Continues Ram Leak In Windows

[kfly54]

So, I have 64gb of ddr4 ram but after 3 days of my pc being on. On idle, its at %50 usage. I have reinstalled windows, multiple times. A new build of windows. Tuned off smart access memory.

My Pc specs are; Ryzen 7 5800x, Asrock Steel Legend x570 motherboard, 4 x 16gb Corsair RGB Pro SL Ram, Yeston RX 6700xt, Lian Li rgb fans, NZXT Kraken Z3 Cpu cooler

Software I keep open; iCUE, NZXT Cam, Steam, Logitech G hub, Lian-Li L-Connect, Amd Adrenalin, and Opera Gx

That is all I can think about right now. I've been trying to figure out why the ram leak is so bad and I cannot figure out what is causing it.

[Eigenvektor]

Sounds like normal system behavior. The more RAM you have, the more Windows will use as cache, to speed things up. This is not an issue and not a memory leak either.

 

Memory leak would mean some application's memory usage continuously increases until it reaches 100%, the system runs out of available RAM and crashes.

 

Smart Access Memory, also known as reBar, has absolutely nothing to do with this. It allows your CPU to access the GPU's memory as a single continuous block, rather than in 256 MB windows. This can improve performance when uploading data to the GPU's VRAM and has no influence on system memory (RAM)

[Gat Pelsinger]

@kfly54 Check task manager and see what is using all the memory.

[Gat Pelsinger]

14 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

Sounds like normal system behavior. The more RAM you have, the more Windows will use as cache, to speed things up. This is not an issue and not a memory leak either.

 

Memory leak would mean some application's memory usage continuously increases until it reaches 100%, the system runs out of available RAM and crashes.

 

Smart Access Memory, also known as reBar, has absolutely nothing to do with this. It allows your CPU to access the GPU's memory as a single continuous block, rather than in 256 MB windows. This can improve performance when uploading data to the GPU's VRAM and has no influence on system memory (RAM)

16 GB of actual usage (not cache, and if it was, it wouldn't be counting the actual usage) seems a bit too high for idle.

[Eigenvektor]

5 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

16 GB of actual usage (not cache, and if it was, it wouldn't be counting the actual usage) seems a bit too high for idle.

OP said they have multiple apps open (iCUE, NZXT Cam, Steam, Logitech G hub, Lian-Li L-Connect, Amd Adrenalin, and Opera Gx), so it's not exactly idle in terms of memory usage.

 

But I agree with checking task manager. If there's an actual memory leak, you should see memory usage of one of these go up a lot over time.

[emosun]

5 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

OP said they have multiple apps open (iCUE, NZXT Cam, Steam, Logitech G hub, Lian-Li L-Connect, Amd Adrenalin, and Opera Gx), so it's not exactly idle in terms of memory usage.

none of those will use 32gb of ram just from being open even after days of uptime.
 

52 minutes ago, kfly54 said:

I have reinstalled windows, multiple times. A new build of windows. Tuned off smart access memory.

is it windows 10 or 11

[Gat Pelsinger]

25 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

OP said they have multiple apps open (iCUE, NZXT Cam, Steam, Logitech G hub, Lian-Li L-Connect, Amd Adrenalin, and Opera Gx), so it's not exactly idle in terms of memory usage.

 

But I agree with checking task manager. If there's an actual memory leak, you should see memory usage of one of these go up a lot over time.

Even with that, 16 gigs is too high. Also, you might not even see what is using up all the memory in task manager if the software is more process hidden, like a driver, but the first step should be to check task manager.

[manikyath]

if you run a task that'll actually call for ~48GB RAM, does it clear up the memory to allocate to that task, or does it fill to 100% and overflow to swap?

 

(ps, 7-zip's benchmark will eat as much ram as you want)

[kfly54]

7 hours ago, emosun said:

none of those will use 32gb of ram just from being open even after days of uptime.
 

is it windows 10 or 11

It is windows 11, I originally had 10 when the problem first started happening.

[kfly54]

7 hours ago, manikyath said:

if you run a task that'll actually call for ~48GB RAM, does it clear up the memory to allocate to that task, or does it fill to 100% and overflow to swap?

 

(ps, 7-zip's benchmark will eat as much ram as you want)

7-zip got it down to 39% usage but that was as low as it would go.

8 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

@kfly54 Check task manager and see what is using all the memory.

It says that Opera, only uses 2-5 gb, is what is taking up the most ram.

[manikyath]

Just now, kfly54 said:

7-zip got it down to 39% usage but that was as low as it would go.

not what i asked - will it clear up when an application requests that much ram. win11 should be able to skim down to a few gigs at most, so running 7zip with settings that'll call for over 50GB should be able to get that much allocated without pinning ram usage to 100%.

[Whatisthis]

29 minutes ago, kfly54 said:

7-zip got it down to 39% usage but that was as low as it would go.

It says that Opera, only uses 2-5 gb, is what is taking up the most ram.

Open task manager, sort by ram usage, take a screenshot and post here.

[kfly54]

14 minutes ago, Whatisthis said:

Open task manager, sort by ram usage, take a screenshot and post here.

40 minutes ago, manikyath said:

not what i asked - will it clear up when an application requests that much ram. win11 should be able to skim down to a few gigs at most, so running 7zip with settings that'll call for over 50GB should be able to get that much allocated without pinning ram usage to 100%.

Sorry, let me clarify what I meant. 7-zip would use all the ram it could but it was still only use 38gb and refuse to go further. The dictionary size of the test it would allow me to go is 512mb and would not allow me to use the 768mb setting. (First time I'm using it so I'm learning as I go along)
So it clears up about %9 of the background usage when I do the test, pinning it to 99%-100% usage.

[Whatisthis]

16 minutes ago, kfly54 said:

Sorry, let me clarify what I meant. 7-zip would use all the ram it could but it was still only use 38gb and refuse to go further. The dictionary size of the test it would allow me to go is 512mb and would not allow me to use the 768mb setting. (First time I'm using it so I'm learning as I go along)
So it clears up about %9 of the background usage when I do the test, pinning it to 99%-100% usage.

Well that’s weird. You’ve got maybe 5GB of stuff open and it’s saying 44% usage…windows itself should only take a few gigs, maybe 4-5.

 

What do you see on the performance tab for memory for how much is used in the non-paged pool?

 

there is also a Microsoft tool called rammap that will show you the exact details of how ram is allocated.

[kfly54]

2 minutes ago, Whatisthis said:

Well that’s weird. You’ve got maybe 5GB of stuff open and it’s saying 44% usage…windows itself should only take a few gigs, maybe 4-5.

 

What do you see on the performance tab for memory for how much is used in the non-paged pool?

2.1gb

[Robchil]

taskmanager is notoriusly incorrect.. use hwinfo64 to get used more correct stats. 

 

[Whatisthis]

8 minutes ago, kfly54 said:

2.1gb

That’s way high. Should be ~2-300mb. This is an indicator of a driver leaking memory.

 

If you restart, does the ram usage change?

 

Also, what antivirus do you run?

 

Network drivers are one of the main culprits for memory leaks. You can test by downloading a large file and monitoring the non paged pool.

 

All that said, I would download rammap first to get the exact details on what’s happening with the ram.

[kfly54]

16 minutes ago, Whatisthis said:

That’s way high. Should be ~2-300mb. This is an indicator of a driver leaking memory.

 

If you restart, does the ram usage change?

 

Also, what antivirus do you run?

 

Network drivers are one of the main culprits for memory leaks. You can test by downloading a large file and monitoring the non paged pool.

 

All that said, I would download rammap first to get the exact details on what’s happening with the ram.

It does go down to the normal 10% usage and I do not use a antivirus (Install of windows is only about a week old)

[Gat Pelsinger]

@kfly54 Are automatic updates enabled? Updating does take a lot of ram and also the non-paged pool increases by a lot.

[kfly54]

53 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

@kfly54 Are automatic updates enabled? Updating does take a lot of ram and also the non-paged pool increases by a lot.

It currently off

[Whatisthis]

2 hours ago, kfly54 said:

It does go down to the normal 10% usage and I do not use a antivirus (Install of windows is only about a week old)

Ok, post a screenie of the tabs in rammap in a couple days once it has had time to marinate. Sort the lists by ram usage.

[manikyath]

7 hours ago, kfly54 said:

 

Sorry, let me clarify what I meant. 7-zip would use all the ram it could but it was still only use 38gb and refuse to go further. The dictionary size of the test it would allow me to go is 512mb and would not allow me to use the 768mb setting. (First time I'm using it so I'm learning as I go along)
So it clears up about %9 of the background usage when I do the test, pinning it to 99%-100% usage.

yeah, it shouldnt pin you to 99-100, that's an issue.

 

just to get the easy options out the way, run cmd as admin and run these two:

sfc /scannow
dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

 

since you mentioned you've had this behavior across two windows installs i doubt that winodows' self repair tools will be your fix, but it would be very silly if they were and we didnt try.

 

PS; happy new year

[kfly54]

On 12/31/2023 at 2:38 PM, Whatisthis said:

Ok, post a screenie of the tabs in rammap in a couple days once it has had time to marinate. Sort the lists by ram usage.

Sorry it took me a bit. Worked over today. Im idling at 51%.

Also, happy new year to all of yall!

[Whatisthis]

6 hours ago, kfly54 said:

Sorry it took me a bit. Worked over today. Im idling at 51%.

Also, happy new year to all of yall!

Grab screenie of the other tabs as well. They have the details on what is actually taking up the ram. Sort again by order of memory used. Also in the processes tab look for entries that are duplicates - there could be a process that keeps spawning instances that are never killed so they keep eating ram. Sort the process list by name and see if there is something that has a lot of entries (like multiple 100s or more).
 

From this it looks like there is a memory leak. Also, a lot of the usage is mostly that whenever you open files they are just kept in memory because there is plenty of space (that’s the mapped file). 

 

The Page Table is way too big. The non paged pool is also too big. 

[kfly54]

Sorry that it took me a good bit to get back. Im sitting at 72% usage now.