8GB of RAM Cached?

[Deserter15]

So just over the past few days my computer has started caching 7.9GB of RAM after about 10 mins of run time.  When I restart it it starts at maybe 200 mb and starts climbing. 

 

CPU: FX-8350

Motherboard: MSI 970a-G43

RAM: 8GB stick of PNY memory and another of the cheapest I could get.  SIngle channel

HDD: Seagate 1tb, old 350gb hdd

SSD: PNY 240gb and kingston 120gb

 

Programs I have open: Chrome, Steam, Discord, Battle.net.

 

Drivers are all up to date.

 

Any help appreciated! 

[Godlygamer23]

Is ~8GB of RAM actually being consumed(according to Task Manager) when the system is running?

[Nord]

First of all, there is no such thing as "RAM caching" (at least to my knowledge), you either mean pagefile or disk cache.

Pagefile would be your RAM content being stored on the SSD/HDD.

While diskfile is the opposite, the SSD/HDD content being stored inside of the RAM.

According to the title and problem I assume you mean pagefile.

 

 

The most probable cause for it skyrocketing that fast would be: chrome & battle.net.

Chrome, especially when you pick up on a session, just eats RAM.

While battle.net is filled with so much badly implementet junk, that all gets loaded when you open it, even for the game-tabs you never open.

 

Is it normal?

Possibly, pagefiling in itself is a very complex process and most people dont even remotely understand what it does. Some will even claim that you should disable it all together if you do have a sufficient amount of physical RAM, which is valid to. I've done that and tbh did not notice any difference.

Reality is that your PC will slowly put stuff into the pagefile, so when you open chrome and start browsing for example, it will very slowly put the tabs you didnt open in X amount of time onto the SSD/HDD, which is why it will steadily increase the longer you use your PC.

However if the pagefile data-file itself is for example 10GB, that does not mean that all of it is actually being used. It expands before it is used based on whatever magic the creater put into it while having no effect on the systems performance.

 

 

Also how do you check the amount of pagefile in use?

The only programm knowen to me would be afterburner - and if you do indeed use it, it shows pagefile in reverse, so the amount it shows is not the actual amount used, its the amount the system will, at the current state, need.

[Godlygamer23]

1 minute ago, Nord said:

First of all, there is no such thing as "RAM caching"

I'm going to disagree with you.

Spoiler

 

[Deserter15]

1 hour ago, Godlygamer23 said:

Is ~8GB of RAM actually being consumed(according to Task Manager) when the system is running?

 

12 minutes ago, Nord said:

First of all, there is no such thing as "RAM caching" (at least to my knowledge), you either mean pagefile or disk cache.

Pagefile would be your RAM content being stored on the SSD/HDD.

While diskfile is the opposite, the SSD/HDD content being stored inside of the RAM.

According to the title and problem I assume you mean pagefile.

 

 

The most probable cause for it skyrocketing that fast would be: chrome & battle.net.

Chrome, especially when you pick up on a session, just eats RAM.

While battle.net is filled with so much badly implementet junk, that all gets loaded when you open it, even for the game-tabs you never open.

 

Is it normal?

Possibly, pagefiling in itself is a very complex process and most people dont even remotely understand what it does. Some will even claim that you should disable it all together if you do have a sufficient amount of physical RAM, which is valid to. I've done that and tbh did not notice any difference.

Reality is that your PC will slowly put stuff into the pagefile, so when you open chrome and start browsing for example, it will very slowly put the tabs you didnt open in X amount of time onto the SSD/HDD, which is why it will steadily increase the longer you use your PC.

However if the pagefile data-file itself is for example 10GB, that does not mean that all of it is actually being used. It expands before it is used based on whatever magic the creater put into it while having no effect on the systems performance.

 

 

Also how do you check the amount of pagefile in use?

The only programm knowen to me would be afterburner - and if you do indeed use it, it shows pagefile in reverse, so the amount it shows is not the actual amount used, its the amount the system will, at the current state, need.

I just restarted my computer, but I added a picture of the task manager.  Where it says cached it will usually say 8gb rather than the 1.5 it says now.  and I normally will end up using about 7-8gb in the "in use" section in the full swing of my session.

[Godlygamer23]

51 minutes ago, Deserter15 said:

 

I just restarted my computer, but I added a picture of the task manager.  Where it says cached it will usually say 8gb rather than the 1.5 it says now.  and I normally will end up using about 7-8gb in the "in use" section in the full swing of my session.

Please provide a new screenshot when it occurs. 

[Nord]

1 hour ago, Godlygamer23 said:

I'm going to disagree with you.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

and indeed you should.

I seem to have forgotten about the fact that the taskmanager lists cached RAM in the CPU & RAM section. I did not need that information in a veeeeeery long time, so it does seem as it did vanish from my mind for the time being.

 

@Deserter15

Disregard my previous post about pagefile, as stated above I did forget about that cache listing on taskmanager.

 

Here is whats actually correct:

Windows will pre-load your most used applications into free RAM so they start faster.

So cached RAM is basically just pre-allocated in case you do start any of those "most used" apps. However it is still, theoretically, free - and that is why it does not show up as "In use" RAM on the taskmanager. If you do run out of available system memory, windows will start to lower its cached RAM so you can use it for w/e requires it at the moment. None of this should have a negative impact on performance however. So unless you do have any performance issues, dont worry about it.

How windows does decide what apps you do use a lot I do not know, but it is a rather old feature.

 

In your case, even if we assume 8GB of cached RAM, it is still less than half of the available system RAM. So I dont see a problem here. I'm currently sitting at 5.5GB cached myself, also having 16GB of total memory.

 

But do provide a screenshot when it does occure, as Godlygamer asked allready, just to be safe.

[Deserter15]

Maybe the restart fixed it because it's only at 4.5 gb now.

[Nord]

Yep, seems normal, as you can see the more RAM you actually use, the higher your cached RAM goes.

Dont worry about it, and even if it would be 7.9GB cached, it still be normal.

[Deserter15]

7.8gb now cached out of the only 16gb I have, why?

[Deserter15]

And my computer also just decided that my microphone isn't connected in the middle of an overwatch game.

[Godlygamer23]

2 minutes ago, Deserter15 said:

7.8gb now cached out of the only 16gb I have, why?

Programs will remain cached during operation. It allows applications to start faster. But do you notice how the actual RAM consumption is? Only 4.1GB. 

[Deserter15]

4 minutes ago, Godlygamer23 said:

Programs will remain cached during operation. It allows applications to start faster. But do you notice how the actual RAM consumption is? Only 4.1GB. 

So 2 questions.  Is there a way to turn that off? And shouldn't it clear the cache when you close the programs then?  because I closed every program on my computer and the cache went up.

[Godlygamer23]

10 minutes ago, Deserter15 said:

So 2 questions.  Is there a way to turn that off? And shouldn't it clear the cache when you close the programs then?  because I closed every program on my computer and the cache went up.

You can try turning it off, but it's part of the function of the operating system. 

 

No the cache will not be cleared if the program is closed because it aids the computer in launching the program again, which may be why the cache consumption went up - it was adding additional files to the cache that may help the open the program faster. 

[Deserter15]

2 hours ago, Godlygamer23 said:

You can try turning it off, but it's part of the function of the operating system. 

 

No the cache will not be cleared if the program is closed because it aids the computer in launching the program again, which may be why the cache consumption went up - it was adding additional files to the cache that may help the open the program faster. 

My main issue is I'll be playing a comp game in overwatch and I'll need to use the ram that is cached and i'll lag while it tries to free it up.  I can't have it doing that when I start tournament play.

[Godlygamer23]

1 hour ago, Deserter15 said:

My main issue is I'll be playing a comp game in overwatch and I'll need to use the ram that is cached and i'll lag while it tries to free it up.  I can't have it doing that when I start tournament play.

Are you running single channel or dual channel?

[Deserter15]

Just now, Godlygamer23 said:

Are you running single channel or dual channel?

Single channel because they're different sticks of ram.

[Godlygamer23]

1 minute ago, Deserter15 said:

Single channel because they're different sticks of ram.

I'm pretty sure they're running in dual channel. Please verify with CPU-Z in the Memory tab. What slots are the sticks put into?

[Deserter15]

1 minute ago, Godlygamer23 said:

I'm pretty sure they're running in dual channel. Please verify with CPU-Z in the Memory tab. What slots are the sticks put into?

Slots are in 1 and 2. cpu-z says single.

[Godlygamer23]

Just now, Deserter15 said:

Slots are in 1 and 2. cpu-z says single.

Put the stick that's in slot two into slot 3.

[Deserter15]

1 minute ago, Godlygamer23 said:

Put the stick that's in slot two into slot 3.

but the sticks are different speeds, timings, and brands.

[Godlygamer23]

3 minutes ago, Deserter15 said:

but the sticks are different speeds, timings, and brands.

The RAM has already been changed. They must run at the same speeds and timings, which the motherboard has done automatically to match the lowest speed. Clearly the DIMMs are working in the system, so compatibility doesn't seem to be an issue.

Edited August 1, 2016 by Godlygamer23

[PalladianPD]

This is normal behaviour and should not concern you. The most likely cause for that large a cache is Chrome. If you can't use a different browser or close it, I suggest not worrying, because RAM is extremely fast storage and will generally not bottleneck anything when the cached data needs to be flushed to make room for something else.

[Donut417]

25 minutes ago, PalladianPD said:

This is normal behaviour and should not concern you. The most likely cause for that large a cache is Chrome. If you can't use a different browser or close it, I suggest not worrying, because RAM is extremely fast storage and will generally not bottleneck anything when the cached data needs to be flushed to make room for something else.

Id have to agree. Ive seen Ram usages that high before on my system. I have 16 Gigs and if I leave my computer run for a long period, Ram usage can get to about 8 Gigs. 

[Deserter15]

33 minutes ago, Godlygamer23 said:

The RAM has already been changed. They must run at the same speeds and timings, which the motherboard has done automatically to match the lowest speed. Clearly the DIMMs are working in the system, so compatibility doesn't seem to be an issue.

 

26 minutes ago, PalladianPD said:

This is normal behaviour and should not concern you. The most likely cause for that large a cache is Chrome. If you can't use a different browser or close it, I suggest not worrying, because RAM is extremely fast storage and will generally not bottleneck anything when the cached data needs to be flushed to make room for something else.

 

Just now, Donut417 said:

Id have to agree. Ive seen Ram usages that high before on my system. I have 16 Gigs and if I leave my computer run for a long period, Ram usage can get to about 8 Gigs. 

Ok then, thanks.  I'll switch it over to dual channel and see if it's stable when I get a chance.