Possible solution(s) to my RAM problems?

[alphaniner]

In the screenshot you posted of Performance tab, I noticed the "Up Time" is ~3.5 days. I've never had the misfortune of encountering anything like this, but sounds a lot like a memory leak. I'd suggest restarting (no hibernate/standby/etc) and monitoring memory usage regularly until it gets up there again. You could monitor manually, but IMO you should look for a way to automate the monitoring and log to file. This should be possible with built-in tools*, but there are probably 3rd party utilities as well.

Once you get back into the range of 80%, close programs one-by-one, wait a minute, and see if the memory usage drops. Repeat with any non-MS services.

If that doesn't bear fruit... IDK. Wikipedia suggests a memory leak can be caused by device drivers. Are all your drivers up to date? Do you use any no-name or legacy hardware with old or otherwise suspect drivers?

* If nothing else, run this in PowerShell (and leave it running until usage gets high):

Get-Counter -Continuous -SampleInterval 300 '\Memory\% Committed Bytes In Use' >>~/Documents/memory_log.txt

Disclaimer: That's probably not the 'best practice' way of redirecting output in Powershell... I'm a Linux guy with limited PS experience.

 

[TechnoMage2016]

You do realize, don't you, that there are a G'zillion Services and TSR's running in the background that you never see. Right?

In task manager, have you looked under the Startup tab, to see what programs are starting up when you boot up your PC? You can right click and Disable the ones you don't need starting.

A total and correct setup of Windows takes a while, because there are so many things that can effect the performance of any PC running Windows xx. I do this for a living, so I know of which I speak. Right out of the box, MS Windows is a real DOG!,
with all its SAFE Defaults, etc.

Good Luck!
TechnoMage

 

[Layback Bear]

Of course one can do as one pleases with one's computer. These pictures show how I run my systems.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
You can also use Resource monitor to see if any M$ services like svchost.exe is acting up
Click Start and type that in the search box
Then you should open to the Overview section on the top left and expand all entries to see what is really going on.