Solved Over 7 hours ram usage hits 100% - sometimes randomly shows artifacts

[antman84]

Hi all,

I've spent some time looking around for a solution but I have been unable to find anything that helps. I'm hoping someone here can give me a clue as to what my issue/problem could be.

I'm finding that I can leave my PC on for no more than 8 hours. After 8 hours ram usage spikes to 100% applications start to crash and I then am forced to reboot the system.

I thought it could be multiple things - I replaced the SSD with a brand new one. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling video drivers, I removed the latest applications I have installed, I have looked at process explorer and RAMMap and i'm not finding any applications that are using more memory than they actually should. These applications all look good..

I grabbed a data set from Performance Monitor to show what I have been seeing and it doesn't look normal to me. Does anyone have any ideas on what the issue could be? Could it be a Windows patch or bad ram at this point? Is my video card is bad shape?

 

[richc46]

Scan with anti virus
Download and scan with malwarebytes
Run Memtest.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105647-ram-test-memtest86.html
Scan each stick for at least 6 scans
Each slot for six scans
All slots and sticks six scans
Note: Lets go with the tutorial and make it 7 scans.

 

[antman84]

Hi rich,

Thanks for the reply! I scanned the system with memtest.for over 26 hours and and no errors showed up. Everything came back clean. Malware bytes shows clean and antivirus also shows clean. Have any ideas? Could it be a software issue or video card problem?

 

[richc46]

When you have the problem, again, go to search by the start button, type task manager, click on task manager, then go to the process tab and check what is using all your memory

 

[antman84]

The problem happens over time.. Nothing looks abnormal to using more memory than expected...

Here's some more pictures to help illustrate.

 

[LMiller7]

Post a screenshot of the process list showing and sorted by "Working Set (Memory)". You will have to add this column from the View menu. The "Memory (Private Working Set)" column shown does not fully account for process usage.

The Nonpaged kernel usage is high but not nearly high enough to account for what is observed.

 

[antman84]

I was forced to reboot because the system locked up so now everything is showing fine. This is what it looks like right now. I will post another screenshot tomorrow morning to show the difference in one evening.

 

[antman84]

After one evening this is what it looks like..As you can see physical memory is at 54% now everything else looks the same for the most part

I believe the Nonpaged kernel is higher because "RAPID Mode" is enabled on my Samsung EVO 840 SSD. (http://www.samsung.com/hu/business-...14/01/Whitepaper-Samsung_SSD_Rapid_Mode-0.pdf)

 

[antman84]

Any ideas?

 

[fuzzydorito]

I have had a similar issue. Used to run with 8Gb of RAM, and after only few hours running Win7 64-bit RAM would keep maxing out. But I didn't poke around long, assumed it was faulty RAM, went bought another 8Gb (4Gbx2 sticks) of the same set of RAM (good sale at the time) and tried that out. Ended up with the same issue, few hours in RAM would max even with 16Gb's. Tried different slots (dual RAM sticks btw), tried different tower (RAM was NOT faulty). At that point I automatically assumed corruption. Got a different .ISO (assumed the one I previously used must've been a faulty boot), not a problem since.

Just my experience, perhaps you'll have better luck and safe OS/data from a clean install.

Goodluck.

 

[antman84]

I'm starting to think It's time to upgrade to 8.1 from Windows 7... If I can't figure this issue out that'll be the next action I take... If that doesn't work a clean install might be something I do... OR build a new rig...

 

[Layback Bear]

Have you changed your pagefile or how the memory is used?
I always let Windows 7 manage memory.

 

[LMiller7]

From the commit limit of 35 GB the pagefile must be about 17 GB. This should be more than enough and with the current commit of 16 GB it appears that it is. There is no way to tell in Task Manager how much of that is actually being used.

The current usage is far higher than is accounted for by anything shown in Task manager.

In a 64 bit OS the file cache can grow very large. In a busy file server it would typically be the largest portion of system RAM but in a workstation it would take some very unusual usage patterns to drive it that high. Task Manager will tell us nothing of this. In Windows 7 the value for "Cached" oddly enough does not include the file cache.

Performance Monitor "Cache Bytes" in the Memory section will show the size of the file cache.

Malware could be responsible for the high usage. But with the current sophistication that malware has reached AV products cannot be relied on to detect it.

 

[antman84]

The Samsung magician software changes how the pagefile is set but I just changed it to let windows maintain it.. so i'll see what happens i guess..

 

[antman84]

I gave up and installed windows 8.1 everything is back to normal now.. Thanks for the help everyone!