Here are my specs first (All software (Windows, Drivers, and BIOS should be updated fully):
ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer
16BG (DDR3) RAM
Windows 10
i5 4690K
GTX 960
Recently, my computer has been running out of RAM WAAAAYYY faster than it should be. A normal experience recently has been something like this:
Problem has definitely gotten worse over time. I believe even around a month ago, I could run my PC for at least 2 or 3 days before running into this issue. And I don't ever specifically remember having this issue over maybe 4 or 5 months ago. On top of that, last Christmas I upgraded from 8GB RAM to 16GB RAM, and I know this problem never happened back when I had 8GB RAM, and even when I would do more RAM intensive things (with less total RAM) than I do now I wouldn't get the error.
I know Windows tries to use as much RAM as possible without causing issues, but another thing I noticed is that once I run anything on my computer, I will go right to ~90% RAM usage, whether I get the Windows Error and lag right away or not. However, when I close the programs running on my computer, my RAM usage will still stay way higher than it should (pretty sure its usually around 70-90%+ with nothing running after closing everything). It seems like my RAM goes to 70% usage at a minimum these days, where as before I know I could run a bunch of programs at the same time, not have any problems, and then close them and my RAM would go down to maybe 30% or less usage. Even just a little bit ago, I had something like 7% CPU usage, 5% Disk usage, and I think 80% RAM usage, with not a single actual program running.
And the last thing I noticed is that the %'s on the Task Manager for different programs don't seem to make sense. For example, usually when a browser is running, the top process for it will be running at around 20% RAM usage, but today, I switched it over to the actual amount used and it was only using something like 75 MB of RAM... Which is obviously no where even remotely close to 20% of the 16GB on my computer. Generally when nothing is running, Task Manager will show something like Windows Defender running at the highest RAM usage, and not much else notable except for the 50 Service Hosts that are all running at 0.1% (which I have no clue how many of these generally should be running, but I feel like I have a lot running).
I only have essentially the bare minimum programs running upon startup, and have everything up to date as far as I know. So, I am just at a loss and this problem is really upsetting me, cause I pretty much spend all my free time on my computer, but recently have had to restart my PC up to even like once an hour. So, is this normal after using a Computer this much for this much time? Do I have a memory leak (I am not familiar with how these really work/happen)? Do I have a faulty RAM stick (not sure if this is the same as a memory leak)? Should I just upgrade to 32GB RAM? Is something else the matter?
ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer
16BG (DDR3) RAM
Windows 10
i5 4690K
GTX 960
Recently, my computer has been running out of RAM WAAAAYYY faster than it should be. A normal experience recently has been something like this:
■ Start computer and wait for everything to load (all Desktop & Taskbar icons loaded fully for 10-15 seconds or so)
■ Start Browser (I have and switch between all of: Chrome, Firefox (and Firefox Developer), Opera, and Brave) or Steam Game / Overwatch (Chrome and Opera have a handful of extensions installed, while Firefox and Brave do not have any addons installed)
■ Use Browser, Game, or both for anywhere from 15 minutes to 3 hours just fine (seems random how much time it takes to start having problem)
■ Windows error sound along with Windows error message: 'Computer is low on memory, try closing one of these programs: ..." followed by either my Browser or Game (again, seems random which displays here if I have both running)
■ Close error message and continue what I am doing with one of two possibilities:
- ■ Computer lags horribly and is too slow to use
■ Computer runs well enough to continue what I am doing, except that in Task Manager it will continuously show 98-99% RAM usage after that and every 5 minutes or so from then on, I basically go back to the Step 4 above... after about 3 or 4 times of closing the warning box there is a 99% chance by this time my computer is too slow to use (plus that warning message is really annoying).
■ Computer eventually shits itself too much and I have to restart my PC and go back to Step 1 again
Problem has definitely gotten worse over time. I believe even around a month ago, I could run my PC for at least 2 or 3 days before running into this issue. And I don't ever specifically remember having this issue over maybe 4 or 5 months ago. On top of that, last Christmas I upgraded from 8GB RAM to 16GB RAM, and I know this problem never happened back when I had 8GB RAM, and even when I would do more RAM intensive things (with less total RAM) than I do now I wouldn't get the error.
I know Windows tries to use as much RAM as possible without causing issues, but another thing I noticed is that once I run anything on my computer, I will go right to ~90% RAM usage, whether I get the Windows Error and lag right away or not. However, when I close the programs running on my computer, my RAM usage will still stay way higher than it should (pretty sure its usually around 70-90%+ with nothing running after closing everything). It seems like my RAM goes to 70% usage at a minimum these days, where as before I know I could run a bunch of programs at the same time, not have any problems, and then close them and my RAM would go down to maybe 30% or less usage. Even just a little bit ago, I had something like 7% CPU usage, 5% Disk usage, and I think 80% RAM usage, with not a single actual program running.
And the last thing I noticed is that the %'s on the Task Manager for different programs don't seem to make sense. For example, usually when a browser is running, the top process for it will be running at around 20% RAM usage, but today, I switched it over to the actual amount used and it was only using something like 75 MB of RAM... Which is obviously no where even remotely close to 20% of the 16GB on my computer. Generally when nothing is running, Task Manager will show something like Windows Defender running at the highest RAM usage, and not much else notable except for the 50 Service Hosts that are all running at 0.1% (which I have no clue how many of these generally should be running, but I feel like I have a lot running).
I only have essentially the bare minimum programs running upon startup, and have everything up to date as far as I know. So, I am just at a loss and this problem is really upsetting me, cause I pretty much spend all my free time on my computer, but recently have had to restart my PC up to even like once an hour. So, is this normal after using a Computer this much for this much time? Do I have a memory leak (I am not familiar with how these really work/happen)? Do I have a faulty RAM stick (not sure if this is the same as a memory leak)? Should I just upgrade to 32GB RAM? Is something else the matter?
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