Half of my ram being used while idle!

[Mrfreezer4]

For some reason, over half of my 8 gigs of RAM is being used while idle. I don't know if this is a hardware or software problem but form what ive heard around the internet its too high. If anyone has a potential fix id be appreciated.

 

[TMTOWTSAC]

Is it actually being used, or just cached? Caching behavior is completely normal, it fills available RAM with frequently accessed data in order to reduce load times. How much of your 8 GB is listed as "Available" meaning cached, but still allocated for use by whatever needs RAM?

 

[SkyNetRising]

That's pretty normal.
If you're having system performance issues because of low ram, then get more ram. 😉

 

[Mrfreezer4]

Is it actually being used, or just cached? Caching behavior is completely normal, it fills available RAM with frequently accessed data in order to reduce load times. How much of your 8 GB is listed as "Available" meaning cached, but still allocated for use by whatever needs RAM?

Performance tab in Task Manager says there is 3.9 GB in use, 3.9 GB available, and 3.4 GB cached. My main problem is that when I try to play something like BF4 it will stutter/lag. I don't see how it could be my processor or GPU as they both meet recommended requirements, which the RAM amount also meets. Before I make any hardware changes I'm trying to figure out what needs to be changed. Thanks for the quick reply

 

[SkyNetRising]

when I try to play something like BF4 it will stutter/lag.

Full system specs please.

 

[Mrfreezer4]

when I try to play something like BF4 it will stutter/lag.

Full system specs please.

Yep,

GPU: Geforce GTX 980Ti SuperClocked
CPU: i7 4790k @4.0GhZ
RAM: 8GB DDR3
STORAGE: WD Blue 7200 RPM 1TB
MOBO: GigaByte Z97M-DS3H
PSU: EVGA 850W Gold

 

[SkyNetRising]

Pretty decent rig. Should have no problems running BF4.
Have you checked temperatures for cpu and gpu? (when gaming)

 

[Mrfreezer4]

Pretty decent rig. Should have no problems running BF4.
Have you checked temperatures for cpu and gpu? (when gaming)

I don't think it should either, I try to run it on only high settings, Geforce experience thinks I can run it on ultra with 150% res scale, but I'm not going to try that just in case. But my temperatures seem fine last I was aware of them, ill have to keep afterburner or something of the sort open next time I play it just to be sure, but I don't believe ive ever had any significant temperature problems(to my knowledge). A thing that does happen is that my disk usage will stay at around 100% when in game and ram will hover around 80-85%, if that means anything.

 

[SkyNetRising]

100% disk usage may indicate some problem.
Can you post screenshot from Hdtune health?

 

[Mrfreezer4]

100% disk usage may indicate some problem.
Can you post screenshot from Hdtune health?

Should be it
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9--fK-hShpsUjR4V2hkZnNHMFE

 

[SBMfromLA]

Your problem is.. you have lots of background jobs running.. more than likely they load up on boot and remain in memory.

 

[Mrfreezer4]

Your problem is.. you have lots of background jobs running.. more than likely they load up on boot and remain in memory.

Any recommendation on how to fix that?

 

[SBMfromLA]

Your problem is.. you have lots of background jobs running.. more than likely they load up on boot and remain in memory.

Any recommendation on how to fix that?

That's easy... use a good Startup Manager to prevent most of those programs from starting up. You can detect a majority of them by looking at your notification icons next to your clock to go into each program's settings to make the change. I would use something like Autoruns that displays everything and is free.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Should be it
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9--fK-hShpsUjR4V2hkZnNHMFE

Drive health looks fine.

It's possible that drive is fragmented a lot. That might cause high activity, when reading highly fragmented files.
Run defragmenter on your drive.

 

[Colif]

Easiest way to tell if the 100% usage is caused by start up programs is do a clean boot and see if it helps: https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/929135/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows
If it does, the problem is caused by one of the programs, just add them back slowly to figure out which.

Drivers can also cause disk usage if they have a leak but see if defrag helps 1st.

 

[Mrfreezer4]

Should be it
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9--fK-hShpsUjR4V2hkZnNHMFE

Drive health looks fine.

It's possible that drive is fragmented a lot. That might cause high activity, when reading highly fragmented files.
Run defragmenter on your drive.

It seemed like I had a lot of Fragmented files, so hopefully that will help with performance. This still doesn't solve the RAM issue, ill try a startup manager like SBM said.

 

[Colif]

4gb isn't that much used, my PC at idle uses 3gb so its not a very big variation.

try as clean boot and see if that changes anything, that will tell you if it is a start up program eating ram

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 services are under each process 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.

If you seem to have a lot of svhosts, that is actually normal now in latest version of win 10. They aren't new, they just aren't hidden in groups anymore.