View Full Version : TeaTimer - Memory Usage
em1500uk
2007-11-26, 13:13
The teatimer.exe process is using between 17-19MB of my memory now and I just wondered if there was any way of decreasing this figure? I've read it should only be using around 5MB...
em1500uk
2007-11-26, 16:21
Whilst I think of it, I have quite a few allowed registry processes/blocked processes in the black and white list. Can I clear all these out?
I have a similar problem on 3 different machines, except memory usage is about 34MB!
I've also wondered why a 'timer' program should be such a memory hog, as well as why it requires nearly 100% CPU on startup (30+ seconds).
BTW: one of these machines is even using the latest "Halloween" update.
OOPS! Browser hung while posting & sent previous post twice. ADMIN - OK to delete this entry.
Whilst I think of it, I have quite a few allowed registry processes/blocked processes in the black and white list. Can I clear all these out?
right click teatimer and click settings.........when the box pops up u can click the black x and keep clicking them all to delete all of them. cycle thru all the things to delete the others in the other categories.
as for it taking more ram, that could possible be a solution to that problem. hope that helps!
SuperD38
2008-03-20, 00:30
I to see my tea Timer using 35MB..
Far higher then the 5MB you suggest it uses.
I had a look at my Tea Timer setting as 12960 had said, and they are empty..
Had played World of Warcraft earlier, and see it is now down to 29mb of memory usage...
Right after bootup however it's consistently at 35,000k (give or take a few hundred k)
Should tea timer be rivaling my AV's active scanner for memory use?
My regards from Greece!
Same problem here, 30mb of ram.
I'm using Avast! AV and Comodo Firewall PRO.
my teatimer.exe work always at 36mb ....
kaspersky antivirus 7.....
xp home edition full update... or xp pro edition full updated.. (2 pc....)
help.... :sad:
all the stuff in the list in resident with the post i made above. That will clear everything. I found that over time the teatimer takes more ram and cpu usage when there are more then 20 objects in the list of allowed changes in any tab, such as blocked process, blocked registry change, etc. Also, try exiting teatimer after clearing the items and restart. That has helped me in the past, i hope it helps you guys! :)
I have a similar problem on 3 different machines, except memory usage is about 34MB!
I've also wondered why a 'timer' program should be such a memory hog, as well as why it requires nearly 100% CPU on startup (30+ seconds).
BTW: one of these machines is even using the latest "Halloween" update.
everyone here should upgrade to the latest addition of spybot found on the home page. Then try the solutions i offered.
Please read this information about TeaTimer:
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/faq/33.html
and
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/faq/34.html
If you surf the web and without any user interaction the teatimer pops up and warns about a registry change it is better to "deny", but if you install something by yourself it is OK to "allow" the change. I put this here to just let all of you know and be informed about what exactly teatimer does, etc.
all the stuff in the list in resident with the post i made above. That will clear everything. I found that over time the teatimer takes more ram and cpu usage when there are more then 20 objects in the list of allowed changes in any tab, such as blocked process, blocked registry change, etc. Also, try exiting teatimer after clearing the items and restart. That has helped me in the past, i hope it helps you guys! :)
I have only one blocked registry change, I don't think it can be the cause of 30mb ram usage :P
I have tried doing a complete uninstall and reinstall, but didn't work either.
I thought it was a Vista problem, but a friend above says he's using XP.
Very strange!
id advise you to wait for a spybot team member to assist you. I have run out of ideas :( sry....
id advise you to wait for a spybot team member to assist you. I have run out of ideas :( sry....
Yeah man, no problem, I thank you for the answers :)
30mb of ram is not a lot when having 2gb of ram, but what the heck? it's only a real-time application!
Yeah man, no problem, I thank you for the answers :)
30mb of ram is not a lot when having 2gb of ram, but what the heck? it's only a real-time application!
ya, i think mine takes less then that though, the only time i have seen it flare to that much is when i immunize or update spybot. But it doesn't stay with that high of usage....so ya idk. :)
I even deleted the reg files in C:\ProgramData\Spybot - Search & Destroy\Snapshots2\ folder and rebooted, just to cause teatimer to create new snapshots of the registry.
But it didn't help either!
SuperD38
2008-03-20, 20:15
I to have only 1 entry listed in my black/white list.
Thats total for all 4 tabs. :sad:
At this very moment its using 36,544K
Spybot ver 1.5.2.0
System settings protector ver. 1.5.2.16
That's the newest I'm able to get anyway.
Some system specs; Win XP pro SP1, AMD 2600+ CPU, 1gig Ram, BitDefender 9 pro+ Antivirus.
If something has changed in a recent build, OK. But would think Safer Networking would have noticed a large jump and posted new specs on tea timer.
Many people are no where near the claimed 5MB use.
doodleswest
2008-03-21, 04:19
I once asked the same question...TeaTimer using about 30 Mb, while documentation says 5Mb. For some rason, no matter how many times I asked, they refused to answer. Finally, PepiMK did reply once and said that the 30Mb was proper...the documentation saying it uses 5Mb is old. It is probably worth it...if you use it correctly, it will sbe a lot of useless processes from loading.
SuperD38
2008-03-21, 04:26
Thanks, that may shed some light on it.
Sure would be nice for an official answer though.
I mean, how hard can it be for an employee or someone to change the "5MB" to "around 30MB"?
You know, right after I noticed timer using that much I was actually concerned. "Is something "hacking" tea timer?" I thought. "Company that made it says 5mb and I'm at 30+.... What is wrong?"
Spent time scanning, enabling, disabling, looking all around. Now it turns out it may be normal?
Time that could have been saved if I had known right?
Just after I posted about timer taking 36MB, I take another look, and it was up to 37MB... :rolleyes:
I mean, as a gamer, something using that much memory in the background can cause problems.
Safer Networking, just give us an official answer. Please?
Edit; Ah OK, I see yours now. Wonder why it didn't come up when I did a forum search??
Anyway, yours is here http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=21655
Still no official answer I guess.
doodleswest
2008-03-21, 12:25
I got this awhile back...for some reason, it doesn't come up in search:
2008-01-16 05:42
PepiMK
Member of Team Spybot
I thought I had updated the documentation quite some time ago :-/
The 5 MB were from times when TeaTimer was really just monitor registry changes, nothing more, and on older Windows versions. On the XP I use, every application gets at least 4 MB, regardless how small it is. And we now have a full file scanner running in TeaTimer, which scans running processes and the files registry entries may point to. Add the size of the database etc.... 30 to 35 MB seem to be a regular size on XP :)
http://forums.spybot.info/project.php?issueid=176
SuperD38
2008-03-21, 19:54
OK, that answers it then. Thanks doodleswest.
Shame it uses that much. Guess I need to decide which active scanner I trust the most. DitDefenders or Tea Timer. Disable one or the other to save RAM for blasting aliens or something. :spider:
OK, that answers it then. Thanks doodleswest.
Shame it uses that much. Guess I need to decide which active scanner I trust the most. DitDefenders or Tea Timer. Disable one or the other to save RAM for blasting aliens or something. :spider:
I suggest you keep TeaTimer. It saved me once from a BHO, which was trojan!
The way it works -taking snapshots to compare previous with current state- makes it reliable.
I also like it being shown in Windows Security Center :P
matthill
2008-04-16, 21:41
I have an older machine with 512MB RAM and while I like TeaTimer's protection, it's a bit of a hog at 34MB. Since I ditched Norton and switched to NOD32, with TeaTimer running I have even less Ram than I used to when I had Norton.
Is there any way of optimising this, or do I have to make a difficult decision and switch off TeaTimer and just rely on NOD32?
md usa spybot fan
2008-04-16, 22:55
matthill:
I have an older machine with 512MB RAM and while I like TeaTimer's protection, it's a bit of a hog at 34MB. ...
I only have 512 MB of RAM but 169 MB of physical memory (RAM) is available right now with a ton of stuff running including TeaTimer at 31,844K. But that is what Virtual Memory is all about. What isn't currently being used is paged out.
drragostea
2008-04-17, 00:21
From last week, TeaTimer was running around 49-50MB of memory when I first installed. I denied ctfmon.exe from starting every time, because it was annoying and it took up memory. I disabled it manually by disabling the advanced language "output" (Regional settings). The process just had to annoy me every time I open IE, wordpad, etc.
To the point. After today's update TeaTimer runs fine at 35MB. Last week it was 50Mb... rivaling Firefox 2. :) I would suggest TeaTimer because it acts as a secondary Resident Shield next to your primary AV Shield. It saved many others from a trojan. :laugh:
matthill
2008-04-17, 17:10
I only have 512 MB of RAM but 169 MB of physical memory (RAM) is available right now with a ton of stuff running including TeaTimer at 31,844K. But that is what Virtual Memory is all about. What isn't currently being used is paged out.
I understand, but virtual memory is not as useful as true RAM for intensive applications like Photoshop -- paging massively slows things down. This is why I'm trying to minimise RAM usage of other programs. TeaTimer's memory usage does seem rather high for what seems to be a rather simple application.
PauleyHoyt
2008-04-17, 22:46
For ur info. my xp, sp2, 2.? ghz using tea 1.5.2 was using the 70-80% and 55mb of mem. I followed suggestion to right click settings, and deleted estimated 12-15 blocked and allowed (total both) and this reduced to 2-5% and some 35mb memory.
So far, so good.
Thanks for ur posts.
Pauley:crowned:
SuperD38
2008-08-05, 08:40
Bringing up an old issue maybe.
However since I posted here once I'll post again.
Had to reformat and reinstall windows XP up to service pack 2.
Got the newest spybot (1.6) tea timer was running as usual to a point.
Upon installing World of Warcraft, and running the update patches, teatimer has freaked out on me. I double click the patch.exe and everything comes to a stand still. When task manager finally opens, I see teatimer at 99 cpu and eating up memory like it's out of style.. Killed the process twice now, first was 530,000k memory, rebooted and tried patching again. This time it was up to 750,000k of memory.
Now that is definitely a problem. After WoW is up to date I'll try uninstalling spybot and reinstalling, see if it happens again.
Still a basic setup, have SpyWare Blaster and Zone Alarm 7.0.4. Not much else is installed yet.
SuperD38,
You have tacked onto the end of a relatively old thread. There has been a beta release of a new version of Teatimer for Spybot 1.6 that may help you, however as with all beta releases, using it is at your own risk. I have had it running on 3 XP machines without any problems for some time now, as have others.
The best approach is to read right through the thread at http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=30994 so you are fully aware of some of the issues. The link to the beta version of teatimer is in the post
http://forums.spybot.info/showpost.php?p=214438&postcount=21
Teatime is actually offering a large amount of real time protection, and it will use up resources to do so (there is no such thing as a free dinner). On modern fast platforms with lots of memory its protection far outweighs the small impact on performance. On older, slow and perhaps memory starved platforms (by todays standards) its impact on performance may preclude it being used.
SuperD38
2008-08-05, 20:04
Oh I very much like having teatimer running, just not having it eat up almost all of my system memory.
1gig total and its taking 750mb?.. Very wrong.
Maybe it just freaked out with those patches, haven't had time to reinstall SpyBot yet. I'll have a read of those posts and maybe try the beta.
First post is about usage at start up, my issue is after running for a while and trying to patch a game.
Still more to read though. :)
wyrmrider
2008-08-06, 18:46
t-timer beta 1.6.1 is included in today's update
you might have to check include beta updates to get it
SuperD38
2008-08-06, 19:48
Thank you for the information.
Installed the beta and will give that a shot.
Running at 41,724k right now... Little more then older version, but far better then 700,000k.
batkinson001
2009-12-07, 22:09
Thank you for the information.
Installed the beta and will give that a shot.
Running at 41,724k right now... Little more then older version, but far better then 700,000k.
Hey all,
40MB ram usage would be more understandable than my current 128MB usage...
seems when i got my vista laptop a couple of years back, Teatimer decided to take a bigger slice of the pie that is my system's ram. this is unacceptable.
why the hell does it need over 100 megabytes of memory?!
seriously spybot guys, you need to better optimize how this thing requires and uses ram...
other than that, spybot is excellent.
Hi batkinson001,
how much RAM do you have?
You can find more information here (http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=53387), here (http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=52737) and here (http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=53135&).
Let's hope that the new realtime protection in the future 2.0 won't need so much RAM. ;)
After noticing this thread and reading its posts, I was curious what would be my case... :)
... just 123MB ram for teatimer :santa: running on XP home edition SP3.
No comment. I believe if this figure can be lowered, this problem will, sooner or later, be solved for sure.
Kerim
robertmf
2009-12-21, 16:49
After noticing this thread and reading its posts, I was curious what would be my case... :)
... just 123MB ram for teatimer :santa: running on XP home edition SP3.
No comment. I believe if this figure can be lowered, this problem will, sooner or later, be solved for sure.
Kerim
Same here... am using an old PC... PIII 996MHz, WinXP Pro SP3, 384MB RAM... and imagine Teatimer occupying 106MB... arghhh!!!
drragostea
2009-12-25, 01:37
Have you restarted your PC?
I'm new to this forum. I've been noticing that TeaTimer is taking alot of memory in Task Manager. Most of the time it takes about 123 M Conventional Memory and 122 M VM and peak memory usage was over 306 M!! What is causing this major memory usage? I just restated my computer about 10 min ago. I've used Spybot for many years and I have never had a problem with it using so much memory until just recently. Seems there are quite a few people that are having the same problem.
I am running XP sp3 Media Center Edition 2003 with 1G onboard memory.
Draken_korin
2010-09-01, 10:28
Right now, on my computer running windows 7 ultimate 64 bit, tea tree timer is using 89 MB this is currently the highest memory usage of all the processess running on my comp even beating firefox with 3 tabs open at 86 MB. My avira antivirus only uses 1.4 MB while idle and lavasoft ad aware is only using 1.5 MB. My system does have 4 GB of ram so I think tea timer is just taking greedily as it feels the need to. I guess that is better than using page file cause at least its cpu usage is down at between 1-2 % but it does use a bit more during start up. Thinking of disabeling it or going for syp terminator also free app with active guard.
I'm kinda surprised that lavasoft ad-aware is only using 1.5 MB considering it was a relatively massive 126 MB download compared to 16 MB for spybot + 8 MB for updates