My system is eating too much RAM

[Justine Keith]

The RAM usage is getting higher and higher. At first it's normal like 1.3gb while idle, then i noticed like 6gb/8gb on the task manager while the up time is like 6hours. I think this isn't normal maybe i have a virus or malware.
I tried scanning with Malwarebytes but still same problem i already turned off the Windows update Scanning full system with my Antivirus and still eating my ram if my system is up for a long time. Whats the possible problem of my System?

 

[thx1138v2]

Although Malwarebytes is good it doesn't always catch every virus. I picked up a "root kit" somewhere one time that none of the three malware scanners I use detected. It was very difficult to get rid of.

One thing to look at is memory usage per process in the Processes tab of Windows Task Manager. Close all applications first Then bring up Task Manager, select the Processes tab, and click on the Memory column header there and it will show the memory usage of each process. Processes usually grow and shrink their memory usage as they run. If you have one process that continually grows without shrinking back, that is likely the culprit.

Another thing to look for there is a lot of instances (in the 10's or 100's) of the same process that never go away. You can see these more easily by clicking on the Image Name column header. That's how I detected the root kit virus I had.

Another telltale of a virus is your internet browser slowing to the point where it's almost unusable. Some viruses will use your machine as a bot to the point where it's almost unusable to yourself.

All of that said, it's also possible that you have some application software that has a "memory leak". That occurs when the application allocates memory and doesn't release that memory back to the system. So if you seem an application in the processes that just keeps growing in memory usage without ever getting smaller that could be the problem. In that case you may need to re-install that application and/or update it if there you haven't applied all of the patches for that application. If you have installed new application software recently, look to that application first. If you see one of these first uninstall that application and see if it corrects the problem.

If you can't track it down with these methods, take it to a shop. That is definitely abnormal behavior.