Why is my PC using so much RAM?

[Mutley]

This is only starting to happen the last week. For some reason alot of my background processes and programmes I run use alot more ram. In most cases 10mb more. Things like my antivirus, windows spyware defencder, MSN and other applications just run using loads more ram. Then things like firefox likes to chew on 150mb - I understand this is a memory leak bug but this has only started to happen in the last few days. Like all my programmes.

What is wrong? I can't understand the meaning for my RAM to be used more, my PC feels noticable laggy from applications using 10mb+ more RAM each. (Trust me, with even 20 to 30 processes it soon adds up!)

I have 1gb of RAM, right now it's using 450mb and all I have running is MSN and Firefox, with a total of 32 processes background (in which most are things that shouldn't take up lots of RAM).

 

[Asus]

See if there are any processes running that you don't want on that you could kill. Maybe something got installed along with a shareware program. I'm not exactly sure why your processes would take up more memory than last week. But if you leave you PC on longer or if it's a scanning program (AV, anti spyware) maybe if there are more files/folder s/windows registry to handle, it would use more memory. idk

For the Firefox thing, that isn't a bug. It's a design to keep data of the pages you went to in memory so you can go back quickly rather than reloading it. I think there is a setting to change if you want to disable it. I'd check out a Firefox optimize guide or something.

 

[Mutley]

The 2 that confuse me most are these:
explorer.exe (normally on 11mb I'm sure) is 35mb
svchost.exe (I have 8 of these) totalling 65mb - biggest one being 30mb

Seems alot to me.

 

[giant384]

those are both normal. explorer.exe is for your icons,files,bar at the bottom of your screen,etc.. and the svchost is for networking and internet services i believe. i have 6 of those running right now, but like asus said is there anything thats running that your not sure of?