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Hello Guys and Gals,
After a couple of weeks running the factory update I find the mem available to twindle down as the hours go by.
I run task manager to free up mem after closing apps but after about 4-5 hours mem available is Regards to 185.
Any suggestions, hints or tips please?
Regards,
billygtab said:
Hello Guys and Gals,
After a couple of weeks running the factory update I find the mem available to twindle down as the hours go by.
I run task manager to free up mem after closing apps but after about 4-5 hours mem available is Regards to 185.
Any suggestions, hints or tips please?
Regards,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Stop using task manager. I have read that Froyo takes care of it by itself and using a task killer can actually make things worse. You shut something down that Android needs, it starts it up. You shut it down, something else wants it. Somehow that ends up using more battery and memory.
Other than that I don't know.
Tip: Stop thinking of the ram that Android uses the same way you think of ram in a PC. Period.
Why, Ever wonder why there is no 'exit' or 'close' button on most apps? It's b/c Apps don't close on Android, they just get moved down the stack so to speak. Think of it like a deck of cards. Some apps are thin (use little ram), some are thick (use lots of ram), the deck is only so big (total amount of ram). So if you have a bunch of small apps, then they will all be in memory. if you have a large app, it will push everything else out of ram to make room for it to run. So, if your ram usage is 100% then Android is working properly. This is why Task Killers are a bad idea on Android. The above is a pretty simple explanation and this topic has basically been beaten to death ever since Android was released. For some info, just google,
http://www.google.com/search?q=why+...s=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
chad
Thank you both for your insight.
I will take your advice!
Thanks again... great forum!
Apologies, but based on my experience, I kind of disagree about ignoring RAM usage. I'd read some of that info awhile ago, and it made sense. But I noted that my Gtab would occasionally act weird, freezing, reboot, stuff like that.
So, I installed System Panel, and when things started grinding to a halt, I'd check that, and I often found avail memory in the 10-50MB range.
One thing was that Xscope would sometimes take almost 200MB, so I emailed the dev, who suggested changing cache from default 8 to 4. I did that, and then rarely found avail memory less than 150MB.
The other thing is I noticed that there a lot of Apps taking about 10MB, that I wasn't using. Things like Settings, Email, etc. So, I installed Startup Auditor, and configured that to stop several of those non-used apps. The thing I noticed after that is that booting is faster. Specifically, instead of sitting on the Tent boot screen for a long time, it would boot past that in maybe 10 secs. I'm thinking of buying the paid apparently so I can stop more than 5 Alps.
Anyway, YMMV, but that's my experience.
Jim
I have my Nexus S for over two weeks now, and I'm incredibly happy with it. Theming is a lot of fun, and you can do very cool stuff even without root and custom roms!
However, there is one (strange) thing I've noticed. It's about the RAM.
For your information: I use Go Launcher which has a tab in the App Drawer with running applications, and a button to close all (you can exclude certain apps). When I boot up my phone, I have 170-180 MB free RAM. The following programs (and widgets) are running in the background (I have excluded them from the close all list): Go SMS Pro (widget, notifications), WhatsApp (notifications), Lookout, Extended Controls (widget), Wiget Locker (I made it look like the MIUI lockscreen) and Clockr (widget).
There are two more apps that are on constantly, and those are the Miren Browser and PlayerPro. I don't know why Miren Browser keeps turning itself on. When I check how much MB it uses, it says 0,00 dB... As for PlayerPro, I use a widget called Phantom Music Control, a widget that hides itself when no music is being played. I also use it on my lockscreen. This widget controls PlayerPro, so that is probably why PlayerPro has to be running all the time (so that it can start up quickly when needed).
There are some Google apps that turn themselves on, like Gmail and Places, and they actually use RAM according to Go Launcher. I don't want them to be running, and synchronization is turned off with Gmail. When I want to know if I have mail, I open Gmail. It doesn't have to be running all the time. I've never used Places, and I never will use it, so I don't know why that has to be running all the time.
Every once in a while I hit Close All (with Go Launcher). However, I've noticed that over time my free memory keeps lowering. When I boot up my phone it is around 175 MB, but at the end of the day the free memory is 100 MB, 70 MB or even 50 MB, and yes, even after I've hit the 'Close All' button.
I know I don't use my phone very efficient, with programs like Go SMS, Widget Locker and that Music Control widget, and I will flash a custom rom later. My RAM memory will probably increase then (I've read something about Supercurio's kernel including a boost RAM management). It just bothers me that I don't have control over what programs are running (Gmail and Places), and that my free memory decreases over time. I haven't noticed any slow downs, I'm just worried. Or shouldn't I?
I don't know about the rest, but you shouldn't be concerned about free memory.
Android is designed in a way that all programs keep running (sleeping actually) in the background even when you don't use them at the moment. They are automatically killed when the system needs memory for something else. Any program that is sent to the background (e.g. by pressing back or home) can be killed by the system at any time and is (should be) ready for it.
Basically, the less free memory you have, the better. That means that many of the apps you use are running and you can return to them without delay.
There are some articles floating around the web about the architecture of android and process/application life cycle. They explain that better then me, and in more detail.
cgi said:
I don't know about the rest, but you shouldn't be concerned about free memory.
Android is designed in a way that all programs keep running (sleeping actually) in the background even when you don't use them at the moment. They are automatically killed when the system needs memory for something else. Any program that is sent to the background (e.g. by pressing back or home) can be killed by the system at any time and is (should be) ready for it.
Basically, the less free memory you have, the better. That means that many of the apps you use are running and you can return to them without delay.
There are some articles floating around the web about the architecture of android and process/application life cycle. They explain that better then me, and in more detail.
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First of all, thanks!
So I don't have to be afraid of any slow down? And what about Gmail and Places turning themselves on every time, even if I don't use them?
And why does the free memory decrease over time, but increases again when I turn off and boot up my phone?
Androyed said:
So I don't have to be afraid of any slow down? And what about Gmail and Places turning themselves on every time, even if I don't use them?
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More like the opposite: your RAM is being put to good use.
When your PC get's low on RAM it will start swapping and trashing around. Your smartphone has no swap and is optimized for it. If it get's low on RAM, it will just kill some stuff in the background. All this happens without you noticing anything (if the app is programmed correctly).
I don't know about Gmail and Places. Most likely they are running because they registered broadcast receivers or something.
Androyed said:
And why does the free memory decrease over time, but increases again when I turn off and boot up my phone?
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Every app is running in its own dalvik virtual machine process. Since creating a new VM process is expensive (in terms of processing time), the VM processes are reused to some degree. One app is unloaded, the new one is loaded.
There is more stuff going on behind the scenes, of course. There are likely some spare VMs sleeping in the background waiting for an app to use them.
However, the heap (dynamically allocated memory of a process) of a VM can only grow and never shrink (don't ask me why). So after a few apps or so a VM process is restarted, too.
To come back to your question: When your device boots up, only the processes needed for boot are running. That will be the launcher, some widgets and so on. So basically, this is the moment with the most free RAM. However, this is also when your device is slowest, because every new app you launch has first to be loaded into memory and executed.
While you use your device, many of the apps you used will be kept around in the background, so when you start them again, they will reappear instantly, because the whole "create vm process --> load app from storage --> execute and initialize app" chain has already happened.
"Free memory is wasted memory."
When you open an app, the system loads it into ram. When you close it, the system should not bother to remove it from ram because there is a good chance you will use that app again and having it pre-loaded makes it open significantly faster.
Just because ram is "used" doesn't mean it can't be re-allocated for something more important.
That being said, it is entirely possible that some of your apps have memory leaks. Does it get worse after two days, or three days?
d-h said:
"Free memory is wasted memory."
When you open an app, the system loads it into ram. When you close it, the system should not bother to remove it from ram because there is a good chance you will use that app again and having it pre-loaded makes it open significantly faster.
Just because ram is "used" doesn't mean it can't be re-allocated for something more important.
That being said, it is entirely possible that some of your apps have memory leaks. Does it get worse after two days, or three days?
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I turn my phone off every evening, so I don't know. It's not a problem by any means, I'm just curious.
I've left my RAM alone today, and I didn't noticed any slow down. It was on 110 MB free RAM when I left it alone, and when it was at 35 MB RAM, I decided to hit the close all button (there was no slow down btw). Guess what? My RAM went back up to 140 MB! Not as much as when I boot my phone up, but it's still strange: when I hit close all when the free RAM is very low, I get more free RAM then when I hit close all when my free RAM is around 100 MB (I only get 5 or 10 MB free RAM extra then).
Thanks by the way, good first post!
I'm currently running EP1F Debloated with Gummy Charged
The phone typically says that, out of 312MB of accessible RAM, there is 60MB or less of free RAM.
i'm running GO Launcher EX, and on it's RAM meter, it's almost always in the Red (signifying that it's almost Maxed out in available RAM)
is this normal?
of course, any time i quit all open applications, the usuals always reload, but then sometimes odd programs will run in the background (i.e., netflix, google+, music, amazon appstore, picasa, ustream, etc). These are programs that I haven't even loaded or ran. they just like to load themselves up and run in the background. so because of this, my available Free RAM tends to sit at 39-55MB. that seems VERY low to me. and may be the reason why my phone tneds to bog down a bit and lag every now and then, when i'm going from app to app.
I know EP1F doesn't have voodoo lagfix yet (like it did on EE4), but this unusually high consumption of RAM seems odd to me.
does anyone have any input on this?
appreciate it
If you havent ran, and don't run those programs just get rid of them
no no no... I definitely run them. but it's probably a few times a day, sporadically.
but i don't need them to be running in the background, hogging RAM. whereas, i'm totally fine with an app like Gmail to always be running, since i check that all the time.
I use Autokiller Memory Optimizer, set to "optimal" preset. It's not a task killer, it just changes Androids settings to close programs at different trigger points. Keep some free ram and keeps the system from bogging down.
I also use Autostarts, which disables programs from starting up at startup or for other notifications that are set. Some programs still start themselves but it helps.
Why do you want free RAM? Unused RAM is doing nothing for you, Used is holding a program ready to launch so it's faster and needs less CPU to launch. Ideal RAM usage is 100% because the system will automatically make room for a new program to run.
Have you ever gotten a message that an app can't launch due to low RAM? Using RAM doesn't mean using CPU or battery. It just means ready to run faster.
Sent from my (currently) stock Verizon Fascinate ed04 using XDA App.
I made an observation today that I was hoping someone could shed some light on.
In AOKP there's an option where you can set how much memory the system should keep free. I have mine set to 24mb. While doing some browsing (opera mobile) I got curious so i headed over to the running apps to have a look at my memory usage. I noted that I had 235MB of ram free and that opera was using 30mb in the background. after not switching back to opera for a few minutes it was closed by the task manager.
Now this doesn't present a problem for me but it does make me wonder does the task managing in android take into account how long an app has been idle in the background as well as said apps memory usage vs available memory? I ask because while it makes sense that the os closes an app after a certain idle time but I don't see why it would need to close an app due to idle when there is such an abundance of memory still free for usage.
would be nice if an app stayed open regardless of idle time as long as memory doesn't run low and need clearing to make room for more recent processes.
regP said:
I made an observation today that I was hoping someone could shed some light on.
In AOKP there's an option where you can set how much memory the system should keep free. I have mine set to 24mb. While doing some browsing (opera mobile) I got curious so i headed over to the running apps to have a look at my memory usage. I noted that I had 235MB of ram free and that opera was using 30mb in the background. after not switching back to opera for a few minutes it was closed by the task manager.
Now this doesn't present a problem for me but it does make me wonder does the task managing in android take into account how long an app has been idle in the background as well as said apps memory usage vs available memory? I ask because while it makes sense that the os closes an app after a certain idle time but I don't see why it would need to close an app due to idle when there is such an abundance of memory still free for usage.
would be nice if an app stayed open regardless of idle time as long as memory doesn't run low and need clearing to make room for more recent processes.
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Click to collapse
I believe you're assumptions are correct. We're pretty sure its a battery saving attempt. I wasnt aware that AOKP did it also so it must be kernel related. HTC tried a whole new bag of tricks with this One... pun intended
Yeah the way the stock ROM handled memory was awful IMO. AOKP is a hell of a lot better. I didn't think about battery consumption, that makes sense. Too many background processes would murder battery.
regP said:
Yeah the way the stock ROM handled memory was awful IMO. AOKP is a hell of a lot better. I didn't think about battery consumption, that makes sense. Too many background processes would murder battery.
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wasnt this HTC's first phone without a changeable battery? They wanted to make sure it didnt die.
Can anyone explain why the system app "phone and messaging storage" on my phone takes so much RAM? It makes my phone slow and need to restart time to time to use. I'm using the Pixel Experience - Android 12. I've been looking for a way to "fix" this phone for almost 1 week now.
Please help me find the best solution...
It's not actually used RAM but RAM used within the last 3 hours.
If you tap the mentioned entry, you can see the frequency of use, the maximum amount of memory it’s used, how much Z-Ram it’s used, etc.pp
xXx yYy said:
It's not actually used RAM but RAM used within the last 3 hours.
If you tap the mentioned entry, you can see the frequency of use, the maximum amount of memory it’s used, how much Z-Ram it’s used, etc.pp
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so is it normal? i haven't seen this much usage before.
To me it doesn't look too much.
The benefit of RAM is that it allows the interface to operate more efficiently. Say you open the Phone app. It will take a while to start up the first time it is launched, as it has to load all the content to show you. You can then leave the app and return to it. Launching will take much less time the second time you access it, as it will grab all the files from the RAM and utilize what is still relevant.