Please help, 8GB of ram but only 4GB being used, other 4GB cached and not being used which causes crash...

[rpaulg87]

My system has been solid for a good 2+ years now, 3570k @ 4.7ghz, 8GB Mushkin Black ram, Windows 7 64-Bit, GTX 670 and Sandisk SSD + 2X 2TB drives.

Anyway, suddenly I've noticed Chrome will start crashing or games, and my ram usage is through the roof even though it's saying I have 4GB+ cached. Unless I make a HUGE page-file this constantly happens which I've never had to deal with before.

Here is a picture of what Windows is showing with cached, free, available.

This is with just Media Player Classic. Chrome would crash (Google) as would Firefox, and steam would not load up until I free'd up a lot of space and set a page-file on all 3 drives. I don't recall ever having to manage a page-file as I had 8GB of ram, and clearly I'm not doing enough to be using all 8GB let alone 4GB.

Any ideas on what the heck is going on with the picture above? Do you always have to have 12+GB free for the page file area for ram to get correctly used? Thanks in advance everyone!

 

[James Mason]

Free – This one is quite simple. This memory has nothing at all in it. It’s not being used and it contains nothing but 0s.

Available – This numbers includes all physical memory which is immediately available for use by applications. It wholly includes the Free number, but also includes most of the Cached number. Specifically, it includes pages on what is called the “standby list.” These are pages holding cached data which can be discarded, allowing the page to be zeroed and given to an application to use.

Cached – Here things get a little more confusing. This number does not include the Free portion of memory. And yet imight see that it is larger than the Available area of memory. That’s because Cached includes cache pages on both the “standby list” and what is called the “modified list.” Cache pages on the modified list have been altered in memory. No process has specifically asked for this data to be in memory, it is merely there as a consequence of caching. Therefore it can be written to disk at any time (not to the page file, but to its original file location) and reused. However, since this involves I/O, it is not considered to be “Available” memory.

Total – This is the total amount of physical memory available to Windows.

You can go here -> http://brandonlive.com/2010/02/21/measuring-memory-usage-in-windows-7/ to get more information on the memory readings. The guy even goes into giving you formulas to determine how much of the physical memory is actually in use, etc.

For most people, 4 gigs is plenty for Windows 7. What exactly do you use your machine for? If it's just for day-to-day operations (surfing, email, word processing, gaming), do you find the hard drive is thrashing a lot? If so, then you're memory is being used and the OS is having to swap out to the hard drive. If that is the case, then I would look into seeing what services you have running and look for any runaway processes.

However, if your system is not swapping out and the machine seems responsive, then you should be good. I would say a lot of the memory is being held as ready for use or cached. As long as you're not swapping out to the hard drive and the machine is responsive, then you should be fine.

Also, have you tried running memory diagnostics to ensure that your memory is functioning properly?

And this as well:
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1815273/half-system-memory-cached.html

 

[rpaulg87]

Only thing I have noticed is once I free up one of my HDD's that is set for a page-file it starts caching correctly...I'm just confused as to why with 8GB of ram I have to use my HDD page-file... so my question, as prior, is it because the HD space that the page-file is stored on isn't enough? I"m clearly not using all 8GB of ram. When I do have enough HD space for the page-file it seems as if the "cached" ram is actually used correctly, which is why I am confused. Why would it NOT be used unless you have x amount of space on your page-file areas? 8GB is still 8GB but apparently Windows says to set a minimum of a 12GB page-file... I should say I don't seem to encounter these issues when the 16GB V-Ram is free which is split between 3 drivers, 2 HDS and one SSD...if changing page-file you'll notice the minimum recommended is 12gb

"If you receive warnings that your virtual memory is low, you'll need to increase the minimum size of your paging file. Windows sets the initial minimum size of the paging file equal to the amount of random access memory (RAM) installed on your computer, and the maximum size equal to three times the amount of RAM installed on your computer. If you see warnings at these recommended levels, then increase the minimum and maximum sizes."

 

[James Mason]

Try starting your computer in safemode and seeing how much ram is being used.
And maybe download a virus cleaner like MalwareBytes

 

[mcgee101]

Go to regedit..
hkey_local_Machine/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run
you should only have default in here at all times unless you have something special for work to boot along with your system.. I have found clients have viruses and spamware that will boot along with their system in this little section. (For a note you can look up that key on technet and they will say the same thing) It is supposed to be empty. If you delete some extra stuff and all of a sudden you are locked into safe mode than you have a virus/worm as they dont like to be toyed with. I always check it when someone complains about how slow or long it takes to do something.
Second I always uninstall IE. With Windows 7 and 8 especially.
Next thing I think you should look at is if you have no real clue about what is going on look at those things called processes. See which one is using up the monster share of the memory. Sometimes it can be chrome. But you might have a little thing in the background that you didnt even install but was installed with a game or some other software.

 

[Rhinofart]

Download sysinternals tools process explorer. Run that as an admin, and see what exactly is causing your memory spikes. Fantastic set of tools. It's my #1 Goto for finding out what's wrong with systems.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/sysinternals/bb842062.aspx