Finding the source of my friends memory leak... Help?

[Shadow_Storm56]

Ok so this is pretty simple but yet not, I have a friend who is not that great with troubleshooting computers but somewhat decent, he has a very bad ram leak and there is nothing listed as using up all of his ram it is just listed that it goes away. So he reboots his pc and it starts our normal, then his ram useage keeps going up and up untill eventually he runs out of ram and his pc crashes, this is even if he just logs in and does not start anything. He can go in task manager and see his ram useage creeping up slowly to 100% but no programs listed as using the ram. I know this is not a ton of information but does this normally point toward anything common? like bad ram or a bunch of viruses? He used whatever tools he could find online to test his memory which I am not sure if there are really any great tools.... and he used malware bytes as well as avast to check for viruses and nothing was found. I told him to look under the detailed list of task manager but theres nothing there either as to what's using all of his ram up. Any advice would be amazing

[Enderman]

A ram leak does not mean that there is literally ram leaking out of your system.

This has nothing to do with the ram.

It is a piece of software or OS that is malfunctioning.

[merco]

3 minutes ago, Enderman said:

a piece of software or OS that is malfunctioning

Isn't that what the OP is describing?

Apparently the ram gets filled, and it won't empty again.

[Enderman]

23 minutes ago, merco said:

Isn't that what the OP is describing?

Apparently the ram gets filled, and it won't empty again.

Did you read his post?

" like bad ram or a bunch of viruses?"

 

As I said this has nothing to do with the ram, and it is not a virus, it is the OS or some software he has installed.

The solution is to uninstall programs or disable things at startup or just clean install windows.

[merco]

2 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Did you read his post?

 

Yeah but I wasn't sure where it said that there is a liquid ram stick dripping out of the case.

[Enderman]

16 minutes ago, merco said:

Yeah but I wasn't sure where it said that there is a liquid ram stick dripping out of the case.

That was a joke about it being a physical problem with the ram.

[Shadow_Storm56]

14 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Did you read his post?

" like bad ram or a bunch of viruses?"

 

As I said this has nothing to do with the ram, and it is not a virus, it is the OS or some software he has installed.

The solution is to uninstall programs or disable things at startup or just clean install windows.

No no he is correct I did not mean like it was leaking out ram. I meant it as in something slowly eating up ram space, maybe a ram parasite would be a better term. Secondly I wasn't sure if when ram dies if it starts to lose capacity or just drops dead... His issues is one I never had as theres always an obvious culprit in task manager which is why I thought maybe a virus. Like if you add up all the useage of ram listed in task manager it could be lets say 2GB for example but 10 is in use.... so no idea what is slowly using more and more ram but not visible in task manager. I am aware it is a malfunction, I just need to help him find it without actually being there

[Shadow_Storm56]

18 minutes ago, merco said:

Yeah but I wasn't sure where it said that there is a liquid ram stick dripping out of the case.

 

2 minutes ago, Enderman said:

That was a joke about it being a physical problem with the ram.

If the ram was dripping out as a liquid I would say he has a major cooling problem that may require a fire extinquisher

 

[merco]

12 minutes ago, Shadow_Storm56 said:

not visible in task manager

it is kinda odd maybe tell him to look at resource monitor instead, you can find it on the bottom of the task managers performance tab 

[Shadow_Storm56]

2 minutes ago, merco said:

it is kinda odd maybe tell him to look at resource monitor instead, you can find it on the bottom of the task managers performance tab 

yea nothing there either, myself I would just reinstall windows. A clean install is always good every once and a while

 

[merco]

true, who knows what he did in the first place

[Shadow_Storm56]

26 minutes ago, merco said:

true, who knows what he did in the first place

I have found it is possible to "Break" Windows as in get somthing changed or messed up that is just about impossible to locate and fix which may be his case