How many processes is too many?

[MrWizard]

Currently I have 62 processes running, including iTunes, Azureus, Firefox, Sony Ericsson PC Suite and Disc2Phone, so I'm running a fair number of memory intensive programs.

Anyways, on average I've got about 50-55 processes running. Is that too many? What's an optimal amount? How can I figure out what is useful and what isn't? Other than typing each process name into google?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Gee]

It doesn't matter how many you have as long as you have enough RAM to support all of them.

Personally, I only have 30

[john widow]

Lol, right now it says I have 28. I have winamp on, msn, 2 folders open, firewall........antivirus....lol :twisted: And it's been a really long time since I've cleaned up my PC....but it's still going strong as if it were new.

[Siefer999]

ive got 39 at the momment.

[ProfessorChaos]

50 right now

firefox, itunes, msn, dc++, anti-virus to name a few.

[Nevyn]

Currently I have 62 processes running, including iTunes, Azureus, Firefox, Sony Ericsson PC Suite and Disc2Phone, so I'm running a fair number of memory intensive programs.

Anyways, on average I've got about 50-55 processes running. Is that too many? What's an optimal amount? How can I figure out what is useful and what isn't? Other than typing each process name into google?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

You have two many processes if you notice that your PC is slugish.

55 doesn't spound out of the ordinary.

[rabbit]

It's not a matter of how many. It's a matter of how useful they are.

If you're not synching your phone, why are the phone apps running? Sure, it's convenient for lazy people to have all those agents running in the background, but they make your computer run like crap.

[Amourek]

I currently have in the background: ATITool, Crystal CPUID, Diskeeper, Firefly Remote, Firefox, Juice (podcatcher), Newsbin, NOD32, Speedfan, uTorrent. 37 processes using 690MB.

I need all of them and I have 2GB of RAM, so I'm not too concerned about the actual number of processes.

[Nyte]

I have ~50 on each of my work machines, and probably a lot more on my home machine.

What's an optimal amount?
The optimal amount is the amount that suits your needs.

How many processes is too many?
Too many is when you don't have enough resources to go around for each process. Most people here are referring to RAM, and that is the main thing you need when you have lots of processes running, but don't forget about CPU time and various (file, network, other devices, etc) I/O that they may need.


If you're not synching your phone, why are the phone apps running? Sure, it's convenient for lazy people to have all those agents running in the background, but they make your computer run like crap.

That was true many years ago or if you have an older PC, but these days people have multicore processors and GBs of RAM. If maximum efficiency is what you're after, then you may as well turn off the spooler service, since ur not printing, DHCP client since you only need to grab an address once, as well as a ton of other things that are usually running.

[Aske001]

I had my home desktop down to 18 processes for WinXP for quite a while, including firewall and AV. It has crept up to 21 now. I generally check the task list once per day and shut down those "sticky" processes that I'm not going to be using until I next have a need for them, just to avoid needless clutter.

On the other hand my Dell laptop came with 65 processes running out of the box, and I've only stripped it down to about 32.

The ones that bug me are things like Acrord32, the sticky Adobe Acrobat process whose purpose is to monitor your mouse movement on the desktop so that whenever you hover over an Acrobat pdf file, it can start to pre-open it so that Acrobat reader doesn't seem so painfully slow when you actually double-click the file to open it. Not to mention a whole host of sticky processes multi-megabytes in size with the single function of checking a web url once per day to see if there's an update available for their associated application.

[masterballer]

im running 61 right now, all be it about 15 or 20 of them are toshiba laptop programs for keyboard shortcuts and things.

[ShadowVlican]

40 right now on the desktop

firefox, foobar, rmclock, apc powerchute, skype, live messenger, logitech setpoint, rainlender, avg free, rainmeter, prodigy 7.1 control panel, some other hidden windows crap

[rabbit]

>> If you're not synching your phone, why are the phone apps running? Sure, it's convenient for lazy people to have all those agents running in the background, but they make your computer run like crap.

> That was true many years ago or if you have an older PC, but these days people have multicore processors and GBs of RAM.


Dude, what thread are you reading? If it wasn't a concern, the OP wouldn't be posting about it. Yeah, sure, disabling one app isn't a big deal, but the point I'm trying to make here is that you shouldn't have tons of useless crap running in the background.

Everyone has multicore processors and GBs of RAM because their old computer was running too much crap, so they've upgraded.



If maximum efficiency is what you're after, then you may as well turn off the spooler service, since ur not printing, DHCP client since you only need to grab an address once, as well as a ton of other things that are usually running.

I'm sure some people actually do that (although I'm not one of them :)). But there's a difference between disabling Windows processes and third-party installed apps, don't you think?

[computer01]

No number is too many. I'm currently running 103 processes. As long as you have enough resources to support what you're doing without the system getting bogged down, why worry?

Having said that, disabling any unnecessary processes will free up memory and system resources and it can't hurt - just don't go crazy trying to free up every kB of memory that you can.

[Nyte]

Dude, what thread are you reading? If it wasn't a concern, the OP wouldn't be posting about it. Yeah, sure, disabling one app isn't a big deal, but the point I'm trying to make here is that you shouldn't have tons of useless crap running in the background.

The same thread YOU are reading. If you haven't noticed, the ideal number was up to whatever your system can support. By your previous post, you are automatically assuming that people who don't close these processes will have computers that "run like crap" and its because they are too "lazy" to turn them off. What Im saying is that this is true of older machine, but with modern machines, most of them can handle all of this stuff fine without any slowdown. Im running 78 processes right now because my computer can handle it, and they aren't running cuz Im too lazy to close them, there is no need to. If I see degraded performance, I will deal with it accordingly.


I'm sure some people actually do that (although I'm not one of them :)). But there's a difference between disabling Windows processes and third-party installed apps, don't you think?
My point here is on the progress of computers. If you looked at Windows 95, 3.11, MSDOS, each version had more and more background processes, and thus more and more features, but at a cost of system resources. But after passing a certain point, it no longer matters. So if your computer can handle all of it, the performance gain you get from this is alike to turning off all your unused system services, less functionality/convience, and almost zero performance gain.

[rabbit]

By your previous post, you are automatically assuming that people who don't close these processes will have computers that "run like crap" and its because they are too "lazy" to turn them off.


Did you read the part where I wrote: IF you don't sync the phone?

Obviously, it's up to the end user to decide what s/he needs running in the background. But tell me that most people don't have useless crap runniing that is unnecessary.


If you haven't noticed, the ideal number was up to whatever your system can support.

Well, the way you can look at it is: do you exercise to lose weight or do you exercise to keep weight off? Or do you just buy bigger pants and forget exercising? :)


So if your computer can handle all of it, the performance gain you get from this is alike to turning off all your unused system services, less functionality/convience, and almost zero performance gain.

Performance - not necessarily. Monetary - yes. Faster computers and more RAM aren't free, you know.






Having said that, disabling any unnecessary processes will free up memory and system resources and it can't hurt - just don't go crazy trying to free up every kB of memory that you can.

Thank you. You said it better than I did.

[Nyte]

Did you read the part where I wrote: IF you don't sync the phone?

Ok? Of course you won't be syncing the phone all the time.


Obviously, it's up to the end user to decide what s/he needs running in the background. But tell me that most people don't have useless crap runniing that is unnecessary.

I actually agree with what you wrote there. But go back to your original post and see how it reads.

Well, the way you can look at it is: do you exercise to lose weight or do you exercise to keep weight off? Or do you just buy bigger pants and forget exercising? :)

IF all that mattered there was your pants fitting, then yes, that is a perfectly valid and very good solution, but since there are many more factors (how you look, health, etc) to it, its an invalid arguement.


Performance - not necessarily. Monetary - yes. Faster computers and more RAM aren't free, you know.


No, but if you have a modern mainstream computer anyways, who cares. Maybe you're one of those people that only need 5GB of HD space, try finding a new computer with a 5GB drive. And sure you can buy it used, but the price difference is negliable.

My point remains, there is nothing wrong with running up to what your computer can handle, even if a lot of that stuff is useless most of the time.

Probably about 5 years+ ago, I would agree 100% with your line of thinking, because back then, it actually made a noticable difference, and quite a big one. Times change.

[d_jedi]

I'm at ~50. I want to get that down a bit.. my computer seems sluggish at times.. particularily, when opening the "all programs" on the start menu (it takes a few seconds.. no way it should take that long.. something's messed up somewhere..)

[MrWizard]

Well it's a Toshiba laptop, Celeron 1.5ghz, 1GB of RAM.

It's sluggish at start up, and a bit sluggish at times, I guess I will go through MSconfig and disable a lot of my start up stuff.

[recordman]

Home PC (dual Opteron 246; 3G ram) runs with 52 processes.
Work PC (P4 3GHz; 2G ram) runs with 87 processes.

The more processes running the slower the startup and shutdown times. For the work PC, it doesn't matter because I restart like once every few weeks. I restart the home PC everyday. For me, something like the Print Spooler doesn't need to be running by default. I print like once a month.

[EH100501AC]

On my desktop, if I reach 30+ processes, it's too many. For my laptop, 40+ processes is too many.

[eelfliw]

Anyone providing a threshold number for too many processes don't know what they're talking about.

The desired number of processes depends on your CPU, RAM, OS and what each process does. No one can predict that without seeing your computer. Only you can determine what is a good number based on computer response time.

On my PC I sometimes have over 130 processes and it runs fine. But sometimes I have only 60 processes and it runs slow because a few processes in the background spawns many child threads and fibers and these do calculations or access serial I/O so it runs slow.

On the big unix servers, we sometimes have over 2000 processes running and it runs fine.

You can't use the number of processes as an indicator of performance.

[MrWizard]

Okay, well can anyone point me in the direction of diagnostic software that can analyze my PC and tell me what is useful and what is just stupid Windows/other programs ********?