Modified RAM not being released

[JumpSteady187]

Hi! My first sevenforums post. I've had this problem for quite awhile and i have narrowed down to what the problem is. I stream movies to my xbox via WMC. My computer puts the high res movies into the RAM for streaming and i verified this by using RAMmap. These video files are multiple gigs but i have 16GB of RAM. Once i'm done watching the video, my modified RAM is up to 8-14GB depending how many movies, how large the movie files are, etc. This causes programs to crash and i have to restart my computer to empty the RAM. RAMmap feature of emptying the modified ram does not work for removing the movie files from the RAM.

How can i fix these files being stuck in the modifed RAM?

Thanks to any replies and suggestions.

Anyone trouble shooting RAM issues with leaking RAM, RAMmap is a great tool thats free. Edited to add link http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ff700229.aspx

 

[Brink]

Hello JumpSteady, and welcome to Seven Forums.

There's no need to try and clear your memory/RAM. By default, memory is cleared automatically as needed by Windows.

If you are having progams crashing due to low memory, then you may need to set the page file to be managed by Windows (default setting and recommended), or increase it's size instead.

Virtual Memory Paging File - Change

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[JumpSteady187]

Thanks for the response first off.

Windows by default wants to us 32GB on my 90GB SSD. Is it even advisable to put the paging file on my SSD? Do i want to add paging files to my other HDDs? I did forget I had my paging file set to really small(whoops) at 1024Mb, lol.

 

[Layback Bear]

Once you take a look at Brinks Tutorial and comply try watching your ram with this built into windows. Resource Monitor.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/12523-resource-monitor.html

 

[Brink]

The page file would be faster on the SSD, but you could move it to be on another internal HDD if you like to save space on the SSD.

LOL, yeah 1 GB for the page file is pretty small. You might increase it to say 5 GB (5120 MB) to see how that goes. If not well, then keep increasing it a bit until you no longer have the issue hopefully.

 

[JumpSteady187]

Once you take a look at Brinks Tutorial try watching your ram with this built into windows. Resource Monitor.

View attachment 254010

I have done this, I fixed the paging file size and I am going to see if i still have the same problems.

 

[JumpSteady187]

Who needs a paging file with 16GB of RAM??! apparently this guy

 

[Brink]

Please let us know how it went.

 

[Layback Bear]

If anybody cares I have 12 gigs of ram and just let Windows 7 take care of the ram and I have no problems. It does a fine job all by it's self. Much better than older systems like XP.

 

[JumpSteady187]

Increased the paging file to 16GB after moving some stuff off of my SSD to one of my HDDs, updated my video codecs just in case of the off chance they were causing a memory leak. After playing a few movies, I have 13GBs of memory in "Standby" instead of in "Modified". I think the problem is resolved. Thanks for the help.

 

[Brink]

Great news. Glad we could help.

 

[Layback Bear]

Another happy customer. A little reminder; Windows 7 is different than the older operating systems and works a lot better. You don't have to have a problem to come see us again. A lot of good information here.
Happy computing.

 

[JumpSteady187]

after 3 or 4 days, came back to the same problem, checked and saw that my page file was stuck full and my ram was steady at 8GBs modifed for over a day. =\ granted i can just restart my computer to free up all the pagefile/ram, but thats not solving the problem.

 

[Brink]

Considering what you are doing, it's going to fill up memory and the page file.

I wouldn't worry about them being full. By default, Windows will always keep everything loaded in memory and the page file until it needs to dump unneeded data to make room for more.

This is normal and doesn't hurt anything. Unused memory is wasted memory.

 

[JumpSteady187]

if i let it continue for a few more days, the modified data will just be kept and not shared then programs will start to crash, but i will wait to see if it gets to that point, will reply in a week or so (estimated time of failure) hehe

 

[Brink]

I'd recommend to set the page file to be managed by Windows as well.

 

[JumpSteady187]

it is currently set to be managed by windows, no worries there

 

[Layback Bear]

You can run some programs or even some scans and modified ram will jump up and then go down. Modified ram is kind of like a in between location Windows holds the ram. If the use of more ram is requested Modified ram will be wrote to disk as required and open up the ram for additional use. When you are in Resource Monitor put your cursor on Modified ram and there is a short explaining paragraph. You will notice that Standby ram will also grow at times when doing things like scans. To the best of knowledge that is normal. Windows 7 is constantly calculating what stage to put ram in for proper use.

 

[JumpSteady187]

i understand this, but the problem is, it fills up and then programs start to crash from lack of memory such as firefox or my windows live essentials mail, etc. this happens when it is showing 10-14GB of modified RAM. This happens much faster after streaming videos to my xbox through WMC. so basically does it come down to 16GB page file, and 16GB of RAM not being enough? or is it not working properly? im leaning towards that it is not working properly.