Excessive memory use in XPsp3 with IE7

[Hardball]

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I have noticed that when I am on Youtube for any length of time, my memory use goes nuts. With just that single tab open in IE7 on XP sp3, the 1GB of ram in my older system shoots up to the point where there is only between 5-50 MB left with the page file use at anywhere from 1-1.65GB.

Task Manager shows internet explorer as 700k+ mem used. I know the issue has something to do with Flash, because on sites other than Youtube, ones with much less Flash use, the memory use is much more reasonable. Any ideas? The maximum memory for this mobo is 2GB, so I could add another GB, but would the issue just consume any additional Ram that I would add?

 

[lxskllr]

You could add more ram. That's a lame way to handle crappy coding though. Make sure Flash is updated, and try a different bowser. You can set YouTube to use html5. I don't know if IE7 can use that, but other modern browsers can.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

You have the latest version of flash right? Any reason you are still using IE7? you should try to upgrade.

 

[Hardball]

Yes. Flash is the latest version that just came out a few days ago. Will IE8 feel slower on an older resource-challenged system like mine, compared to IE7? My only real issue with IE7 is this memory problem. Is IE8 better than IE7, and if so, what are the main advantages to going to it?

 

[Chiefcrowe]

Yeah, I'd definitely upgrade the ram. I have noticed some slowdowns in some computers here that have 1 GB and am in the process of upgrading them.
IE8 is faster and more secure than IE7 and probably uses less memory also. I'd also consider using Firefox as well.

 

[Anteaus]

OP, I think it's a video streaming thing. I started a handfull youtube video stream downloads (start and pause) and then left the house for a little while. When I came back, Windows was barking about critical memory levels and IE had crashed. That was all I was running at the time. Ultimately I had to reboot. This is with Windows 7-64, 8 GB ram and IE9. This was the only time I ever had this type of thing happen. I'm suspecting it has something to do with whatever codec they are using to stream with.

 

[gmaster456]

I would definitely use the latest version of Firefox or at least IE8. You could also try Opera.

 

[acefightr]

Chrome works well too.

 

[nemesismk2]

I would definitely use the latest version of Firefox or at least IE8. You could also try Opera.

I agree 100%, any of the recent browsers like firefox, chrome etc are better than the older windows xp internet browsers.

 

[Charlie98]

My old desktop Dell (Pentium D) only had 512MB DDR2 RAM (running XP SP3 and whatever current version of IE was out there) was pretty slow. I bumped it up first to 1GB and then 2GB and each improved the functionality.

 

[cheez]

Yes. Flash is the latest version that just came out a few days ago. Will IE8 feel slower on an older resource-challenged system like mine, compared to IE7? My only real issue with IE7 is this memory problem. Is IE8 better than IE7, and if so, what are the main advantages to going to it?

Having Service Pack 3 alone won't do any good. Your solution is to apply Windows security updates which will include browser updates. Make sure it's fully updated. May require 2 or 3 times between the reboots. IE7 should be fine. IE8 won't do much good either if it's not updated.

Another option is, just use firefox. The latest version of course.