Practical Lab: Monitoring Memory

Objective

Watch this chapter's ideas — committed memory, page faults and the pagefile — show up live on your own PC. Also find out your RAM's real speed and type.

What to Open

1. Task Manager — press Ctrl+Shift+Esc
2. Resource Monitor — Task Manager → Performance tab → "Open Resource Monitor" link, or press Windows Key + R and type resmon
3. Task Manager → Performance → Memory tile

Part 1: Task Manager — Performance Tab → Memory

1. Click the Memory tile on the left
2. Write down the numbers you see:

In use (compressed): __________ GB
Available:            __________ GB
Committed:            __________ / __________ GB
Cached:                __________ GB
Paged pool:            __________ MB
Non-paged pool:        __________ MB
Speed:                 __________ MHz
Slots used:            __________ of __________
Form factor:           __________

Connect it back to the chapter:

• "In use" includes the compressed memory store from Section 10.1. That is why it can be lower than you expect, even with many apps open.
• "Committed" shows current / maximum. The maximum is physical RAM plus the pagefile's size (Section 5.6). If "Committed" gets close to the maximum, the PC is leaning heavily on the pagefile.
• "Speed" is the real running speed of your DDR memory in MT/s (Section 2.3). Compare it with the speed your RAM is rated for.

Part 2: Reading the Memory Graph

1. Watch the memory graph while you open a few new apps (a browser with several tabs, an image editor, and so on)
2. Notice how "In use" climbs as you open things. See whether it drops when you close them. Some of it will drop and some will not right away. Windows tends to keep recently used data cached instead of freeing it hard, because free RAM sitting idle is a wasted resource

Part 3: Resource Monitor — Memory Tab

1. Switch to the Memory tab in Resource Monitor
2. Look at the colour-coded bar at the bottom (Hardware Reserved, In Use, Modified, Standby, Free)
3. Sort the process list by Commit (KB) to see which processes have committed the most virtual memory
4. Sort by Working Set (KB) to see which processes have the most physical RAM actually in use right now

Connect it back to the chapter: "Commit" is closer to what a process has asked for (its virtual memory size). "Working Set" is closer to what is really sitting in RAM for that process right now. That is Section 3.1's physical vs. virtual idea, applied to a real running process.

Part 4: Observing Page Faults

1. In Resource Monitor's Memory tab, find the Hard Faults/sec column (or the graph at the top labelled "Hard Faults/sec")
2. Leave the PC mostly idle for a minute and note the baseline number
3. Open a large app you have not used for a while (or one you closed earlier and reopen it). Watch for a spike in hard faults while it loads

Connect it back to the chapter: A spike here is the major/hard page fault from Section 5.2: data pulled in from storage because it was not already in RAM. A steadily high hard-fault rate during ordinary work is a strong sign of memory pressure and paging (Section 5.5).

Part 5: RAM Speed and Type Detection

1. If you can use a third-party tool such as CPU-Z (Memory tab) or HWiNFO, check:
   • RAM type (DDR3/DDR4/DDR5)
   • Actual running speed (MT/s) vs. rated speed
   • Number of channels in use (single/dual/quad)
2. If you have no third-party tool, msinfo32 (Windows System Information) shows at least the total installed RAM and some setup details

What Should Happen

You should be able to see:

• Your total physical RAM, and how much is in use vs. available
• The pagefile's role in the "Committed" figure
• A visible spike in hard page faults when you open something not already cached
• Your RAM's real type and speed, and whether it runs in dual-channel mode

Interpretation Guide

Follow-Up Questions

1. How much physical RAM do you have, and how much is usually "in use" during your normal day?
2. Did you see any hard page fault spikes? What were you doing at the time?
3. Does your "Committed" maximum rely heavily on the pagefile, or does physical RAM alone cover most of it?
4. Is your RAM running in single-channel or dual/quad-channel mode? (Hint: compare "slots used" with the total slots in Task Manager, and check whether the installed sticks are identical.)

Summary