Topic by TheBlindSaiyan 2020-10-03 01:41:55

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Hi.
As the subject says, I'm in need of help for a really annoying problem on my XPS.
The more I use it, the more the ram usage increases.
Sometimes I would wake it from sleep or hibernation, and the ram usage will be at 90% without anything showing on task manager.
It's really annoying because I have to restart it all the time I want to use it.
I've tried using different web browsers, closing any non-important services, and I have search indexing turned off as I use open shell.
If anyone could help it would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

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Reply by camlorn 2020-10-03 02:05:40

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Let it run until that happens, then open task manager, details tab, tab over to the header list, and you should be able to sort by ram usage. Find the process name there and it should be possible to track it back to software.

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Reply by TheBlindSaiyan 2020-10-03 02:26:20

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@2... Do you mean memory private working set? if so I have already done that, it didn't tell me much.
Most of the time I just have NVDA and malwarebytes in the background

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Reply by camlorn 2020-10-03 02:47:09

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Yeah, I think that's the right one.  If you don't have a process that's an obvious culprit there, then I personally don't have anything else to suggest without having the computer in front of me, and maybae not even then.  Best of luck.

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Reply by dardar 2020-10-03 02:52:09

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Hello,
It would help if @op if you gave us what your system is actually running for RAM? 90 percent on a 2 gig system for instance, quite natural!
hell, even in a 4 GIG you can regularly expect 70 or so.

Interestingly, and I'm sure @2 will be able to detail this more than I can for sure but, if you're waking the computer from sleep, and it immediately hits 90, is it possible your antivirus program is up to something?
As I understand it, there's huge overhead while antiviruses do scans, and while most of this is more noted in the processor, I'd assume they also hold a lot of data in the memory, too. By that logic I am wondering if your antivirus is doing a catch up full scan and never completing because you're shutting it down?

Also another thought is could it be a windows update service running in the background? Huge memory whores if unchecked.

Hope some of these ideas help!

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Reply by TheBlindSaiyan 2020-10-03 03:22:25

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My computer has got 16GB ram.
It could possibly be malwarebytes, but I don't know of any way of checking what app has used what if you get what I mean.
I tried to download ram map but that's inaccessible.

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Reply by Ghost 2020-10-03 03:27:07

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in task manager, in the details tab, sort processes according to memory. That should answer your question on what is using it.

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Reply by TheBlindSaiyan 2020-10-03 03:27:21

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Sorry for the double post, it's just started to increase now.
I've just finished playing entombed for a bit, and before I came back to reply on here it had risen from 21% to 26% at idle.
BTW I don't think this is to do with entombed because I'm not always on it and still get the same result.

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Reply by defender 2020-10-03 04:10:13 (edited by defender 2020-10-03 04:11:53)

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@TheBlindSaiyan
Once it gets really high again, what I would do is to go to details, then open the menu bar and under view, set the update speed to paused, and make sure that it's set to expand all.
Now, next to the list of tasks is a column chooser, hit right arrow until you get to memory and press enter on that.
Shift tab back to the list, go to the top of it and listen for the last number on each item, the one ending with the letter K.
Pay close attention to the ones with the highest numbers.

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Reply by TheBlindSaiyan 2020-10-04 15:11:33

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Sorry for the late reply, but thought I would share this if anyone thinks this is the problem.
@defender I carried out your instructions, and this is the result:
MBAMService.exe; PID: 4948; Status: Running; Username: SYSTEM; CPU: 00 ; Memory (active private working set): 227,600 K; UAC virtualisation: Not allowed  1 of 153
That was at the top of the list, followed by this:
svchost.exe; PID: 3800; Status: Running; Username: SYSTEM; CPU: 00 ; Memory (active private working set): 82,548 K; UAC virtualisation: Not allowed  2 of 153
This was when my memory was 37% used of 16GB when idle

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Reply by mazen 2020-10-04 17:16:47

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Yep mbam service is malwarebites

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Reply by Ghost 2020-10-04 17:29:18

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its only using 227 mb, that can't be right. Maybe it sorted by reverse order.

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Reply by defender 2020-10-04 22:06:29 (edited by defender 2020-10-04 22:07:24)

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Yeah that percentage of used memory is really nothing special, pretty much the same as me.  Let us know when it gets over 70% or something and you aren't doing a ton of stuff.

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Reply by TheBlindSaiyan 2020-10-06 02:04:32

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Ok, so my memory usage is now 92% at the time of writing this, and it's still relatively the same:
MBAMService.exe; PID: 4972; Status: Running; Username: SYSTEM; CPU: 00 ; Memory (active private working set): 217,844 K; UAC virtualisation: Not allowed  1 of 157
I'm gonna have to restart now because my laptop is feeling and sounding like a burning jet. :d

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Reply by defender 2020-10-06 02:16:08

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Alright well I'm lost then...  It's probably an internal Windows service or something acting like one, or an app hiding it's self from task manager.
Because even if you sorted things the wrong way, MBAM wouldn't be at the top, all those little launchers and auto update services would be.
Did you maybe forget to take it off of pause and let it refresh first?

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Reply by TheBlindSaiyan 2020-10-06 03:02:40

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Yeah, I took it off pause and let it do it's own thing for a bit before pausing it again and posting the result.
Malwarebytes says nothing about me having any viruses, and the only things I exclude are audio games so theirs nothing wrong where scanning is concerned.
I did google it and I found posts about people checking for memory leaks caused by drivers, but it seemed way to complex for me to carry out lol.

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Reply by defender 2020-10-06 04:33:10

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I'm sorry man, I don't think I can help much more than that.  At this point I might just back up all your stuff in a couple different places and try resetting Windows to defaults.

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Reply by Ghost 2020-10-06 04:47:22

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You really need to hit enter on the memory header, that sets it to the top
Do the following. Go to task manager, ctrl shift escape. Then press ctrl tab to details tab.Then tab to name header, and right arrow to memory header and press enter. Then when you shift tab to processes, the process using the ram will be on top, for me, it is firefox by a massive margin.

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Reply by TheBlindSaiyan 2020-10-06 14:32:04

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@defender... Looks like that's the only thing left to do, but thanks for the help smile

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Reply by RemusLupin 2020-10-06 17:40:41

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hey maiby i am very very wrong but what about reinstalling windows?
maiby that will solvs

Yours kindly

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Reply by crashmaster 2020-10-06 21:44:37

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Well, I'd run a memmory diagnostic and view the results in the eventlogs but who knows.
Updating firmware and bios maybe.
I just pulled the latest hp one from windows update and the hp site and updated everything else.
Failing that there are boot disks you can get a sightling to test your ram and cpu on.
It could be a bad module.
I havn't had modules in laptops do this but in a desktop I used, things would crash and corrupt and do really stupid things.
A test of the chips showed I had a bad chip, and also which chip it was.
I have had a board go bad, a card go bad and in one case a hard drive secure board go bad and actually burn.
So yeah boards can go fluffy on you but not that often.

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