Ram Issue / Half Usage

[Canlocu]

Hello,
I posted over at Tom's and no one has a clue what is wrong with my PC, so I thought I would try here.

A few nights ago I was playing my modded Skyrim, something I been doing for 2 years on this rig and at one point I looked over at my Task Manager and seen my CPU was at 100% and my ram was at 50%. With my Skyrim build it is the other way around. I use a ENB, 2k textures and 300+ mods.

So I shut it down and checked a few things. After toying around with it, I figured a driver or file got corrupted during one of my game crashes. It had been over a year since I did a fresh install of windows, so I did a reformat and new install. After updating all my drivers and getting my PC up to par I was still getting my ram and vram capping out around the 50% mark, sometimes higher.

I am getting artifacts and shutters now in game and my PC is not using all of my ram or vram. Nor will it even boot my heavy modded game due to the lack of ram.

Here are my PC specs:

* i5-2500K Sandy 4-Core 3.3GHz (3.7GHz)
* Radeon HD 7950 3GB 384-bit GDDR5
* G.SKILL Sniper Low Voltage Series 8GB (2 x 4GB)
* WD Black WD5002AALX 500GB (OS)
* Kingston HyperX 3K 240 GB (Skyrim)
* ASUS VE278H Black 27" 2ms

Here is what I have tried:

1) Virtual Memory set to 12244 (recommended) & Unchecked Auto manage paging: http://i.imgur.com/DfyzRpi.jpg?1

2) Ran Memory Diagnostics Tool: Was GOOD

3) Ran MemTest86: http://i.imgur.com/FgciPaU.jpg?1 GOOD

4) Checked Drive Health: http://i.imgur.com/x8ai4ad.jpg?1 GOOD

5) Physically took out ram to see is it was not seated correctly or ran with just one stick: GOOD

6) Ran 3DMark to see if vram worked, passed with a 5740 score 57% range: Ok

Here is my idle stats (Few programs open):

imgur: the simple image sharer
imgur: the simple image sharer
imgur: the simple image sharer

Here is my stats while running Skyrim:

imgur: the simple image sharer
imgur: the simple image sharer
imgur: the simple image sharer

My loads are heavier when I normally run Skyrim, close to 8gb total (Ram+vram-1024). Just not sure if it is an Mobo issue or what at this point. I have to wait a month to be able to replace anything but would like to single out what "IT" is that I do need to replace. Any help would be great! If I left anything out just give me a heads up.

Thanks ahead of time.

EDIT: Cores are unlocked too.

 

[matts6887]

Well; to start with something simple; I would try closing out any background programs you know you dont need and try running it again and see what happens. If that does not solve the issue; post back and we can go from there.

 

[Canlocu]

The idle stats I linked is after fresh install and the "Few programs open" are the monitoring programs. It runs the same with or without them open. Shutters, artifacts and low usage of vram and ram.