Updates Using A Lot Of Memory

Hello folks,

I've been noticing recently that when an update occurs while I have large programs running (Photoshop, Indesign, or a massive Excel spreadsheet), the update causes the file vsserv.exe to go up as high as 513,000k in memory. After the update finishes, the memory of vsserv.exe drops to around 1,864k, but leaves around 529,000k in virtual memory.

Now, during this time, the cpu is not showing a load, yet my hard drive is taking a beating. This in effect slows my system to an impossible to manage crawl, and leaves me sitting for about 5 minutes till it's finished with the update.

Another thing to note, when clicking on the Total Security icon in the lower right corner during the update, it shows that my firewall and anti-virus are down during this time. That's not good.... 5 minutes is plenty of time for something to sneak in on a PC.

In summary:

Memory for vsserv.exe going up to 513,000k, and leaving 529,000k sitting in virtual memory till reboot
Hard drive load becomes extremely heavy, while the cpu load does not
Anti-virus and Firewall are down during the update - takes up to 5 minutes for the update to complete
This only occurs when a large # of applications are open, or single applications that are memory intensive (such as the ones listed above)

System Specs (since I know you're going to ask):

- Windows XP

- BitDefender Total Security 2008

- Pentium D 840, 3.2Ghz, 2GB Memory, 250GB SATA HDD

- Virtual Memory is set to "Windows Managed" (!!! - I've tried using set ranges as well, and have had the same issues, so this doesn't seem to effect the problem)

- All useless programs are disabled, all useless services are disabled (yes, I've checked to make sure that turning some of them off didn't cause an issue as well)

In conclusion, I'm hoping this issue can be resolved, as I never had this problem with Norton while it was doing an update. Norton, on the other hand, was just a cpu hog, which was the reason I went with the higher performing BD. I guess I COULD just have it download the updates, and I'll tell it when to install them, but I paid for a "silent update" feature - not a "system locked for 5 minutes for update - please go chase the dog for a while and pray your PC doesn't get a virus while you're gone" :wacko:

Thank you!

-Xavier

BTW - The "Do you want to install the update" dialog box pops up as often as Microsoft's update, which is A N N O Y I N G as ###### when you're in the middle of stuff. <img class= " />

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Comments

Xavier311

............. chirp chirp..............

Chesda

SAME! I sometimes get this problem too, mainly because of my low RAM memory.

Take my advice and do what i've done.

In the update settings choose 'Prompt before installing updates'. When a message pops up saying do you wish to install the update, close all/some programs that is hogging the memory. Then initiate the installation, you should have no problems although it is a pain clicking 'ok' everytime an update comes lol.

claudiu

erm , i really don't use BD Total Security or any other BD 11 version although i won a BD 2008 TS license Instead i use BD 10. I have no problems except some Vista "stopped to function" error from time to time" but i can pass over it. What i recommend you is DISABLE the virtual memory. Yes , Disable the virtual memory. I too have disable it and i have 2 gb of ram. Ram is faster then VM. try that method but i don't think it will do magic

I was a bitdefender beta tester and one issue i reported was about the update sistem that was so slow and eating sys ram ... but as far as i know that issue was somewhat resolved (at least i recieved a report that they did) . It appears that they didn't.

alexcrist

The same situation I noticed when there is high traffic on the network. In such cases, even the smallest BD update takes forever to install, and the system slows down very much (probably because of my slow, 5400rpm, laptop HDD). But in most situations, when the network traffic is very low, the update installs a just a few seconds, without to much memory-consumption (now, for instance, vsserv.exe uses 2MB in RAM and ~60MB in VM, after more than 4 days since I rebooted my computer, and auto-updates made every hour).

I'll make some more tests about this issue (since you insist it's a real problem), but I won't be able to do this until 2 weeks from now (because of a lack of time, caused by my exams).

What i recommend you is DISABLE the virtual memory. Yes , Disable the virtual memory.[...] Ram is faster then VM. try that method but i don't think it will do magic

I have to disagree.

Yes, RAM is a lot faster than the VM, because the VM is practically a file on your HDD. However, fully disabling the VM could cause problems in situations like:

- when you use a high-memory consumption applications (like graphics design, games, whatever). I mean applications that might use up to 1GB of memory. In those situations, the system will be forced to use the VM, whatever the RAM amount you have (well...I'm talking here about usual systems, with up to 2-3GB of RAM ). And if you deny the system the possibility to use the VM, you'll end up with a Low-Memory warning, a dramatic system slow-down and, possibly, even a system-crash

- in case of the well-known BSOD, the system needs a location where to dump fast the memory. This means ~50MB of VM on the system partition. If you fully disable the VM, in case of such crash, after you reboot, you won't get anything: no logs, no reports, no Event entries, no nothing...because the system has no place to dump the needed information and it just doesn't have time to stay and create files. In case of a BSOD, the system shuts down instantly.

What you can do to improve the speed of the VM is to:

- make it's size fixed (not variable). You can make it as low as you want, but not less then 50MB

- put it on it's own partition (maybe on a secondary HDD, if available). But leave the 50MB needed on the system-partition also

By doing this, you won't have a visible speed increase, because that's not possible. But disabling the VM shouldn't be an option, because of the reasons posted above.

Cris.

claudiu

you are right Cris but i had 2 experiences with this! I once disabled virtual memory on my first desktop system (athlon 64 , 1 gb geil ddr) and run Silent Hunter 3. I don't know how but windows prompted me with a "virtual memory is very low" but the game continued to run with no problems.

I now have Vista on my new laptop (core 2 duo , 2 gb ddr) and have disabled virtual memory. although i'm not running games very often on this laptop i am running Adobe Photoshop , Adobe dreamweaver , Open Ofice , Firefox , Winamp , Bitdefender and lots of other programs that make me have 22 Mb of Free Psysical Memory left. That means if i run a game right now ... my windows will crash. Wrong. I just started football manager 2008 , that needs more then 22 mb for sure , and vista didn't crashed and neither promted me for additional virtual memory

alexcrist

With Windows Vista, I guess it's a slightly different story. I can't say I know how Vista works, because I've never actually used it (I only installed it in a Virtual Machine and played with it for a total time of less than 1 hour).

As far as I know, Vista's memory management is completely different. What I've said above is the general idea, and it's mostly visible in pre-Vista OSs.

Now... I can't say for sure why it worked fine with in your case, but I can assume: as far as I know, Vista itself uses a lot of memory (almost 1GB). It uses this memory to keep dlls and parts of different applications (that don't actually run in that moment), so that it won't need to read them from disk again, when you start those apps (this is the so-called Super-Fetch feature). But, in case that memory is really needed by an app that is running, Vista frees that memory and makes it available for usage.

My best guess is that this is what happened to you: 22MB free (the rest used by apps and Vista), then you started Football Manager, it tried to use more memory than was available, and Vista made it available (without using VM...it just released some memory that was used to store un-used dlls and other stuff like this).

Maybe my assumption has nothing to do with reality (because, as I said, I never used Vista), but one thing's for sure: The physical memory cannot be expanded. If it gets full, applications won't be able to load correctly and the system will crash.

The one responsible for managing the VM is the OS. How exactly does the OS solve the low-resource situations, that depends from OS to OS, and from case to case.

My point is: the RAM is limited. However good the OS is at managing that limited memory, eventually, it will get full. And the only way to keep the system running in those cases is the VM, because with it, the memory is expanded virtually to the HDDs capacity.

Now... the more the RAM you have, the lower the chances that the VM will ever be needed. But in case of less than 1GB of installed RAM, the VM is 100% needed and shouldn't be disabled.

===============================================

And the above is only the situation for high-consumption applications.

Still, there's the part of the ~50MB of VM needed in case of a BSOD. That cannot be replaced, under any circumstances, because in this case, the RAM cannot be used (and you might as well have 16GB of it...it won't matter).

However, this is the situation of Windows XP. I have no clue how Vista solves the BSODs, so don't take my word for a fact unless you have XP.

Cris.

Xavier311

k, when you you guys are done hijacking the thread with a VM discussion.... (just kidding )

I'm very familiar with VM and how to set it, how much to set it, etc. etc. etc.

Still doesn't solve the issue of the update itself - which is the issue.

Xavier311

So.......... am I basically just stuck with a POS software program? This is very disturbing... <img class= " />

claudiu

we're not developers dude. all we can do is help you get around that problem. unfortunately this is not always possible. I told you , i was a bitdefender beta tester and have reported that issue. but notice that i experienced slow-downs and not "system locked for 5 minutes for update"

If it's not a VM issues i think it's a compatibility problem or (more probable) a bitdefender problem with releasing memory.

Btw , there is no live update in bitdefender. I was shocked too see that when i tested their first BD 11 beta although i long ago(long before bitdef 10 was released) received personal assurances from Adrian Marinescu ( BitDefender Senior Sales Spet.) that the next version (10 at that time) will have update on fly feature. Yeah sure.

Oscaruk

Hello

Just to agreed with Xavier

I have this vsserv.exe using 150,000 k memory and 180,000 vm using Photoshop seems to be a sin since it just get soooo slow.

responses from bd (I use BD Internet security 2008 ) are very slow even to let application to acces the internet causing many of them to fail.

There is also the detail that NetZone gets an x for a few minutes ( not sure if as long as 5 Minutes ) but it's true that at least a couple of minutes it gets disabled

Thanks for your help and I do Understand that here we are just trying to help each other hopefully an answer will be given soon