GS3 Eating Up Memory

[MrNoDay5Off]

Need your guys expertise here, recentkynmynphone has been sucking up memory like no other. Even after a soft restart the memory starts to deteorate like no other.

I've tried to uninstall programs I wasn't using and that didn't help as well. I then began to do some troubleshooting of my own by monitoring the tasks when the phone starts to even killing processes when my phone freezes with the built in task manager.

To no avail nothing has helped, if you guys could help me out I would appreciate it.

I'm attaching some screen shots for reference.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Android Central Forums

 

[Soundtrack to Chaos]

Re: GS4 Eating Up Memory

Omit


My name is Soundtrack to Chaos, and I have a fetish for external chargers, big batteries, power outlets and extension cords and surge protectors... I need help

 

[meyerweb#CB]

Re: GS4 Eating Up Memory

Are you actually having problems with your phone that you think are memory related, or do you just think "free" memory is somehow better than "used" memory? If you're not having problems, don't worry about it.

Android is a multi-tasking OS. It's designed to have apps in the background. The only "wasted" RAM is empty RAM. Your running apps will use only as much memory as they need. Having a bunch of "extra" RAM won't make them use more or run faster. "Empty" RAM doesn't save battery; every bit of every byte of RAM in the phone is constantly refreshed whether it's "used" or not. Here's how Android works: When you switch away from an app, that app will continue to "run" in the background only if it's actually doing something. For example, if you start downloaded a large web page, or a video, and then switch away, the download will continue to run. When the download is done, the program will remain in memory in an inactive state. Apps that don't need to do background processing, like Settings (in your example), just sit there, using no CPU and no battery until called upon by the system, or by you, to do something. I suspect that Redbox, Scorecenter, Coupons, and most of the other apps you have "running" are inactive. Even your mail apps are inactive most of the time, waking up only when receiving, or to check for, new mail.

Why does Android keep them in memory? Because it's likely that if you recently used an app or a service, you will use it again soon. If it's in memory, the OS can simply request it to redraw it's screen. If you've killed it, the OS needs to copy from storage (ROM) back into RAM, start it up, wait for it to allocate any resources it needs, and then redraw the screen. That takes longer, and uses more battery than if you had just let it sit in memory. If you start a new app that needs the memory an inactive app is using, Android flags that app as no longer resident, and allocates the memory to the new app.

The other thing to understand is that most apps in memory aren't really "running." They're in an inactive state, using no more cpu or battery than if you killed them.

Unless you're having some real problem, let Android do what it was designed to do. Google's engineers are pretty smart.

 

[MrNoDay5Off]

Re: GS4 Eating Up Memory

Sorry about that I meant GS3, wishful thinking on my end lol.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Android Central Forums

 

[MrNoDay5Off]

Re: GS4 Eating Up Memory

To correct myself, I have a GS3 not GS4.

However I can restart my phone open the task manager and just see the RAM just shoot to the .97 mark with ease. That's what makes me suspect my phone has issues.

I do thank you for the full break down on how the processes and programs work.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Android Central Forums

 

[meyerweb#CB]

Re: GS4 Eating Up Memory

At the moment, mine has 1.43GB out of 1.56 "in use." It's running like a top. (That's a good thing.) Of that, only about 262 MB is in use by 7 "active" applications, according to the Samsung Task Manager. The rest is holding inactive apps.

The app System Panel counts things a little differently, and shows I have 11 active apps, and 35 inactive background applications, and have ~ 160 MB of RAM "available." Quite a few of those inactive apps need to remain in memory so that they can perform operations when called upon. I wouldn't want the OS to have to reload Gmail from ROM every time I got an email, or reload Handcent for every text, for example, and Lightflow, which handles notifications, couldn't work at all if it didn't remain in RAM.

After gathering the above stats, I started 5 new apps that were not already in RAM. According to the Samsung app, I'm now using 1.40 GB and have 11 active apps, instead of 7. Android instantly released the memory used by inactive apps to allow my new apps to run (and put one of my newly started ones in inactive status because I wasn't actually using it).

Seriously, don't worry about RAM unless you're actually seeing a performance issue..