brandonkick
Well-Known Member
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So I posted a good while back about a machine I have (it's my fathers computer from his automotive repair business) that was running like crap. There was a SVC host process that would continuously suck up memory until the machine was flopping around like a fish out of water. After much research, and question asking here on the fourm, I discovered the problem to be windows update. There were two options here that came to me:
1) Disable windows update
or
2) Install more system memory and hope for the best
I had an old stick of compatabile memory lying around, so I threw that in and it took the system memory
from 2GB to 3GB (replaced one of the 1GB sticks with a 2GB stick)
The machine improved notably, and even after the SVC host process did it's dirty work the system still have some 400-500 MB free which isn't a lot at all but was enough to be able to use the system. When the system only had 2GB of memory, and SVC host sucked up everything that was still available, the system was brought too it's knees and even doing something like launching IE took 2-3 min.
I decided not to disable updates, but to max out the system memory at 4GB. It seemed that for whatever reason, windows update only sucked up a certain amount and stopped at one point. So incraseing the total system memory up past the point of where SVC host stops hogging will fix the problem.
Other times, especially where I know the people are either A) going to screw the system up in six months or less anyhow or B) are going to belly ache about having to spend money on memory upgrades, I'll simply disable windows update and tell them to turn it back on every wednesday and let it do the automatic updates then turn it back off.
My question, and the point of this whole thread, is why does this happen? It almost appears to happen randomly. I've seen 2GB memory windows 7 systems that don't have this problem even with Automatic Updates turned on and I've seen systems in the same spec range get this problem? Does anyone know what might fuel this? I mean in most cases, 2GB is a joke amount of ram and should be 4 minimum and more like 8GB for the low cost of memory but I guess I wonder why some low ram systems are affected and others aren't. I'd almost bet I could buy two Dell systems exactly the same, same OS, same software installed and one would be affected and one wouldn't.... or like three out of ten would be affected and 7 wouldn't.
Very strange indeed.
1) Disable windows update
or
2) Install more system memory and hope for the best
I had an old stick of compatabile memory lying around, so I threw that in and it took the system memory
from 2GB to 3GB (replaced one of the 1GB sticks with a 2GB stick)
The machine improved notably, and even after the SVC host process did it's dirty work the system still have some 400-500 MB free which isn't a lot at all but was enough to be able to use the system. When the system only had 2GB of memory, and SVC host sucked up everything that was still available, the system was brought too it's knees and even doing something like launching IE took 2-3 min.
I decided not to disable updates, but to max out the system memory at 4GB. It seemed that for whatever reason, windows update only sucked up a certain amount and stopped at one point. So incraseing the total system memory up past the point of where SVC host stops hogging will fix the problem.
Other times, especially where I know the people are either A) going to screw the system up in six months or less anyhow or B) are going to belly ache about having to spend money on memory upgrades, I'll simply disable windows update and tell them to turn it back on every wednesday and let it do the automatic updates then turn it back off.
My question, and the point of this whole thread, is why does this happen? It almost appears to happen randomly. I've seen 2GB memory windows 7 systems that don't have this problem even with Automatic Updates turned on and I've seen systems in the same spec range get this problem? Does anyone know what might fuel this? I mean in most cases, 2GB is a joke amount of ram and should be 4 minimum and more like 8GB for the low cost of memory but I guess I wonder why some low ram systems are affected and others aren't. I'd almost bet I could buy two Dell systems exactly the same, same OS, same software installed and one would be affected and one wouldn't.... or like three out of ten would be affected and 7 wouldn't.
Very strange indeed.
