Why is my laptop taking up so much ram???

naxster

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As the title says, why does my laptop taking up so much ram and cpu??

The laptop is like 1 week old and its already slow as hell sometimes.
When i look at the task manager my "Disk 0" is sometimes at 100% thanks to mcafee on access scanner service...
But i've noticed another thing, in the task manager there is something called "hosting service: local system (17)" which sometimes takes up to 550MB memory and after like 10 min its down to 90MB..
Can anyone help me??

Here is a picture i took in the process explorer
 
Solution
Since it's only 1 week old, I would try the following ASAP:

1- Try to Recovery CDs (or hidden recovery partition). It will bring it back to factory default and see if the problems are still there.

2- If this doesn't solve your problem, you could bring the laptop back to the store to get a reimbursement or exchange it for a different model. You might have got a lemon. I think the policy in most country is that within 15 days of purchase they can reimburse or exchange it to you without any questions asked.


Just a little story: A friend of mine bought a HP laptop for his daughter. I visited him and he said they had the laptop for only a week with lots of problems on it. He said they didn't install any extra software so he didn't...

FPSmadMEDIC

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I do not know enough about tasks to give an opinion there, but a good place to start with any new laptop is uninstall all of that bloatware that comes installed and boots with your system for no good reason but advertisement. Get rid of mcafee and install Microsoft Security Essentials/AVG Free they use way less resources. That should help out some as for the task manager process I cant stress google google google enough and of course you should find an answer from someone here.
Ah one more thing try TuneUp Utilities it has a built in Start Up Manager, it looks like you have a lot of extras running in that screenshot. You should only have running what you need at that time in your tasks. ie. Fotx Reader and POWERPNT are 2 that only show up when I am running them idk if your are or not at that moment but yea TuneUp should help slim usage down.
 

MC_K7

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Since it's only 1 week old, I would try the following ASAP:

1- Try to Recovery CDs (or hidden recovery partition). It will bring it back to factory default and see if the problems are still there.

2- If this doesn't solve your problem, you could bring the laptop back to the store to get a reimbursement or exchange it for a different model. You might have got a lemon. I think the policy in most country is that within 15 days of purchase they can reimburse or exchange it to you without any questions asked.


Just a little story: A friend of mine bought a HP laptop for his daughter. I visited him and he said they had the laptop for only a week with lots of problems on it. He said they didn't install any extra software so he didn't understand why the laptop was behaving badly (poor performance, error messages sometimes, etc...). Since it was brand new, I suggested we do a factory restore using the hidden recovery partition (or recovery CDs). That did the trick, after the restore, the laptop was much faster and stable. I just uninstalled the default anti-virus (probably McAfee which isn't really good and is only a 90-days trial or something) and I installed Avira instead (there's a free version of Avira and it's one of the best anti-virus in the world but you need to uninstall your previous anti-virus first). I also uninstalled a few unnecessary software especially those in the startup and msconfig. That was about a year or two ago and last time I asked he said the laptop was still running great.

But as I said if the factory restore doesn't solve your problems, do not hesitate to get reimbursed. Or if you want to keep it, after the factory restore you might have to uninstall a lot of software. Unfortunately the factory default installation for most laptops comes with too many software (sometimes called bloatware) which affects performance from the start.
 
Solution
Look at Task Manager and search reach running task to see what it does..... if tya don't need it, dump it....can use msconfig to shut down startup items, uninstall programs. Mike Lin provides a nice interface for msconfig w/ his startup control panel applet
 

FPSmadMEDIC

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Ya you have 105 processes holy cow, I never top 70 processes and thats when I am playing a game and recording it, or editing in CS6/Maya 2014/Cinema 4D so you have something wrong there.
 

naxster

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Ok now im worried!! Lemon, what is an lemon?

And which bloatware is safe to unistall?? I dont want to damage my laptop. If there is an software that shows all my processor which is the best??
And also is 105 too much??

My laptop specs are:
Asus X550CC
- Intel® Core™ i5-3337U
- 6 GB DDR3 RAM
- 750 GB HDD
- Nvidia Geforce GT 720M + Intel HD graphics 4000
 

FPSmadMEDIC

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Like I said I am no task manager expert so with that said... I feel that 105 is way too much. Just goto your windows uninstall manager and google each program you know you don't use these will be extra cd burners and stuff like that. gah its been a while since I have done this for a laptop. My solution to a new laptop in my home is fresh OS on unboxing, but if you care about warranty and what not then dont do that if you are not sure how your manufacture feels about that.
 

naxster

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Okey, i will unistall some softwares. But one questions, you mentioned about installing Microsoft Security Essentials/AVG Free instead of Mcafee, should i install them both or just one of them??
And do they protect my laptop better than Mcafee?
 

FPSmadMEDIC

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Just install one, and google everything and take baby steps you will get it smoothed out, outside of high school classes and an XP Cert in 03 I am self taught surfing forms and the like anytime I bumped into an issue so its not hard just be patient.
 

naxster

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Which do you recommend?? Im thinking to download Nod32 and try it out, and if im happy with it i might buy it
 

FPSmadMEDIC

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Choose whichever you deem best like i said google:
http://www.techradar.com/us/news/software/applications/best-free-antivirus-9-reviewed-and-rated-1057786
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2388652,00.asp
and i am sure you will find a good detailed opinion here if you search for it
I use AVG and have for years and i couple it with superantispyware but i only turn that on for scans, so go with what is going to be most user friendly for you outta the top 5 most recommended free antivirus softwares just pick and use 1 antivirus the other i suggested is just for spyware
 

FPSmadMEDIC

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And they do just as good as mcafee i guess I dont really know because I have always do a fresh OS install and go straight to AVG. I do know Mcafee and Norton are resource heavy and better suited for business solutions hence better bank account securities and what not, we do use Norton on our Massage business laptop because it has a load of features that help with our business. On my Graphic editing/gaming machine I use AVG so I have more room for game operation and ingame recording.
 

MC_K7

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The best free anti-virus IMHO are Avira and Avast.

BitDefender is currently the best of the best, but it's not free, you can only get a 30-day trial.

Also, the best sites for anti-virus comparisons are these two because they're totally independent:

http://www.av-comparatives.org/

http://www.av-test.org/en/home/

If you ever change your anti-virus, don't forget to uninstall the previous one first. It's not good to run two anti-virus software at the same time because there could be some conflict.

But back to your main problem, it's not normal for a new laptop to have so many processes running. I would take it back the store and ask them to replace it with a model that comes with less bloatware. Removing all the unnecessary stuff yourself can be a very tedious job, and could potentially be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing, you could remove something vital by error.

But as I suggested in my first reply, you might want to try your Recovery CDs (or hidden recovery partition) first and see if the problems are still there after.

 

naxster

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I just installed Avast, im going to try it out and see how good it runs :)
Yea i know! 105 processors, my other laptop had like 50 MAX, i'm thinking to factory restore it, but i dont know how to do it in Windows 8, My old ASUS laptop which had windows 7, all i had to do was press F9 at boot, on Windows 8 however it doesn't work...
Can you help me out?? ALSO i dont have any Windows 8 CD, i just got the laptop, battery and AC adapter...
 

MC_K7

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According to this website, it should still be F9 for all Asus systems:

http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/h/hiddpart.htm

But remember that this is not a Windows function, so you need to press it BEFORE Windows starts to load. I think you need to press it while BIOS is loading or right after it.

Also, if no Recovery CD was provided with the laptop, usually on first boot Windows 8 will ask you for blank disk to create one.

 

naxster

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i've tried... it does not work :/
i also read that they "removed" the F9 from windows 8 :(
 

MC_K7

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Where did you read this? Can you post a link?

As I said F9 has nothing to do with your Windows installation. It's a hidden recovery partition, seperate from your OS (provided by Asus).

Also, if no Recovery CD was provided with the laptop, usually on first boot Windows 8 will ask you for blank disk to create one. If it didn't ask you for this, it might be an indication that the laptop was previously used by someone else and that would explain that high number of processes (see the story I posted in my first reply).

At this point, I would suggest you just bring the laptop back to the store and ask for a technician there to do the restore for you. If they want to charge you for this, tell them to go f**k themselves and just ask to be reimbursed or to exchange it for a different model or a different brand. Remember that 15-days replacement policy, if you still have problems with the laptop you definitely don't want to pass over this. After that it will be impossible for you to get reimbursed. And I doubt that Asus will be able to help you, because it seems your problem is software and not hardware (and from my personal experience Asus have terrible customer support anyways).
 

naxster

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Well i just googled "Asus Windows 8 F9" and some came up, but here is one of them
When i bought the laptop the menu of language and stuff came up, so there is not chance this is an used laptop, also the box was not opened.
But really.. how hard can it be to f****g restore the laptop without having any problems?? xD
i mean didnt microsoft think of this?? And i've noticed there is an "refresh your PC" and Reset your PC" but i have to insert an CD, or i think what i've read... :/
 

MC_K7

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Once again this is not Microsoft. The F9 restore function is provided by Asus. Windows system restore is something different than the Factory Restore (hidden recovery partition or recovery cds) that is provided by Asus.

Anyways, even if you are able to do it, we're not even sure it will solve your problem. If that computer was really in this state on first boot, restoring it won't solve anything.

As I said bring back the laptop to the store and tell them all the problems you had with it and that you want to get reimbursed or change for another model.