RAM Usage / Stress Test

[RabbieBurns]

We have a teacher who thinks the new laptop we have given them isnt that good, as it only sits at "60% RAM Use" when their laptops at home "Always use the full 100%"

 

Surely 100% RAM usage isnt a good thing?

 

I want to find some software I can run that will use up alll the RAM and run stress tests and produce some sort of output.

 

I dont really know what IM looking for really.. Just something I can reply with that isnt just my own explaination.

 

Or a web page I can point them to or something.. Cheers!

[Arthur]

Surely 100% RAM usage isnt a good thing?

It depends. Do you know how much RAM the teachers home laptops have and what OS(s) they are using? If they all have 512MB and are running Windows Vista then it's not surprising it is using 100% of RAM. 60% (or more) on a computer with 4GB RAM running Vista or 7 is perfectly fine.

 

If she wants to learn about Windows memory management I would point her to this article by Mark Russinovich which explains how it all works.

 

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2007.03.vistakernel.aspx

 

SuperFetch and standard Windows caching make use of all available physical memory to cache disk data.

Edited June 8, 2010 by Arthur

[Dos_Box]

A computer will always use a varying amount of RAM depending on what it is doing. If it is using 100% of its RAM at home then I would say there is a problem, perhaps with an app that requires school network connectivity. They can use task manager to see what app is swallowing up the RAM.

[RabbieBurns]

A computer will always use a varying amount of RAM depending on what it is doing. If it is using 100% of its RAM at home then I would say there is a problem, perhaps with an app that requires school network connectivity. They can use task manager to see what app is swallowing up the RAM.

 

Thats what I think too. What I need is something concrete to show them rather than just my opinion (they are SMT)

[Arthur]

A computer will always use a varying amount of RAM depending on what it is doing.

That's true, although if the computer isn't doing much at all then the RAM usage should stay fairly constant. Mine is currently hovering around the 3GB mark at the moment (out of a total of 8GB) while browsing the Internet.

 

What I need is something concrete to show them rather than just my opinion (they are SMT)

You could run RAM Map from SysInternals which will show you/them how Window is using the RAM. Get the teacher to run this too and you will be able to compare the results. SMT should like this since it has lots of pretty colours and numbers in it.

[kmount]

Heavyload from JAM Software if you want to show her the 'new' one using 100% if that's what she's saying it won't *ever* go above it but I'm not sure how that will help.

 

As above, establish the specs and explain to her that less overall memory utilisation is a good thing if her demands increase she has spare resources.

 

JAM Software - Windows Freeware <- From the nice people who make Treesize.

[CtrlAltDel]

IntelBurnTest is a good free stress testing program. It uses linpack to stress the CPU, and you can choose the level of stress to put the system through. the Maximum setting uses all available system memory and puts extreme levels of stress on the CPU. Its very good to measure maximum heat and cooling efficiency as well as to make sure your system is up to handling the most demanding of tasks for long periods.

 

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Benchmarks/IntelBurnTest.shtml