MBAM has the highest RAM consumption in Task Manager

[claudiub]

Hi,

MBAM has the highest RAM consumption in Task Manager- see attachment.

Any explanation?

Thanks,

Claudiu

[Firefox]

Hello and

I really do not see much wrong there in your screen shot.....

Please provide following details, so that someone may be able to assist you:

• 1. OS version including 32/64-bit
  2. Installed Security Product(s) including Firewall
  3. MBAM version (current 1.46) (Free or Pro)
  4. Definition version (current 5073)
  5. Do you use a router to connect to Internet
  6. How much Ram is installed
  

[claudiub]

Hello and

I really do not see much wrong there in your screen shot.....

Please provide following details, so that someone may be able to assist you:

• 1. OS version including 32/64-bit------->XP sp3 32bit / p4 Thinkcentre
  2. Installed Security Product(s) including Firewall -------->AntiVir 9 Premium, Kerio2.15
  3. MBAM version (current 1.46) (Free or Pro)----->1.46 Pro
  4. Definition version (current 5073)----->5073
  5. Do you use a router to connect to Internet------>yes Dlink704
  6. How much Ram is installed-------->1G
  

[GT500]

I have edited the opening post in this topic to remove the Word Document. Please do not attach Word Documents to posts, and please do not save screenshots in Word Documents. Please use Microsoft Paint to save screenshots as PNG (Portable Network Graphics) images or as JPEG/JPG images.

Thank you.

[GT500]

OK, now that I've taken a look at the screenshot, please note that 64MB is not a lot of RAM usage. It is also a little abnormal for our protection module, which normally uses around 42MB-45MB while running (at least on all of the systems that I have seen). It is, however, normal for the memory usage of our protection module to increase slightly when a program launches (as it will be scanning the program as it launches) and when the database is updated.

Also, please note that the amount of RAM it uses is based more upon the size of the database version it has loaded than on anything else. I would believe that it loads the database into memory uncompressed, and our database is quite large.

If you take a look at the processes loaded on my Windows 7 Pro x64 computer, you will note that mbamservice.exe is not using that large of an amount of memory:

Also, I would believe that the numbers listed in the task manager are not the actual amount of RAM that the program is using. If I remember right, it's the amount of RAM that has been allocated to the application, as opposed to the amount it is actually using.

[mountaintree16]

I have less ram than most people, especially people with Vista/7 machines.

I have seen my Mbam go almost as high as 65 (very rarely) but it usually does not stay there; it'll calm right down.

Usually it hovers between 20 and 45 for me.

Additionally, Mbam has never affected my system performance negatively whatsoever since running it in realtime for over a year now.

This screen shot just taken:

[GT500]

Also, I would believe that the numbers listed in the task manager are not the actual amount of RAM that the program is using. If I remember right, it's the amount of RAM that has been allocated to the application, as opposed to the amount it is actually using.

Interestingly enough, Process Explorer is showing a completely different story as far as memory usage of the various running processes:

And here is a nice explanation of what the memory usage means in Process Explorer (source):

• Working Set
  
  Working Set is the current size, in bytes, of the Working Set of this process. The Working Set is the set of memory pages touched recently by the threads in the process. If free memory in the computer is above a threshold, pages are left in the Working Set of a process even if they are not in use. When free memory falls below a threshold, pages are trimmed from Working Sets. If they are needed they will then be soft-faulted back into the Working Set before leaving main memory.
  
  

  
  

• Virtual Bytes
  
  Virtual Bytes is the current size, in bytes, of the virtual address space the process is using. Use of virtual address space does not necessarily imply corresponding use of either disk or main memory pages. Virtual space is finite, and the process can limit its ability to load libraries.
  
  

  
  

• Private Bytes
  
  Private Bytes is the current size, in bytes, of memory that this process has allocated that cannot be shared with other processes.
  
  

  
  

[mountaintree16]

Thanks for the great info, GT

[claudiub]

Hi,

Thank you for your answer!

On a similar system (but without Kerio2.15 / windows firewall instead) MBAM is taking 66M of RAM.

Any suggestins? Shall I remove/ reinstall something?

Thanks,

Claudiu

[noknojon]

Hi -

Please exclude the following files from your antivirus and read the 2 items at the bottom for your firewall -

Note: If using a software firewall besides the built in Windows Firewall you'll need to exclude them from it as well

For Windows XP:

• C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware\mbam.exe
  
• C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware\mbamgui.exe
  
• C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware\mbamservice.exe
  
• C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware\zlib.dll
  
• C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware\mbam.dll
  
• C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware\mbamext.dll
  
• C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Malwarebytes\Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware\rules.ref
  
• C:\Windows\System32\drivers\mbam.sys
  
• C:\Windows\System32\drivers\mbamswissarmy.sys
  

Note: If using a software firewall besides the built in Windows Firewall you'll need to exclude MBAM.EXE from it as well

Note: Once that's done, please make sure that if either of those programs has any sort of web filter, that you add the following as a trusted site:

data-cdn.mbamupdates.com

Thank You -

EDIT -

Please note that with all the items running , your Task Manager still only shows a total of 2% CPU Usage with around 220,000k total in use (about normal) -

[GT500]

On a similar system (but without Kerio2.15 / windows firewall instead) MBAM is taking 66M of RAM.

Any suggestins? Shall I remove/ reinstall something?

Go ahead and try adding the exclusions that were suggested, however I cannot guarantee that that will lower the memory usage.

Normally I wouldn't worry about memory usage until it gets to be consistently higher than 70MB-80MB (it's normal for it to spike a bit when updating or when launching programs, but it is not normal for it to consistently be that high).

[GT500]

Just talked with QA about this, and they reminded me that memory usage is different on different versions of Windows. Normally the RAM usage is higher on Windows XP. Here's a screenshot of my task manager in a Windows XP VM, showing the amount of RAM usaged by mbamservice:

So, as you can see, the protection module is using 30MB more RAM on Windows XP than it was on Windows 7 Pro x64, and that 60MB-70MB is actually a bit low compared to what my virtual machine is running at. I imagine that there is also a difference between the 64-bit editions of Windows 7 and the 32-bit editions, although I do not have 32-bit editions of Windows with which to test.

[mountaintree16]

Just chiming in here, mine is currently at 56 k.

I think it depends on your OS as well as what you are doing on your machine at the moment as well as if its scanning or updating at the moment.