Computer Problem: possibly programs i don't know are running in the background?

Question

Normally my ram is at about 36% to 38 %. Well recently its been at 45% which is to high to run some of my games. The other day i was surfing the internet and i went to check on my ram and it was at 72%. So I exited out of everything i had up and waited like 10 min and the ram didn't go down at all. Some one told me there might be programs running in the background that I don't know about. How do I find out if there is? and how do i fix it so my ram goes back down?

Answer 1

1) Bring up task manager, go to the performance tab, sort running programs by memory use.

2) This utility



http://www.download.com/FreeRAM-XP-Pro/3000-2086_4-10070530.html?tag=lst-2



can return RAM to the system that's not released by closed programs.

Answer 2

there are some progs that start up of their own accord, modules installer is one, indexing service is another, these both take up ram, for a list of services and the ones you can safely stop. check out black vipers guide on the net. it's a complex issue, but also you can stop some progs from starting using the msconfig utility, again google what you can and can't stop. but at the end of the day, don't worry about a the small increase in usage that you've noticed, your games will still run. enjoy.

Answer 3

Go to start->Run then type msconfig then click on the start up tab

Check the button that says disable all then reboot



(or if you know certain programs that you want to run in the background, leave those checked)

Answer 4

First of all you are talking about the cpu, not the ram. Right click on the taskbar, and open the taskmanager, click the processes tab, look through if you see something that looks wrong.



WARNING be careful what you do you can shut down your computer.

Answer 5

push ctrl-alt-del keys at the same time twice and this will show you what is running in the background

Answer 6

call a help desk and they can walk you threw to see if there are files running.