RamMap "Empty standby list" drastically speeds up PC. Is there a better way to do this?

Solution 1:

The Standby list is the Superfetch cache and the "Dynamic Cache" fixes a different issue. The service fixes an issue where the NTFS Metadata cache is too high. But Stadnbylist and this Cache are 2 different things. The NTFS Cache is shown as used Memory, while the Standby-Cache is contains data, but can be emptied very fast if you really new that Memory to store data in it.

On sysinternals forum the user wj32, the author of Process Hacker, created a commandline tool which does what you want:

http://forum.sysinternals.com/rammap-empty-standby-list_topic27297_post132769.html#132769

Try it if it "fixes" your issue.

Solution 2:

Could it be that the sluggishness comes from Windows forcing stuff to be loaded/saved from the Swap drive, that with every video taped, the standby list grows and with a big Swap drive other (background) programs now get pushed to the Swap drive, slowing down the machine.

If this PC is only used for taping TV shows, maybe a solution could be to make the Swap drive as small as Windows allows it to be set, which is I believe 16MB. Do not turn the Swap drive totally off, because then Windows will make a Swap drive in secret.

Some how I can not imagine that Windows would get sluggish, if it was just reading data from RAM, while no new programs get loaded from Disk.

Qoute from MS document http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/E/7/7E7662CF-CBEA-470B-A97E-CE7CE0D98DC2/MemorySizingGuidanceWin7.docx :

"Windows 7 SuperFetch™ works with the memory manager to set priorities for pages on the Standby list. Pages that have recently been placed on the Standby list start with a high priority, which slowly decreases over time.

If the system has too little memory to handle the workload, only a small percentage of the pages on the Standby list have a low priority. By monitoring the number of pages at different priorities, you can determine whether the system would benefit from increasing the amount of installed RAM."

Overall, the goal is to ensure that the system can maintain recently referenced pages in memory and still have enough available memory to satisfy any immediate memory needs."

Maybe also the TV recording program, as it keeps running and doesn't stop has every Page that goes to the Standby List marked as highest priority pushing other stuff out, that would normally speed up Windows. You would think though that stuff gets released when memory gets low, and/or when there is no Swap file that Windows can't secretly start to heavily use the Swap drive slowing things down. This is on the assumption that data in the Standby List will not be loaded to the Swap drive.