more times than I care to remember but the problem remained. They replaced all the hardware, and the problem continues. The vendor tried to reproduce the problems internally but couldn't. (So note, none of these problems are Lightroom problems - I haven't even installed Lightroom on this new machine yet).
About the same time I noticed a couple of mentions of this same DLL in a number of threads on this site:
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?7@@.3bc44c18/3
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/.3bc489fe
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/.3bc4644c/10
And reading these, you see people who have 4 or 3 Gb RAM also experiencing weird problems.
Last night I was working through what could be different and decided to rip out one of the 2 Gb RAM modules in my new computer - taking it down to (only) 2 Gb RAM, and suddenly the software that I was having problems with suddenly works correctly. Reinstalled the second RAM module and it stops working and crashes in the same way as did initially. So in this case, the problem is definitely having this much RAM.
So as a test, it would be interesting to see if some of the people experiencing problems in Lightroom (on Windows) with over 2 Gb memory reduce the amount of installed memory and see if the problems in Lightroom goes away as well?
I'm also debating whether the problem is actually a software problem in the MSVCR80.DLL, or whether there is something more sinister in the hardware - because 4Gb RAM doesn't give 4Gb usable RAM because of the mapping of various hardware into memory (video cards for instance) - on my new notebook with Vista it was reporting it had 3.5Gb usable RAM - if you search on the web you find some Vista users with 4Gb RAM showing less than 3Gb usable RAM within Vista - so there are definitely some hardware dependencies going on here as well - some machines with 4Gb RAM might work, and some with different hardware configs with 4Gb RAM might not.
It will be interesting to see what results people get with less memory.

Hi everyone
I'd like to thank everyone for trying to help me with this problem, but that's not the reason that I posted the original message.
The problem I'm experiencing is not bad hardware or a faulty software installation. It is a 100% reproducible problem which displays when there is 4 Gb RAM in the machine and doesn't when there is 2 Gb RAM - with no other changes occurring except this change of memory.
The old DLL conflict issue apparently is not so much of an issue with this file these days because each application can have a manifest which describes the precise version of the supporting files and Windows will maintain these seperate versions and present the appropriate version to the correct app. Regardless, this doesn't behave like a DLL conflict because the only change is that of memory.
I agree that 32bit operating systems should not have a problem with 4 Gb RAM, but clearly in my case there is. And in the initial Lightroom topics that I cited where others were experiencing similar issues with the same DLL, and they also had machines with over 2 Gb RAM.
The problem may not be that all machines with over 2 Gb RAM have problems, but there may be a unique set of interactions between various pieces of hardware / software / BIOS / installed software that is causing it on specific configurations. The problem may or may not lie with the actual DLL that is reporting the crash, I just don't know.
The reason I posted this initially was because whilst investigating an unrelated application, I happened upon a strong correlation of specific problems with this DLL across multiple different applications (the security application that I noticed the problem with, reports here in Lightroom, but if you Google you'll find references to a large range of other applications, including PS3), and the common theme for everyone who has had these problems appears that they've had high end machines with over 2 Gb RAM. Further in my case with the relevant security application I'm having problems with I have proof that the problem disappears if you reduce the memory.
My intent was really just to hone the number of scenarios where we know this problem either occurs or doesn't. I'm curious as to:
- anyone who has over 2 Gb RAM who is having problems with Lightroom, and seeing if the same problems occur if they reduced the amount of memory in their system. There are certainly some people on these forums who have been very vocal as to problems - I just want to see if the Lightroom problems these people are experiencing are a sympton of some more fundamental issue.
- anyone who has over 2 Gb RAM but is operating successfully with no problems whatsoever (forums have a selection bias whereby you predominantly hear from people who have problems, not those that don't have problems) - I'd like to balance this out a bit by having people who are having no problems also jump into the discussion.
- anyone who has less than 2 Gb RAM who have had Lightroom report problems with MSVCR80.DLL (this is the control)
If we can narrow down the circumstances in which it occurs, it will be much easier for the developers to be able to reproduce and then trace and eliminate the problem. But if everyone just keeps going "it doesn't work" then we'll never get anywhere.
Thanks
Greg

ICal Consuming Too Much RAM

Hi All,
I have iCal 2.0.3 on two computers. It is working fine on my Dual G4. On my iBook however is has become an 800 lb. Gorilla. I noticed everything was slowing down, slow to open, slow to close, a lot "disk activity" during usage so I check the Activity Monitor. It was using over 340 MB of RAM and climbing. I've tried a bit of everything. Tossed all of the caches, all of the Pref files, tossed the application itself, restarterd so the "Helper App" would not be active, then copied a new copy from the G4.
The problem continues. It is using WAY TOO much RAM. I'm reinstall it, but I could only find the 1.5.5 version at Apple.
If anyone has an insight to the issue, or can point me to a fresh installer...I'd really like that.
I was going to install 1.5.5 and have Software Update do an upgrade, but no dice. Installer will not work with Tiger.
Using 10.4.7
iCal 2.0.3
John

500 Mhz G3 as per my profile. Seems to me the installer would not have installed iCal if there were some hardware incompatibilty.
I've trashed every, Pref, Cache, and the folder for iCal for App Support thinking it would create a new one and it did. I quess I can use the one on my G4 and have it send notifications via email. No trouble on that model.
I don't know when I recall it happening. Could have been from Tiger all along. After hearing all the disk activity the other day I checked the Activity monitor and saw the huge amount of RAM and CPU time.
This has been a bugger of an app. I did some beta testing for Apple on this application when it was 1.5.2. Complained bitterely about the initial inability to have a floating event window and they asked me to help test it.
This is about the strangest problem I've seen in more than ten years of using a Mac.

Why So Much RAM Going to "File Cache"

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