physical memory slowly increasing until 100%

[madstayen]

I have no idea what's going on, this morning I was busy playing a game when I noticed it became extremely laggy. Upon inspection I noticed I'm using 100% of my 8 GB ram. I restarted the system, then monitored it closely in Task Manager. The memory usage starts very low, then over the course of two hours it goes up to 100%, irrespective if I'm using the system or not. I did a virus scan (Norton 360), but nothing showed. Then run a free copy of malwarebytes, also nothing. In task manager it shows 100%, but if I add up all the memory usage of the listed programs, I get less than 1GB. This really doesn't make sense, and is really frustrating!!

I'm running the latest version off win10, msiz97 board, 4790k cpu, msi gtx 970, 8GB of 1866 ram

 

[SinxarKnights]

That is normal if using a regular hard disk. It is called SuperFetch and it loads up the most used data into RAM for much faster access. There is usually no performance hit from leaving it on but sometimes it does cause issues. If you have Windows installed on a SSD it is still enabled but does not load data into memory unless the SSD is extremely slow.

You can disable it if you want. Look here: http://superuser.com/a/954474

 

[madstayen]

That is normal if using a regular hard disk. It is called SuperFetch and it loads up the most used data into RAM for much faster access. There is usually no performance hit from leaving it on but sometimes it does cause issues. If you have Windows installed on a SSD it is still enabled but does not load data into memory unless the SSD is extremely slow.

You can disable it if you want. Look here: http://superuser.com/a/954474

Thank you for your quick response. I disabled superfetch, will restart and monitor it again. I really have no problem that all my physical memory is used by win10, but it causes BF4 to go very laggy as soon as it hits the 95% mark, and that's super annoying!

 

[yoji]

That is normal if using a regular hard disk. It is called SuperFetch and it loads up the most used data into RAM for much faster access. There is usually no performance hit from leaving it on but sometimes it does cause issues. If you have Windows installed on a SSD it is still enabled but does not load data into memory unless the SSD is extremely slow.

Can you elaborate please.. my understanding is that tools like task manager do NOT show such memory usage as "in use".. so its sort of invisible in task manager. So although windows can be using your mem to the full.. task manager does not show that.. but just shows what is in use for "real" needs.. (i.e. not its own internal prefetch type caching..)
This is an important point.. as if OP says task manager is showing full use.. it would suggest a memory leak. rather than the "prefetch" scenario you have suggested.
Please can you elaborate/clarify .
Thanks.

 

[SinxarKnights]

It shows up as being used (in the graphs) but it doesn't say by what when you look at the running processes.

It could be a memory leak. Network drivers are a common culprit. Instead of having the OP blast away important drivers and programs, it is better to do the simplest most common fixes to known issues instead of jumping to the most complex and dangerous solutions. No need to go straight to removing drivers and potentially leaving the system in an unuseable or unbootable state.

 

[k1114]

Superfetch will not show as used and shows as cached. Check resource monitor, sometimes it shows things task manager doesn't.

 

[yoji]

It shows up as being used (in the graphs) but it doesn't say by what when you look at the running processes.

I'm guessing how it displays depends on your WIn version. So do we need know what ver OP using?
i.e. My machine (Win 10 64 bit) headline in task manager says 15% mem in use.. but if I look at details.. it says
4.6Gb in use (as shown in graph)
but says an extra 8GB is being used in cache (7704MB to be more precise).
So it NOT showing cached mem use in the standard graph of mem use.

So I suspect it not a prefetch issue and more a mem leak.... agree?
Cheers

 

[madstayen]

It shows up as being used (in the graphs) but it doesn't say by what when you look at the running processes.

I'm guessing how it displays depends on your WIn version. So do we need know what ver OP using?
i.e. My machine (Win 10 64 bit) headline in task manager says 15% mem in use.. but if I look at details.. it says
4.6Gb in use (as shown in graph)
but says an extra 8GB is being used in cache (7704MB to be more precise).
So it NOT showing cached mem use in the standard graph of mem use.

So I suspect it not a prefetch issue and more a mem leak.... agree?
Cheers

Thanks mate, but is there a solution to this?

 

[yoji]

Thanks mate, but is there a solution to this?

Well, if its a mem leak.. then you have to track down where the leak is.
Could be a bad driver or program (that runs all the time if you experience issue all the time).
So has it recently started to be an issue? what new progs did you install around the time it started?
You update some drivers? or install a new prog? around the ttime it started to have issues?
If so - back them out.. or recheck to see if it been fixed and there is a new update.
You say task manager is showing your mem going to max.. so you should be able look at task manager and see which prog is using more and more memory.. and that will be your prime suspect.
Should be fairly easy to spot.
Cheers

 

[Pinhedd]

I have no idea what's going on, this morning I was busy playing a game when I noticed it became extremely laggy. Upon inspection I noticed I'm using 100% of my 8 GB ram. I restarted the system, then monitored it closely in Task Manager. The memory usage starts very low, then over the course of two hours it goes up to 100%, irrespective if I'm using the system or not. I did a virus scan (Norton 360), but nothing showed. Then run a free copy of malwarebytes, also nothing. In task manager it shows 100%, but if I add up all the memory usage of the listed programs, I get less than 1GB. This really doesn't make sense, and is really frustrating!!

I'm running the latest version off win10, msiz97 board, 4790k cpu, msi gtx 970, 8GB of 1866 ram

This is a known issue with Killer network cards. I'm actually quite miffed that this hasn't been addressed via Windows Update yet and somehow seems to have persisted into Windows 10.

The solution is simple, update your network card drivers.

 

[madstayen]

I have no idea what's going on, this morning I was busy playing a game when I noticed it became extremely laggy. Upon inspection I noticed I'm using 100% of my 8 GB ram. I restarted the system, then monitored it closely in Task Manager. The memory usage starts very low, then over the course of two hours it goes up to 100%, irrespective if I'm using the system or not. I did a virus scan (Norton 360), but nothing showed. Then run a free copy of malwarebytes, also nothing. In task manager it shows 100%, but if I add up all the memory usage of the listed programs, I get less than 1GB. This really doesn't make sense, and is really frustrating!!

I'm running the latest version off win10, msiz97 board, 4790k cpu, msi gtx 970, 8GB of 1866 ram

This is a known issue with Killer network cards. I'm actually quite miffed that this hasn't been addressed via Windows Update yet and somehow seems to have persisted into Windows 10.

The solution is simple, update your network card drivers.

Thanks mate, it seems that this did the trick, mem usage is at 25% again, no lag etc.