What is using up all my RAM?

[gkl]

This has really gotten me stumped. What process could be eating up all 8GB of my RAM? You can see a screenshot of both task manager and resource monitor but the figures don't seem to add up.

The issue seems to start when playing Battlefield 3 for a while but turning it off doesn't change anything. Could this be some memory leak? If so, how can I determine what exactly is eating all of my RAM up?

Task manager: http://i.imgur.com/21gAN.jpg

Resource monitor: http://i.imgur.com/uz88p.jpg

Resource monitor with basically everything off (no browsers, only apps that should be loaded by default): http://i.imgur.com/QgnYq.jpg

Restarting seems to fix the issue.

Specs, if needed:

Windows 8 Pro x64

Kingston 8GB RAM 1600 MHz (don't recall the name, Genesis I think?)

Intel i5-3570k

Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H (latest BIOS)

AMD Radeon 6950 1GB

Crucial M4 256GB SSD (latest firmware)

Latest updates and stable drivers, no overclocks.

Any help is appreciated. :)

[#Michael]

What happens when you look at the details tab...what do you see when you sort by memory usage?

This is what mine looks like:

[Detection]

Nothing immediately jumps out from your screenshots

Have you scanned for malware? (malwarebytes)

Check Event Logs ?

[gkl]

What happens when you look at the details tab...what do you see when you sort by memory usage?

This is what mine looks like:

Nothing too revealing IMO- http://i.imgur.com/gBfQq.jpg

@+Detection

It's a fresh install so I don't think it'll be polluted already but I'll give it a quick scan anyways. Regarding Event log, unfortunately I have no idea what to look for.

[Detection]

Nothing too revealing IMO- http://i.imgur.com/gBfQq.jpg

Click on each of the tabs I highlighted here, and see if you get any ram eaters appear, if you look down the list you`ll see they are not all in order of ram use size per tab

[#Michael]

I have seen this with mine where it did this. I have Win8 installed as the only os on my MBP and it turned out that the trackpad driver was stuck and was eating ram. Once I installed the trackpad++ program it resolved itself. Maybe it's a driver issue?

[Detection]

@+Detection

It's a fresh install so I don't think it'll be polluted already but I'll give it a quick scan anyways. Regarding Event log, unfortunately I have no idea what to look for.

Check: Windows Logs > System or Windows Logs > Application

Check down the list for warnings or errors or criticals, and see if any of them mention running out of memory space or similar

Might be an idea to clear the logs, cause the problem again, then you`ll be able to see the issue appear in the logs, be easier than searching through them all

[+Xinok Subscriber²]

See what this program says: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ff700229.aspx

Considering what BlendedFrog said, this program will tell you how much RAM drivers are using (something Task Manager / Resource Monitor won't do).

[gkl]

Check: Windows Logs > System or Windows Logs > Application

Check down the list for warnings or errors or criticals, and see if any of them mention running out of memory space or similar

Might be an idea to clear the logs, cause the problem again, then you`ll be able to see the issue appear in the logs, be easier than searching through them all

Thanks, I'll check if logs say anything else except "bowser" errors all the time.

See what this program says: http://technet.micro...s/ff700229.aspx

Considering what BlendedFrog said, this program will tell you how much RAM drivers are using (something Task Manager / Resource Monitor won't do).

Thank you! But what exactly should I be looking for in RAMMap? If I sort by RAM usage in Process or File Summary tabs unfortunately there are no culprits showing up.

Screenshots of RAMMap:

http://i.imgur.com/ErMkZ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/NrTTE.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/YxCBm.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Cu2Hx.jpg

[LUTZIFER]

What happens when you look at the details tab...what do you see when you sort by memory usage?

This is what mine looks like:

Holy crap... 201,492 K for Firefox. Good thing computers have lots of RAM these days. I thought it was outrageous for Skype to be using around 70,000 K.

[gkl]

In a fun turn of events it seems that restarting doesn't help either. Cold boot and RAM usage is currently at 97-98%. I have no clue what to do about this and I don't want to format again.

[Farstrider]

From what I can ascertain it sounds like your ATI drivers that are causing the problem with "Nonpaged Pool". What is the memory usage when you look at this?

"Use perfmon to see the pooltag and use findstr to search for the driver which uses this pool tag:"

Go here and here and have a look at what they say.

I may be way off target but perhaps this will at least get you to a point whereby you can start to identify the problem.

[gkl]

From what I can ascertain it sounds like your ATI drivers that are causing the problem with "Nonpaged Pool". What is the memory usage when you look at this?

"Use perfmon to see the pooltag and use findstr to search for the driver which uses this pool tag:"

Go here and here and have a look at what they say.

I may be way off target but perhaps this will at least get you to a point whereby you can start to identify the problem.

Thanks, I found these links as well. I did try installing the latest AMD beta drivers but that didn't change anything. Well, unfortunately the tag was MINI and that gave me a gigantic, unscrollable list in Command Prompt. I was able to catch a note towards my LAN driver and apparently there was a newer version available at manufacturer's website (Qualcomm's Atheros line, god is their site awful for finding drivers). Installed it and so far seems good *knock on wood*. I hope that was the reason for the memory leak.

[Farstrider]

Cool, let's hope that it stays that way! Problems like the one you are having or hopefully had, can drive a person around the twist!

[(Account no longer active)]

Windows 8 UI is so bland.

Windows Classic theme for the win (not available in Windows 8 :().