Holy crapolie. I just solved my super retarded Firefox memory problems I've been having since like. They started coming out with new whole version increments in a constant flood. If anyone else has been fighting this, the solution is simple: disable the following services and shut them down: Diagnostic Policy Service, Diagnostic Service Host, and Diagnostic System Host.
Restart Firefox and browse with 50+ tabs open with NO MORE SLOWDOWNS! YAY!
I decided to run Windows Task Manager alongside for a minute and watch what happens whilst watching my Firefox RAM use escalate out of control... And observed a curious phenomenon. As the Firefox RAM usage escalated, so did the RAM use of two svchost tasks... Which indicated to me that two Windows Services were directly conflicting with Firefox. I do a little more digging and resolve those services to Diagnostic Service Host and Diagnostic System Host... But I disable those and it's not enough! Diagnostic Policy Service just switches them back on and it's right back to misery and woe and watching my RAM go from 34% to 100% within minutes!
So what does a girl who can't NOT multitask do? She shuts off Windows Diagnostics completely, for good, end of story. Starts Firefox back up, and watches as she loads up her tabs and only a very negligible increase in RAM use follows. And is well pleased.
This solution is probably best recommended to experienced users only... Those who actually rely on Windows telling them what's wrong (and usually failing miserably) need not apply. Because what those three services are, effectively, are Windows' attempts to tell you what's wrong when something goes wrong. An experienced user generally just ignores what those stupid things say and follow their own much better diagnostic methods instead anyways. An inexperienced user... well, I guess it's all they have to go on before resorting to calling on an experienced friend.
And to be quite honest with everyone, I don't know if it's Microshaft who's to blame this time, or the Firepoop team, or if they in some way need to share the blame. It was getting a tad ridiculous there though. My laptop ain't my desktop, no, but Behemoth's down for the count and she's all I got. Even so, 4 gigs of RAM PLUS shouldn't be getting gobbled up just by browsing, even with 50-100 tabs. I have no idea how much RAM it was capping out at on Behemoth, cuz he had a quite solid 12er. So whatever it was wasn't making itself too terribly felt other just the occasional "huh, well, those numbers seem a bit odd" observation every now and then. My laptop OTOH only HAS 4 gigs. So I was going from 34% ram idle to MAX within minutes of loading Firefox and a coupla tabs. And that was insane.
I still dislike that my laptop is almost entirely hogtied in its performance by its very miserable quantity of RAM. My usage patterns dictate for a much higher RAM to processor speed ratio than ANY laptop is built to handle.
Comments
So, why 50 tabs?
Isn't 3 or 4 enough, or am I just not understanding what you're saying?
LOL! 3 or 4?!
What do you want me to do? Just be on BC all the time? OOPS, that's 4 MINIMUM. Just for BC.
Abigail Drew.
I have 500 some tabs up at anytime
because I save the tabs and keep the organized in clusters for editing and researching photos for stories I am working on at any one time.
Im the exception to the 1 -4 tab person just browsing the net. I am working on things and researching at same time :)
Sephrena
I'm very similar!
I research different things from you, but at any given time I'm doing some casual browsing and researching something major at the same time. My casual browsing alone consumes a good 10 tabs at times. And my research......... Yeah...
It's not worth it to bookmark most things, I use various resources so often that it makes more sense just to leave them in a tab.
But even when I'm "just browsing" and ignore all the research tabs, the tabs I'm playing with tend to go upwards of 10 tabs... I'm a multitasker. Period. It's absolutely impossible for me to stay on just one thing for long.
Abigail Drew.
svchost!
This is a Windows only issue so those who use Linux or OS/X can breathe a sigh of relief and skip this post.
IMHO, svchost.exe is something that should be consigned to the great wastebasket in the sky. I write software for a living and I see it taking 30-40 or even 50% of the cpu at times. This is on a server system and there are no web browsers running so I'd point the finger at Microsoft here.
I just logged onto one of our production systems in . There are EIGHT copies of svchost.exe running. Even the laptop where I'm writing this post from has 11 copies of this program running. Ok, so it does has 32Gb or Ram but most of the active applications are Virtual Machines.
So, well done for getting to where you are. Many others would have given up long ago. If your system is stable then don't change it. however just be cautious when applying Microsoft Security updates. They have a habit or removing nice little customizations... So document what you did so that if needed, you can go back and re-apply it in the future.
Fighting against Nanny Microsoft was one of the reasons why 5 years ago, I raised the white flag of surrender and moved all my personal computing to a MacBook & OS/X.
The general rule of thumb...
When dealing with Windows svchost issues is that one service == one svchost process copy. There's like, two, copies that run several very closely interrelated services that are absolutely essential. Any other service allowed to run starts up another fresh copy of the program. As of writing this I have 13 copies running and they're collectively consuming nearly half a gig of RAM. My CPU is negligible. Hasn't gone over 5% IN TOTAL like ever, except when I'm playing Assassin's Creed or running compiles for something I've hacked up.
I'm a RAM Gobbler. Always have been. RAM is and has ALWAYS been my biggest computing bottleneck for my typical usage patterns.
This is like a 4 yrs old laptop... When I got her, 4 gigs was the most a laptop EVER had loaded, and you had to customize to get to it.
Abigail Drew.
50 Tabs? Holy Guacamole, batman!
:D
I tend to have 10-12 depending on what I'm browsing at any time.
News services; BC; maybe a webcomic; whatever thing I'm looking into; job applications etc...
But I run on Chrome (cue choirs of angels singing) and have never had any slowdown problems really.
What I really love about Chrome is the ability to sync my extensive bookmark list with my android phone and share tabs back and forth between my desktop and phone. At times it beats having a laptop...
xx
Amy
LOL...
That's a chrome feature I'd never use. Why? I think my phone might just explode...
50 is basically the minimum I can ever bring it down to... And that's if I'm not really up to much.
I might not be using all or even half of them at a given time, but... I change tasks so often that it's impossible to say for certain.
I average around 65. I've gotten up to around 150.
My phone is little more than a toy. It can't handle what I do on any regular basis.
Abigail Drew.
Wow
I am in awe of your epic-multi-tasking skills. :D
I do only use my phone for a couple of tabs at any given time (otherwise I'd use my computer). I also often use it for reading stories on BCTS because I can open them up in print view and read my way down over the course of whenever.
So for that I guess my few tabs I swap back and forth is sufficient.
Anyway, I'm so not computer-savvy or anything. I know how to use google to solve problems and that's it. ;)
xx
Amy