Tech Help Computer over using RAM?

[Too_Tall]

So to start I have windows 10(I know mistakes were made but you need it eventually anyways as direct x 12 will only be for windows 10)

Anyway I have 16gb of ram in most cases an excessive amount. When I first restart my computer 2gb are being used about right for windows 10 and some basic start up programs. As I leave my computer on for a few days however it seems to build up. I can shut down all my programs and have nothing running and it will say I am using 13gb of ram. The fix is a simple restart the computer but this doesn't seem right. What could possibly be using up this much ram.

At first I thought virus, I don't do anything on my computer besides gaming but to be safe I ran some scans. Spy bot search and destroy and malicious software removal tool. As expected there were no files infected.

Next I thought well my graphics card could be borrowing excess ram, however I recently upgraded to a GTX 970 and the problem persists.

Then I thought flash, if I leave a stream on twitch going all night flash will build up memory usage but shutting down flash does no free up the ram.

I looked into what was running, but even with steam, discord, firefox, uplay and GeForce experience running only 8 or so gigabytes could be accounted for.

So if anyone knows anything that could be the cause the help would be much appreciated. I am at the point I am about to reformat my computer to resolve this issue but I am hoping for a fix before it comes to that.

 

[Mr_B]

Open task manager and sort by the highest used. Something to also check is what is running at startup. Download ccleaner and check and see whats in the startup.

Windows isn't too efficient at memory management, and given additional processes running in the background (think all of the live tiles), antivirus, etc. And you're at 2gb without even trying. Unless you're always running VM's or programs that will take you close to your 16gb limit, I wouldn't worry much.

I'm running Windows 10 as well and I'll reply back with how much mine is using at boot.

 

[Too_Tall]

I talked to teemo in teamspeak and they said it probably had to do with windows per-allocating half my ram for system compressed memory and windows usage. The main issue is it is bottle necking my processes when the computer is left on for over 24 hours. It starts low then builds up, leaving not enough ram to run games like the division a simple restart fixes it.

I also checked the processes running and it doesn't even seem like it has 10gb of processes running but resources says it is using 13gb.

 

[Ric]

that sounds like a memory leak lol

 

[LeviTheDegu]

that sounds like a memory leak lol

Probably a flash/shockwave plugin + web browser memory leak

 

[HUNTER2]

I use http://www.blackviper.com/ to turn off unwanted services that run in the back ground it works great.
with out it ram gets filled through out the day but using black vipers suggestions
i seem to never fill up more then 4 or 5 gig of my 32 gig of ram
just pick your windows version then services configuration i use the TWEAKED
column and works great for unwanted background services to not run..

 

[Too_Tall]

Thanks for the advice, It does seem like a memory leak or something of the sorts. I can gradually watch my ram usage rise over a day or two. I was just worried something else was doing it other than flash.

 

[Tecmo]

Also if you use chrome or firefox, try clearing all of your add ons, both have mutible background tabs open with the addons running

 

[TheMajeye]

You may have a memory leak somewhere.

Memory is stored on RAM temporarily, but occasionally things get "stuck" and don't get tossed out.

First, try clearing all of your caches on everything. Seriously on everything. Anything that stores data will cache it here sometimes.

Restart your computer and see if the problem persists.

If not, problem solved.

If so, you may have a RAM stick problem. Shut the computer down and remove 1 RAM stick at a time, starting up your PC in between each pull. Do this until you no longer see the problem. Once you do this, you know which RAM stick is causing the problem. Put the others back in (after shutting down, of course) and see if the problem conjures up again.

If so, you may have more than 1 corrupt RAM stick.

This is a temp fix until you can afford new RAM.

 

[kYuKi]

Unsure if this may be the issue, but worth a look and see.

Have you tried going to control panel> System and Security> System and at the top left "Advanced System Settings," click the tab "Advanced," then click "Settings," under Performance, then click "Advanced." There you should see Processor Scheduling and Virtual Memory. You want to look under Virtual Memory and see: Total paging file size for all drives. If you want, you can mess around and change the size or better yet you should set it to No Paging File and restart and redo the steps to get there and then set it to let the System handle it; this will require you to restart once more.

 

[He@d$hoT]

I looked into what was running, but even with steam, discord, firefox, uplay and GeForce experience running only 8 or so gigabytes could be accounted for.

You certainly have a problem here. I just opened all of these programs with windows 10 (except I substituted ASUS GPU Tweak and CCC for the the GeForce Experience) and I am only hitting 2.6 GB of RAM. There is nothing you can be doing at near idle that would use 8. I only have 8GB of RAM and I have never had a problem, if I start using close to 8 i will buy another 8, but I don't play Battlefront or anything. I would go with what the others have said and look into your RAM being bad.

 

[He@d$hoT]

Have you tried running a memory test by the way?

Run mdsched.exe

 

[Thaddius]

I might have missed it but are you running DDR3 or DDR4? I've noticed running DDR4 that anything over 16GB is useless, nothing I own will use that much memory.