memory leak Anyone know how to solve memory leaks?

[Axtasium]

So the basic premise is that this has been happening for awhile, and although I am more tech savvy, I have not been able to find a way to figure out what is causing the leak so I can fix it. Does anyone know if there is someone I can go to to get help on this or if anyone has any ideas of how to troubleshoot or go about solving this problem? Its getting a little old having to keep restarting my computer because 6-9GB of my memory are useless...

[Digideath]

Are you sure it's a memory leak and not malware? Because malware can do that.

 

I'd also be wondering why your gpu is using 46% on the desktop.

[Axtasium]

gatcha, the GPU is sitting at 46% because I have wallpaper engine running in the background, so don't worry about that. And I originally thought it was malware, but I've used a few different antiviruses and they all tell me that my pc is clean, and I haven't had any other problems besides this so I'm 99% sure its not malware.

[keysbeast]

pull up the resource monitor it will show you better what programs are using the ram and how i have a strange feeling some of that could be the wallpaper engine in the past i have seen them use way more resouces then they need

[Axtasium]

I've tried looking at it in the past, but it doesn't specify what is creating or pulling for the non-paged pool so it really didn't help me in the least. Unless there's something in specific I need to look for, I haven't had any luck using resource monitor.

[Digideath]

9 minutes ago, Axtasium said:

I've tried looking at it in the past, but it doesn't specify what is creating or pulling for the non-paged pool so it really didn't help me in the least. Unless there's something in specific I need to look for, I haven't had any luck using resource monitor.

 

Did you have loads of chrome tabs open when you took that? Look at it. Over a dozen chrome entries using several GB of memory. One alone is using 2 and a half gb. Is that where your memory is going?

[Axtasium]

That's what I'm thinking the problem could come from. I have a lot of tabs open due to my college classes and other stuff I work on and use daily, but the thing is that I have a laptop with loads of tabs open as well and its having zero problems with memory leaks. Its specific to this pc, so I don't think that its chrome as its the same between the 2 devices.

[cr8tor]

Check chrome settings and make sure this setting (below) is turned off.

That way when you close chrome, it stops the related processes and clears out ram usage.

 

Assuming that doesnt resolve it, sort the resource monitors memory tab by the commit tab so you can see what is using the most memory without scrolling.

The post that print screen please.

 

[Axtasium]

I always have chrome open, so I don't think that'll do much. I also turned that setting off and closed chrome to see if it would help, and it didn't clear much of anything from the non-paged pool. Something else is pooling that memory, chrome doesn't appear to be the issue.

[cr8tor]

Open and sort the resource monitors memory tab by the commit tab so you can see what is using the most memory without scrolling.

The post that print screen please.

What you posted is the task manager performance tab.

click the link at the bottom of task manager that says "Open Resource Monitor"

Then click the memory tab.

Then click the commit column header to sort with the largest numbers being at the top.

Then print screen that, and post it.

[Axtasium]

Still cant see what would be causing it, but I've never dealt with a problem like this so hopefully you'll be able to help

[cr8tor]

Yeah, nothing obvious there.

Go into task manager, click on startup tab (screenshot below).
Disable everything for troubleshooting purposes.

Reboot.

Dont open everything and leave it running though.

For example, Steam, discord, origin, NZXT cam, RazerCortex, Zoom, Twitch, these dont need to be running all the time.

Disable everything in the task manager start up tab, only open what you are using when you need it.

See if the problem goes away. Again, you have to reboot after disabling everything.

Then if  after the reboot the problem seems to stop happening, start re-adding things 1 or 2 at at time until the problem re-occurs.

When the problem starts happening again, remove the last item added to confirm that the issue again goes away.

This should allow you to narrow down what software is causing this, and then we can help fix that software if possible.

 

[Axtasium]

ya, the problem with that is that it usually takes around 2 days for the leak to creep up enough to really be able to notice it. It gets this large over the span of 2 weeks and troubleshooting like that could take a month or more. Is there no program or anything that will allow me to directly figure out what driver or program is pooling the memory? also, this is specifically for programs, but the leak can also be caused by drivers sometimes. This wouldn't account for drivers if one of those is the cause of the problem. Are there any other ways you know of that may be quicker?

[cr8tor]

2 minutes ago, Axtasium said:

Are there any other ways you know of that may be quicker?

Accurate solutions often take time. 

But also, there is very little need for so much to be running in the background all the time.

Disabling everything will very likely resolve this for you in the short term, and may also speed up your system in general.

So you really wont be affected by this step in a negative way, short of waiting a moment longer for an application to start up when you click on the icon.

 

Also, if this gets large over the span of two weeks, well to be honest, reboot your computer at least weekly.

That's good advice in general for any PC.

If you are trying to avoid rebooting your system for weeks at at time, you ARE going to suffer all sorts of weirdness. 

 

One of the first and most effective things to resolve all sorts of issues, is just simply to reboot your computer. 

Any pc tech with any real experience will begin troubleshooting with "Have you rebooted the pc?"

[Axtasium]

ya, I gatcha. I do reboot my computer weekly because I have to. I normally would do it every 2 weeks, but I'm forced to do it more because of the problem. Also, its not the speed of my system. I have a 3900x and 32gb of trident Z Neo 3600. The slowest thing in my system is my gtx 1060 6gb, which I plan to replace at some point. also I don't have a ton of stuff running on bootup, only the stuff I use on a day to day basis. this was a problem on my old system as well, which leads me to think that its either a program that I had common with my old system, or a driver from one of my peripherals that us causing the problem. I've tried troubleshooting this over the span of a few months now following what you said, and wasn't able to fix anything. I finally decided to ask and see if anyone had any different recommendations besides what I've tried, I mean there has to be a diagnostics program or something for this out there. I'm just not sure what else to do and it does get on my nerves when I cant boot something because 1/4 of my memory is useless.

[cr8tor]

5 minutes ago, Axtasium said:

this was a problem on my old system as well, which leads me to think that its either a program that I had common with my old system

This is correct.

If it happens on another system, then its some shared software and/or configuration.

The best way to determine what software is causing this is to follow the procedure laid out for you before.

Disable everything from starting up when you turn on your pc. Test and re-enable from there.

 

And ultimately, reboot your machine more often. 

You said you reboot weekly now to help this issue, well, reboot more often. 

That's normal.

If you have expectations of rebooting monthly or yearly, its an unrealistic expectation with the amount of software you are running.

 

Also, in looking at what you have running.

Id bet its the megasync software. It probably has a cache that is cleared when the software is restarted.

Since you never restart the OS, the cache is probably filling up more and more every day.

That and sync software of any kind is prone to this kind of problem by the nature of what its doing.

Again, its normal to reboot a computer.

Software expects and relies on reboots sometimes.

[Axtasium]

I'll try and see if mega is the problem, but its the only program I haven't checked to see if its the cause. I have already gone through and tested all the similar programs I have on here in the past and all of them have been clean. I'm thinking its a driver leak rather than a software leak and that's where I'm stuck. How would I test or find out what drivers could be the cause?

[cr8tor]

5 minutes ago, Axtasium said:

I'm thinking its a driver leak rather than a software leak

Same difference. 

 

5 minutes ago, Axtasium said:

How would I test or find out what drivers could be the cause?

I gave you the troubleshooting steps that i think you should take.

 

Its obvious you are wanting a quick, guaranteed, ah-ha gotcha style solution.

That is not a reasonable expectation.

 

Reboot more often and disable the many many items you have that are always running.

That's the advice i have.

[Axtasium]

Well I guess I'll just have to do some more research and test all my programs again. I've done this process before which is why It may seem like I want a quick solution. I know there are developer tools out there that could troubleshoot this but I don't know what to do on that part. Thanks for the advice anyways though.