Having a RAM problem?

[Malizio]

I have 16gb of RAM. The longer my pc is on (sleep mode at night), the more the RAM usage climbs.

I get that having RAM that isn't doing anything is useless, but right now while on WoW, sitting at 95-99% usage, I was getting frame drops, which never happens on my system.

Going to attach or link a picture of my task manager + resource monitor.

How are over 15 gigs of memory in use with just my usual driver programs, skype, battle.net and chrome open?

Is this signs of a virus, or is my memory just not working properly? I realize I have the memory displaying in percents, but chrome during this picture was using ~100mb.

Not sure how to make this a thumbnail, sorry.

[chazus]

The fact that Chrome alone is using nearly 7gb of ram says there's something amiss. What is actually running in chrome? Right now I have Netflix, Youtube, and about 15 other tabs open to pages... and it's not even using half that. So it sounds like something is wonky with chrome. Maybe extensions?

[swisscheese]

I tend to get carried away with tabs in chrome, I only have 8 gigs and it's not unusual for me to have 8+ youtube tabs open, multiple other tabs, and vlc playing on my 3rd monitor while WoW is running and I usually sit between 30-60% memory usage.

So I would definitely look into what exactly your chrome is doing

[Malizio]

I had just closed Chrome after this picture, and the usage was still over 90%

When I switched to the actual amounts of usage instead of percent, chrome was only using ~100mb.

[Xisa]

It's called a memory leak. Web browsers have had particular issues with those over the years. Web sites running scripts in the background can cause that. Bogus extensions can as well.

Also, Page files in Windows (the file created and stored on your hard drive that is used to restore your computer when it goes to sleep) have caused memory issues in the past as well.

Rebooting should clear the issue.

- - - Updated - - -

I had just closed Chrome after this picture, and the usage was still over 90%

When I switched to the actual amounts of usage instead of percent, chrome was only using ~100mb.

Reboot your PC, and try reseating your memory.

[swisscheese]

Try manually stopping each process with task manager, and make sure each instance is actually closed? That might help narrow the offender down.

Also, Page files in Windows (the file created and stored on your hard drive that is used to restore your computer when it goes to sleep) have caused memory issues in the past as well.

So what happens if you're using an ssd with page file disabled and you put your computer to sleep? Is everything just stored in RAM instead?

[Malizio]

@Xisa

Rebooting always fixes it. It's the fact that the problem keeps happening that has me concerned. It isn't an occasional thing, if I have the computer running for 2+ days, this whole thing happens with the memory/RAM.

I will try reseating the sticks tomorrow, but could that really be the cause of this?

@swisscheese

Stopping each process that is using any kind of memory will lower the usage slightly, but it still sits extremely high.

[glo]

There's nothing wrong with your memory. If it was defective you'd be getting BSODs or other show stopping issues. You just have a memory leak, so don't worry too much! I'd do as suggested and disable all of your extensions in Chrome, see if it still happens.

[Malizio]

@glo

That puts my mind at ease, considering I went and got malwarebytes and it found nothing. ~.~

Could you define what an extension is, and where to find them? The only actual addon I have for chrome is adblock.

[glo]

If you click the settings button, there should be an extensions (or addons) section. See if it lists more than adblock, and try disabling all of them.

[KOMO1211]

So what happens if you're using an ssd with page file disabled and you put your computer to sleep? Is everything just stored in RAM instead?

well it helps if file paging is actually explained as what it really does, page filing is a virtual memory structure that takes applications and services that have not been used in a while or are in the backround for a long time to be filed away in a page file, increasing the ammount of actualy physical memory you have available. back in the day when you only had 512mb of ram you could increase your page file size if you ran a lot of applications to quasi increase your overall ammount of ram/vram space.

OT if nothing else you can try running msconfig and disabling everything that is non esential and see if your memory is still capping out. if not start running additional services/applications and find the one that is eating up your memmory.

[swisscheese]

@glo

That puts my mind at ease, considering I went and got malwarebytes and it found nothing. ~.~

Could you define what an extension is, and where to find them? The only actual addon I have for chrome is adblock.

In chrome, on the top right click the three horizontal lines to open the little settings drop down.

Go to Tools > Extensions and open it.

That will show you what extensions are running in the background
http://oi57.tinypic.com/k022d5.jpg

[fixx]

So what happens if you're using an ssd with page file disabled and you put your computer to sleep? Is everything just stored in RAM instead?

Sleep is different from pagefile. Sleep uses hibernate file which is the exact size of your RAM loated in c:\hiberfil.sys
Desktop SSD users can and should just turn off hibernate completely to free that space for saving own files. On laptops hibernate can be handy with easy stop and start just by closing and opening lid.

[Rixis]

Hibernate and sleep are different functions.

Hibernate dumps into the hibernate file then shuts the system down, sleep feeds the system a small amount of power to keep contents in RAM.

[swisscheese]

Ok I know this got pretty off topic, but now I'm really interested.


So is there any difference or benefit between using sleep/hibernate on a desktop with an ssd? It takes my desktop <10 seconds to boot to desktop from startup, but as far as ssd life and speed, is there any difference?

[Rixis]

Hibernate uses SSD space, depriving you of it for use for things like installations. It also writes to the hibernate file when you use hibernate. Though the amount that can be written to SSD is often cited as "oh you'll kill it", it still helps to not be writing a bunch of data when you hibernate.

Sleep uses slightly more electricity and you would need to maintain power connection, but doesn't write to SSD. My computer boots from sleep pretty much instantly, and saves me having to re-open all my programs

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/w...sked-questions

[fixx]

but as far as ssd life and speed, is there any difference?

For SSD life yes in theory no in practice. For speed with Windows 8 there isnt much difference at all since the boot process automatically hibernates all unchanging system files and only writes to disc whatever programs you have opened yourself. If you spend two minutes starting fifty programs manually every time after booting hibernate will save time but otherwise its pointless.

More important IMHO is the saved discspace which is equal to RAM.

[Malizio]

This having this problem, haven't run chrome in two days, and the RAM usage still climbs steadily.

I've left it idle for 2-3 hours after a fresh boot, and it sat at 7-8% the whole time.

The only programs I open myself after booting, are Skype, Chrome/Mozilla, Steam, Battle.net client(which I only have open when playing a Blizzard game), and occasionally Origin for BF4.

Last I checked 24% of 16 gigs isn't just under 700 mb.


Edit/Update: Problem solved. Explanation below by the one who figured it out.

Does your motherboard have any Qualcomm Killer E2xxx ethernet chipset built into it?

If so, Disable the Killer application on startup in task manager.
After you do that, open up the registry editor (windows key + R, type "regedit"), then go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Ndu, and change the Start value to 4. Ndu is what monitors your network usage, and that combined with the Killer app + the drivers for the E2xxx chips with windows 8.1 causes data downloaded to stay cached in your ram and pagefile/swap.
I had this same issue a few days ago. Spent hours troubleshooting and this fixed it.

[martin89]

It can also be a hard disk issue