Extremely High RAM Use when Doing Nothing - High Nonpaged Pool

[superspiffyspam]

I just got a new PC a couple weeks ago and it's giving me some problems. As I use it the RAM usage gradually builds up until I shut off the pc, and then when I restart the cycle continues. It doesn't seem to matter as far as performance goes up until about 70 or 80%, but then I do notice web browsing and such slowing down. As reference, I have 16 GB RAM and 14 GB are being used right now when the only application open is Firefox. The PC hasn't been restarted for a day or so.

To add to the puzzle, the processes in task manager don't add up even close to how much RAM is being used. The largest process right now (firefox) is using 900 MB. I downloaded RAMMap to try and diagnose the problem, and it shows I have a "Nonpaged Pool" of 11.5 GB (Assuming the "K" is KB - RAMMap displays 11,547,052 KB - I'm not very familiar with what a lot of this information means).

From a little bit of googling a few people with my problem have said it was a memory leak. I don't quite understand what that is, but some people suggested updating drivers that may be causing the leak. I forced windows to do its automatic backup check and it found nothing. I also had to replace the HDD a week and a half ago, so I forced an update of its driver to see if that was what was causing it but that didn't fix it. This was my secondary drive, so I didn't have to reinstall any drivers that were stored on it.

If it is a driver issue, how can I go about finding and repairing the bad driver? If I'm barking up the wrong tree, what else can I do to fix it? Restarting my computer every so often isn't really that big of a deal but I'd like this problem to go away.

Hardware:
Intel Core i7-8700K
Spectrix D80 DDR4 RAM, 2 8 GB sticks for a total of 16 GB
NVIDIA 1070 Ti
ASUS TUF Z730 Motherboard

Here are the RAMMap and Task Manager Readouts:

https://ibb.co/kJKEXf
https://ibb.co/n5ZRdL
https://ibb.co/gLugCf

TL;DR: I have very high RAM usage (14/16 GB) when doing nothing. This goes away if I restart the PC but builds up again over time. Task manager doesn't show processes that add up to this number and RAMMap says I have a high nonpaged pool. How can I fix this?

 

[Colif]

See if you can identify the usage using Process Explorer

Download Process explorer and run it as admin (it comes from Microsoft so its safe)

the default view is tree structure meaning like your task manager screen, it will show what processes are under each service, but unlike task manager, it shows the ram usage of each part so you can see what is eating your ram

Private bytes = actual ram usage
Working set = Ram + page file usage

This page shows what all the colours and headings mean, link at bottom of it shows how to use it to find problems. You can right click processes and run an av scan from within the program.

 

[superspiffyspam]

See if you can identify the usage using Process Explorer

Download Process explorer and run it as admin (it comes from Microsoft so its safe)

the default view is tree structure meaning like your task manager screen, it will show what processes are under each service, but unlike task manager, it shows the ram usage of each part so you can see what is eating your ram

Private bytes = actual ram usage
Working set = Ram + page file usage

This page shows what all the colours and headings mean, link at bottom of it shows how to use it to find problems. You can right click processes and run an av scan from within the program.

Hi, sorry for the late response. I restarted my pc and this time it took a couple days for the ram usage to build up to what I thought was unreasonable (50%) to try and find the process with the program you linked.

No luck, unfortunately. I added up the "working set" column and it added up to only ~4GB, while my usage is at 8 GB. Any other ideas, or am I using the program wrong?

 

[Colif]

memory leaks are normally caused by drivers asking for more ram and not giving it back over time.

So the best column to look at would be Private bytes column as it shows ram. Divers normally run in ram, so its likely one of them is chewing it up

To run program in admin, right click the shortcut, and in the more section, click run as admin. That will reveal more processes that don't show in the default view.

with it open, click on the Private bytes header and sort by most used.

Also, try running Rammap as it might be faster to figure out cause - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/rammap

 

[superspiffyspam]

memory leaks are normally caused by drivers asking for more ram and not giving it back over time.

So the best column to look at would be Private bytes column as it shows ram. Divers normally run in ram, so its likely one of them is chewing it up

To run program in admin, right click the shortcut, and in the more section, click run as admin. That will reveal more processes that don't show in the default view.

with it open, click on the Private bytes header and sort by most used.

Also, try running Rammap as it might be faster to figure out cause - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/rammap

Thanks for your continued help with this.

Running both RAMMap and Process Explorer as Admin doesn't change the result - if I look at the private bytes column and add everything up there is still about 10 GB of RAM use unaccounted for.

 

[BlockModder]

I just got a new PC a couple weeks ago and it's giving me some problems. As I use it the RAM usage gradually builds up until I shut off the pc, and then when I restart the cycle continues. It doesn't seem to matter as far as performance goes up until about 70 or 80%, but then I do notice web browsing and such slowing down. As reference, I have 16 GB RAM and 14 GB are being used right now when the only application open is Firefox. The PC hasn't been restarted for a day or so.

To add to the puzzle, the processes in task manager don't add up even close to how much RAM is being used. The largest process right now (firefox) is using 900 MB. I downloaded RAMMap to try and diagnose the problem, and it shows I have a "Nonpaged Pool" of 11.5 GB (Assuming the "K" is KB - RAMMap displays 11,547,052 KB - I'm not very familiar with what a lot of this information means).

From a little bit of googling a few people with my problem have said it was a memory leak. I don't quite understand what that is, but some people suggested updating drivers that may be causing the leak. I forced windows to do its automatic backup check and it found nothing. I also had to replace the HDD a week and a half ago, so I forced an update of its driver to see if that was what was causing it but that didn't fix it. This was my secondary drive, so I didn't have to reinstall any drivers that were stored on it.

If it is a driver issue, how can I go about finding and repairing the bad driver? If I'm barking up the wrong tree, what else can I do to fix it? Restarting my computer every so often isn't really that big of a deal but I'd like this problem to go away.

Hardware:
Intel Core i7-8700K
Spectrix D80 DDR4 RAM, 2 8 GB sticks for a total of 16 GB
NVIDIA 1070 Ti
ASUS TUF Z730 Motherboard

Here are the RAMMap and Task Manager Readouts:

https://ibb.co/kJKEXf
https://ibb.co/n5ZRdL
https://ibb.co/gLugCf

TL;DR: I have very high RAM usage (14/16 GB) when doing nothing. This goes away if I restart the PC but builds up again over time. Task manager doesn't show processes that add up to this number and RAMMap says I have a high nonpaged pool. How can I fix this?

Try downloading the free anti-virus avast and running what is a called a boot time scan. This sounds a bit like a piece of malware that is mining a crypto currency off of you possibly. Normally you see ramped cpu usage or gpu usage if that were the case, but it couldnt hurt to try a good boot scan since that could be an issue you havent even realized yet to. Another possibility is to re-install windows. One bright side to your issue is that I doubt its hardware related at least. Best of luck!

 

[superspiffyspam]

I just got a new PC a couple weeks ago and it's giving me some problems. As I use it the RAM usage gradually builds up until I shut off the pc, and then when I restart the cycle continues. It doesn't seem to matter as far as performance goes up until about 70 or 80%, but then I do notice web browsing and such slowing down. As reference, I have 16 GB RAM and 14 GB are being used right now when the only application open is Firefox. The PC hasn't been restarted for a day or so.

To add to the puzzle, the processes in task manager don't add up even close to how much RAM is being used. The largest process right now (firefox) is using 900 MB. I downloaded RAMMap to try and diagnose the problem, and it shows I have a "Nonpaged Pool" of 11.5 GB (Assuming the "K" is KB - RAMMap displays 11,547,052 KB - I'm not very familiar with what a lot of this information means).

From a little bit of googling a few people with my problem have said it was a memory leak. I don't quite understand what that is, but some people suggested updating drivers that may be causing the leak. I forced windows to do its automatic backup check and it found nothing. I also had to replace the HDD a week and a half ago, so I forced an update of its driver to see if that was what was causing it but that didn't fix it. This was my secondary drive, so I didn't have to reinstall any drivers that were stored on it.

If it is a driver issue, how can I go about finding and repairing the bad driver? If I'm barking up the wrong tree, what else can I do to fix it? Restarting my computer every so often isn't really that big of a deal but I'd like this problem to go away.

Hardware:
Intel Core i7-8700K
Spectrix D80 DDR4 RAM, 2 8 GB sticks for a total of 16 GB
NVIDIA 1070 Ti
ASUS TUF Z730 Motherboard

Here are the RAMMap and Task Manager Readouts:

https://ibb.co/kJKEXf
https://ibb.co/n5ZRdL
https://ibb.co/gLugCf

TL;DR: I have very high RAM usage (14/16 GB) when doing nothing. This goes away if I restart the PC but builds up again over time. Task manager doesn't show processes that add up to this number and RAMMap says I have a high nonpaged pool. How can I fix this?

Try downloading the free anti-virus avast and running what is a called a boot time scan. This sounds a bit like a piece of malware that is mining a crypto currency off of you possibly. Normally you see ramped cpu usage or gpu usage if that were the case, but it couldnt hurt to try a good boot scan since that could be an issue you havent even realized yet to. Another possibility is to re-install windows. One bright side to your issue is that I doubt its hardware related at least. Best of luck!

Thanks for the advice! I downloaded avast and ran a boot-time scan. No luck, it only turned up some corrupted zip files (which at least I don't think can cause this problem). I'm trying to avoid reinstalling windows since I'm not sure if I have the download keys for all of my software/am not exactly looking forward to reinstalling the software. Here's hoping there's another option, though at least it's not the hardware!

I tried using poolmon and it did show something hogging a lot of resources, but I'm not sure how to use the program to find out what process that is. Any advice on how to do that from this forum would be appreciated since guides online seem impenetrable, though I'm going to try to learn.

 

[Colif]

I haven't had to use it myself so I see what I can find

Using the PoolMon Utility to Find a Memory Leak
To find a memory leak with the PoolMon utility, follow this procedure:

1., Start PoolMon.

2. If you have determined that the leak is occurring in non-paged pool, press P once; if you have determined that it is occurring in paged pool, press P twice. If you do not know, do not press P and both kinds of pool are included.

3. Press B to sort the display by maximum byte use.

4. Start your test. Take a screen shot and copy it to Notepad.

5. Take a new screen shot every half hour. By comparing screen shots, determine which tag's bytes are increasing.

6. Stop your test and wait a few hours. How much of the tag was freed up in this time?

Typically, after an application reaches a stable running state, it allocates memory and free memory at roughly the same rate. If it tends to allocate memory faster than it frees it, its memory use will grow over time. This often indicates a memory leak.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/debugger/using-poolmon-to-find-a-kernel-mode-memory-leak

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