Question Unknown Memory Usage

[Rokkman]

My system:
Windows x64
16GB RAM

My issue:
Task manager tells me that 64% of my 16GB RAM is in use, but when I look at the details of what applications are using said RAM, I can only add up at most 6GB used, which is less than 40%. I've also looked to see if there are issues with bleedover from video usage or page file etc but I'm not seeing problems there.

I wish I could post some screen shots here to make it easier for you guys to see what I'm seeing without typing it all out, but from everything I'm seeing, I should be using at most about 6GB, but somehow I'm using over 10GB. I'm not sure where the other 4-5 GB of usage are coming from.

Any ideas?

 

[siaan312]

In task manager, go to performance>memory

and at the bottom it should have 2 catagories, paged pool, and non-paged pool

if non-paged pool has more than a few hundered MB, you have whats called a memory leak.

as for fixes, just google memory leak, since there are lots of troubleshooting steps i cant list them all here.

 

[Rokkman]

Paged Pool: 640MB
Non-Paged Pool: 557MB

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Windows uses memory for many things that do not appear in the task list. For instance, the most frequently used apps and data are cached for fast access. This memory will be released as required. Do not make the mistake of thinking that you can manage memory better than the OS. Just use the system and let it do what it needs to do.

 

[Rokkman]

Windows uses memory for many things that do not appear in the task list. For instance, the most frequently used apps and data are cached for fast access. This memory will be released as required. Do not make the mistake of thinking that you can manage memory better than the OS. Just use the system and let it do what it needs to do.

Not necessarily trying to manage my memory better than the OS, just trying to figure out where all the usage is and if items that are cached can be not cached to free up more usable memory. I have had issues pertaining to memory, IE using 90% of memory when only about 12GB are in use meaning at least 3GB should be free if we take page files etc out of the equation. So if half of my usable memory is used for cached things that I don't need cached, then it's pretty obvious that I am capable of managing the memory better than the OS since it obviously doesn't know what needs to be cached and/or when.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

The OS knows what, and when to release memory from the cache. Just leave it be.

 

[Rokkman]

The OS knows what, and when to release memory from the cache. Just leave it be.

I appreciate your lack of faith in me and others, but that doesn't really answer my question. Again if I have 90%+ of memory "in use" yet only 10/16GB in use, that's pretty strange and it has caused crashes for me before in certain applications. One may say that those applications are coded poorly, but that still doesn't rectify my situation.

What I'm looking for is how to see what's being used, cached or uncached, and being able to modify it if I see fit. If I cause instability within my system, that's my own choice and I accept that responsibility. But as it currently stands, my OS is not making the smartest decisions with my available RAM and when it releases cached memory, else I would not be getting memory errors with more than 5GB of memory available yet somehow not available.