98% used RAM on idle?

[Merkey]

Hi, I think the question is clear, is that normal? I have checked task manager, no suspicious process, that eats ram and all tabs closed. CPU is also at 40% and disk on 60%. I have ddr3 1600Mhz 8gb ram and yes, after this happened I am definetly considering and upgrade

[Silentprototipe]

Do you have chrome open? if so how many tabs. Chrome is a notorious RAM eater. Maybe a game updater running in the background? I had my World of Tanks game updater eat a good chunk of RAM, Disk and CPU While I was doing something 

[JoostinOnline]

Check Resource Monitor instead.  You shouldn't  need an upgrade.

[SCHISCHKA]

Don't just look at ram. The os will fill ram with cached stuff. Look at page faults. Look to too how much your page file is being used. If it's only a few k then you have nothing to worry about

[JoostinOnline]

1 minute ago, SCHISCHKA said:

Don't just look at ram. The os will fill ram with cached stuff. Look at page faults. Look to too how much your page file is being used. If it's only a few k then you have nothing to worry about

The percentage on Task Manager doesn't include cached data.

[klooless]

22 minutes ago, Merkey said:

Hi, I think the question is clear, is that normal? I have checked task manager, no suspicious process, that eats ram and all tabs closed. CPU is also at 40% and disk on 60%. I have ddr3 1600Mhz 8gb ram and yes, after this happened I am definetly considering and upgrade

How much is the system is allocating for your non-paged pool ? (you can check that in task manager under memory)

[manikyath]

that sounds like you have some haywire software going on, either malicious or broken.

 

that said, pinpointing the cause can be hard, and RAM issues prove to be even more difficult to pin down than computers randomly taking a powernap in the middle of people's workday

[SCHISCHKA]

12 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

The percentage on Task Manager doesn't include cached data.

This is a bit old but the best MSDN I could find on ram. My point is don't just look at % of ram used. 100% ram use is fine if there is not much swap use.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2160852/ram,-virtual-memory,-pagefile,-and-memory-management-in-windows

Quote

• Memory, Pages Output/Sec: This counter shows how many virtual memory pages were written to the pagefile to free RAM page frames for other purposes each second.
  
  This is the best counter to monitor if you suspect that paging is your performance bottleneck. Even if Committed Bytes is greater than the installed RAM, if Pages Output/sec is low or zero most of the time, there is no significant performance problem from insufficient RAM.

Quote

• Memory, Available MBytes: This counter measures how much RAM is available to satisfy demands for virtual memory (either new allocations, or for restoring a page from the pagefile).
  
  When RAM is in short supply (for example, Committed Bytes is greater than installed RAM), the operating system will try to keep a certain fraction of installed RAM available for immediate use by copying virtual memory pages that are not in active use to the pagefile. Therefore, this counter will not reach zero and is not necessarily a good indication of whether your system is short of RAM.

 

[manikyath]

Just now, SCHISCHKA said:

This is a bit old but the best MSDN I could find on ram. My point is don't just look at memory use. 100% ram use is fine if there is not much swap use.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2160852/ram,-virtual-memory,-pagefile,-and-memory-management-in-windows

 

but.. when doing nothing at all, with 40% cpu usage going to shit as well?

[JoostinOnline]

Just now, SCHISCHKA said:

This is a bit old but the best MSDN I could find on ram. My point is don't just look at memory use. 100% ram use is fine if there is not much swap use.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2160852/ram,-virtual-memory,-pagefile,-and-memory-management-in-windows

 

Of course, but it's important to figure out what's gobbling up all that RAM.  If the OP runs a game, there's only 2% left before the pagefile gets used.  Windows uses less than 3GB on idle for me.

[SCHISCHKA]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

but.. when doing nothing at all, with 40% cpu usage going to shit as well?

 

Just now, JoostinOnline said:

Of course, but it's important to figure out what's gobbling up all that RAM.  If the OP runs a game, there's only 2% left before the pagefile gets used.  Windows uses less than 3GB on idle for me.

I seem to be failing to get my message across. MB used is not what I want to look at. There are other metrics. That MSDN article sums up most of what you need to know about ram but it has not been updated for win 10

[manikyath]

Just now, JoostinOnline said:

  Windows uses less than 3GB on idle for me.

windows happily scales back and forth between 1 and 8GB depending on how much free space there is, roughly using ~3-4GB on an idle 8GB system, and only really reaching the 8GB of things when you're one of those crazy people with ALL the DIMMs.

[manikyath]

Just now, SCHISCHKA said:

 

I seem to be failing to get my message across. MB used is not what I want to look at. There are other metrics. That MSDN article sums up most of what you need to know about ram but it has not been updated for win 10

but that is beside the question, the point of there being a problem is clear, it's a matter of finding what that problem is, and looking into pagefile stuff wont get you there.

[SCHISCHKA]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

but that is beside the question, the point of there being a problem is clear, it's a matter of finding what that problem is, and looking into pagefile stuff wont get you there.

The question from OP is; is 98% ram use with no suspicious process normal. To that I answer there are better metrics to use. 

[JoostinOnline]

1 minute ago, SCHISCHKA said:

 

I seem to be failing to get my message across. MB used is not what I want to look at. There are other metrics. That MSDN article sums up most of what you need to know about ram but it has not been updated for win 10

I know what a pagefile is.  That article didn't tell me anything I already know.  Even if the pagefile isn't be used at all, he should still be concerned.  It's not normal.

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

windows happily scales back and forth between 1 and 8GB depending on how much free space there is, roughly using ~3-4GB on an idle 8GB system, and only really reaching the 8GB of things when you're one of those crazy people with ALL the DIMMs.

Where did you hear that?  It hangs around 3GB on my 8GB and two 16GB systems (one of which has 4x4GB chips, another 2x8GB).

[manikyath]

Just now, SCHISCHKA said:

The question from OP is; is 98% ram use with no suspicious process normal. To that I answer there are better metrics to use. 

the straight up answer is yes. withn nothing suspicious running, it is completely abnormal to see 98% usage on 8GB ram.

[manikyath]

Just now, JoostinOnline said:

Where did you hear that?  It hangs around 3GB on my 8GB and two 16GB systems (one of which has 4x4GB chips, another 2x8GB).

you can see it. it does only really go past the 4GB point when we're talking the 64GB ram side of things, and it shrinks down lower when you're on the very low end like 4GB or less system ram.

[JoostinOnline]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

you can see it. it does only really go past the 4GB point when we're talking the 64GB ram side of things, and it shrinks down lower when you're on the very low end like 4GB or less system ram.

I guess I misunderstood you.  I thought you were saying a steady rate of compression.

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, JoostinOnline said:

I guess I misunderstood you.  I thought you were saying a steady rate of compression.

it's not like you add another gig of ram, and windows will "eat" 1/4th of that, it's more like the OS working on the matter of "empty ram is wasted ram" and giving itself some slightly more spacious allocations, before it starts filling the rest with cache.

[SCHISCHKA]

2 minutes ago, manikyath said:

the straight up answer is yes. withn nothing suspicious running, it is completely abnormal to see 98% usage on 8GB ram.

Depends on what they have been doing. From the information provided I wouldn't be surprised if it was just superfetch doing its job

[manikyath]

Just now, SCHISCHKA said:

Depends on what they have been doing. From the information provided I wouldn't be surprised if it was just superfetch doing its job

doesnt sound like it to me:

41 minutes ago, Merkey said:

no suspicious process, that eats ram

 

and remember, cache doesnt get counted to ram usage

[JoostinOnline]

I don't think there is any point in discussing this further until the OP provides a screenshot of the Memory tab on Resource Manager.

[manikyath]

2 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

I don't think there is any point in discussing this further until the OP provides a screenshot of the Memory tab on Resource Manager.

bleh, wouldnt be my place to look at.

 

getting full system specs, and some background info on how the machine gets used and for what would be my first target.

 

EDIT: and a confirmation that the OS is actually detecting all 8GB.

[JoostinOnline]

Just now, manikyath said:

bleh, wouldnt be my place to look at.

 

getting full system specs, and some background info on how the machine gets used and for what would be my first target.

Oddly enough, I've seen Resource Manager report processes that Task Manager didn't.  But yes, more specs would be helpful too.

[manikyath]

Just now, JoostinOnline said:

Oddly enough, I've seen Resource Manager report processes that Task Manager didn't.  But yes, more specs would be helpful too.

task manager isnt my favourite diagnostics tool, but its less "scary" for average joe to work with, and in all but the most exotic cases should do what's needed.