Help RAM problem - 2 GB and Low memory?

[stoyan]

Hello,
I got Privileg (MID 74S) with 2 GB RAM.
But, very frequently I receive black screen with yellow row - "Low memory", and after few seconds - everything become "normal".
From cat /proc/meminfo:
MemTotal: 2045744 kB
MemFree: 1581620 kB
Buffers: 576 kB
Cached: 56116 kB
SwapCached: 0 kB
Active: 294460 kB
Inactive: 26520 kB
Active(anon): 265648 kB
Inactive(anon): 716 kB
Active(file): 28812 kB
Inactive(file): 25804 kB
Unevictable: 2000 kB
Mlocked: 31052 kB
HighTotal: 0 kB
HighFree: 0 kB
LowTotal: 472880 kB
LowFree: 8756 kB
SwapTotal: 0 kB
SwapFree: 0 kB
Dirty: 24 kB
Writeback: 0 kB
AnonPages: 266436 kB
Mapped: 121472 kB
Shmem: 876 kB
Slab: 20728 kB
SReclaimable: 6400 kB
SUnreclaim: 14328 kB
KernelStack: 6552 kB
PageTables: 7180 kB
NFS_Unstable: 0 kB
Bounce: 0 kB
WritebackTmp: 0 kB
CommitLimit: 236440 kB
Committed_AS: 3324660 kB
VmallocTotal: 540672 kB
VmallocUsed: 132224 kB
VmallocChunk: 122884 kB

And - MemFree - stays all the time above 1.5 GB.
I have "feeling" that either declared RAM is fake, or there is somewhere wrong threshold of RAM.
I have other Privileg, with "only" 1 GB - and its MemFree - can drop down to less then 100 MB.
Version of Android (in both cases) is 4.2.1
Both devices are routed.
Any idea - what can I test else - is welcome.

 

[Hadron]

Why is your MemFree so high? Android should try to use RAM efficiently by caching recently or frequently used apps, while 1.5GB free suggests only a couple of hundred MB are in use (since the system will reserve some RAM for itself as well). Did you test this just after rebooting, have you set all the OS not to keep activities (via developer options), or have you got some task killer/memory booster app installed (in which case, don't!)?

I know your reported problem is low memory, but what you've posted seems to be wrong in the other direction.

 

[stoyan]

I am trying to find why my MemFree is so high.
After reboot, or after many days work - it is that high (a little bit more then 1.5 GB). I uninstalled one application - which came preinstalled, and killed some apps which I wanted.
But, may be there is some other memory booster (again preinstalled).
Thank you for suggestion.

 

[Hadron]

It might be worth opening the developer options and checking that it is set to keep activities and has the standard background process limit set.

If you don't have the developer options menu, you have to play a silly little game of going into the "Software information" settings, locating the "build number" then tapping repeatedly on that until it enables the menu. As I've often said, Google seem to think this is cute or clever, but it really isn't either of those things.

 

[MLSS]

Their is an app in the Play store called "Ram Truth"
You should go download it, it will give you an accurate picture up ram.
Their is also an app called "Storage Truth" by the same dev that will give you a very accurate picture of your storage as well.

 

[EarlyMon]

Ram Truth is largely a short cut to meminfo btw.

 

[stoyan]

Before I started writing here, I checked RAM Truth - and it shows similar results.
I mean - again little more then 1.5 GB FreeMem but more understandable description of used memory.
Developer options are correct.
Habit of phablet is same as if it has 1/2 GB RAM and not 2 GB.
I am curious if there is conf file, or some other file where developer can write limit - how much of RAM to be used from Android.
It looks to me like artificial limit of RAM.

 

[EarlyMon]

Before I started writing here, I checked RAM Truth - and it shows similar results.
I mean - again little more then 1.5 GB FreeMem but more understandable description of used memory.
Developer options are correct.
Habit of phablet is same as if it has 1/2 GB RAM and not 2 GB.
I am curious if there is conf file, or some other file where developer can write limit - how much of RAM to be used from Android.
It looks to me like artificial limit of RAM.

No, not exactly but you may be going in the right direction because the symptoms can be explained by -

Poor kernel parameter memory control choices in the /system/build.prop file or bad choices made in OOM/minfree (out of memory, minimum free per category) parameter selections, and those are typically made in an init startup script in /system/etc.

http://www.androidcentral.com/fine-tuning-minfree-settings-improving-androids-multi-tasking

 

[stoyan]

Poor kernel parameter memory control choices in the /system/build.prop file or bad choices made in OOM/minfree (out of memory, minimum free per category) parameter selections, and those are typically made in an init startup script in /system/etc.

http://www.androidcentral.com/fine-tuning-minfree-settings-improving-androids-multi-tasking

I checked build.prop - and I saw nothing suspicious. Also - I checked link - and I am not sure it can help.
But, with top - I think I found something suspicious:
Device with 1 GB RAM - without low memory problem:
PID PR CPU% S #THR VSS RSS PCY UID Name
523 0 1% S 113 716192K 139944K fg system system_server
Device with 2 GB and low memory:
506 0 6% S 97 446036K 79416K fg system system_server
Also getprop of device with 2GB:
[dalvik.vm.heapgrowthlimit]: [64m]
[dalvik.vm.heapsize]: [128m]
And of device of 1GB
[dalvik.vm.heapgrowthlimit]: [128m]
[dalvik.vm.heapsize]: [256m]

I can set with setprop different limit - and as result, "wrong" device almost stopped working - Low memory.
But it did not affected /proc/meminfo

 

[EarlyMon]

Leave Dalvik heap alone, everyone says to play with it and it's a mistake to mess with it first. Mess with those last or never. Ignore every Internet myth claiming success with that.

Check out "ROM Toolbox Lite" for a minfree tool

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jrummy.liberty.toolbox

Check out "3C Toolbox" to adjust kernel parameters

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ccc71.at.free

Get a nandroid backup if you're setting about modding those files by hand or you could be in for a paperweight.

Let the tools apply changes for you. In this situation you'll be glad you did.

And start with the OOM minfree values first.