Memory leak - definition and solutions?

[Alabasterjones]

Hello! I have a slight inconveniant problem that has been bugging me for some time.
I have a high mid/top tier computer with some decent components in it, but whenever I use it, over the coarse of say maybe 2-3 days of on and off usage, the memory usage keeps rising untill it reaches 100-ish % and makes my computer laggy, this gets resolved with a simple reboot, which isn't really a problem to do, but I prefer sleeping the computer when I leave it, which doesn't clear the memory.

So my question is really; Why is the computer doing this, is there anything I can do about it, is this the result of programs leaking memory and if so, how can I find out what program is leaking and possibly stop it?

(Can provide specs etc if necessary tomorrow)

Thanks in advance!

 

[DSzymborski]

The best way to see is when your memory usage is rising that high is to check resource monitor and see what processes are hogging the memory. Honestly, if you have a mid/top tier PC, I'd be very concerned if I'm having this much trouble with on-and-off usage and woudl think something else is going on, but without knowing the programs you're using or your specs, it's hard to give an educated guess.

 

[RaDiKaL_]

Like DSZym said, once your Memory usage reaches 80%+ while at idle look for which program is hogging your resources, sometimes task manager is unable to show which one (usually some trojan), so try using procexp from sysinternals.

 

[Alabasterjones]

Thank you both for you answers, and sorry for not returning sooner.

But as it turns out the issue in my case was caused by the program "Killer Network Manager" which for some reason built up huge amounts of ram over the course of a couple of days(without it showing up in taskmngr or resource manager), I deactivated its "bandwitdth control" function, and the issue seems to be gone.