Solved Unexplainable very high memory usage

[Koper]

A picture is worth a thousand words: http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/669/memoryo.png

As you can see from the screenshots I have 4 GB of ram. My current opened processes use approximately 500 MB of that.

Inexplicably, though, the memory in use is 1303 GB. What's using 700 MB?!?!

Additionally, why is my "Modified" memory always so high? Note that in that particular screenshot it's actually low, it fluctuates between 400 and 800 MB. I've never seen it lower than 400 MB. Do note that modified memory is not available to other programs (unlike the standby memory, which will be overwritten if necessary).

This leaves me with only 2 GB of ram free for my games, which routinely run oom. 1 GB is magically unavailable. What's using it ?!

 

[logicearth]

You memory usage is perfectly fine. Windows Vista and 7 have a lot more efficient memory managers then Windows XP. And no, you are not left with only 2 GB of free memory. At the tip of a hat almost the entire block of memory can be cleared and given away to those memory hungry applications.

Btw, Modified is: Memory whose contents must be to disk before it can be used for another purpose.

 

[Koper]

You memory usage is perfectly fine. Windows Vista and 7 have a lot more efficient memory managers then Windows XP. And no, you are not left with only 2 GB of free memory. At the tip of a hat almost the entire block of memory can be cleared and given away to those memory hungry applications.

No it is not cleared.

int megabytes = 0;
while (malloc(1024 * 1024)) ++megabytes;
printf("%d mb", megabytes);

Result was 2212 megabytes, so, like I said, the memory in use and Modified are not available.

You are confusing with the blue bar (the standby memory); that one is overwritten. But only that one.

 

[logicearth]

No, everything is cleared. Every background task is cleared when more and more and more memory is allocated to those processes. But you have to understand one thing. 32bit applications have a max ceiling of 2 to 3 GB. While 64 bit application can go up to 7 to 8 TB.

 

[Koper]

No, everything is cleared. Every background task is cleared when more and more and more memory is allocated to those processes. But you have to understand one thing. 32bit applications have a max ceiling of 2 to 3 GB. While 64 bit application can go up to 7 to 8 TB.

It depends how they were compiled; if they are large address aware 32 bit applications can reach 3 GB (4 GB if the OS is x64 like mine). Anyway it's irrelevant, like I said the memory in use and modified is not released when the system is full of memory, I just tried just to make sure.

Do I need to post a screenshot as proof?

 

[logicearth]

Then how do you explain why when I play Crysis on my crappy 2 GB laptop it get pretty much all of it? I have no modified or tweaked Windows 7 in anyway. I constently am using +30% of my RAM all the time. Yet Crysis manages to get almost all of it (about +1,900 MB).

 

[reghakr]

I would "clean up" the PC a little Go to Start > Run, and type msconfig, Uncheck all entries except for your anti-virus software, spyware detector, and personal fire wall if you have one.

If you're;re an experienced user........Go to Start > Run and type services.msc. Look over the list and stop or disable things you know you don't need

 

[charles3]

The “missing” stuff could be drivers, and such, the snapshot your posting looks like a regular 4gig system to me.Win7 will suck up as much as possible, can you easily add some more memory?


Take a look at what was covered in these 2 threads,
http://www.sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/40369-35-60-my-memory-mia-help-me-find.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/30118-svchost-exe-consuming-200mb-ram.html
and see if any of that stuff helps, if not , post the results in your thread, and we can see what else there is to try.

 

[MattBuddha]

Excessive memory usage as well: Youll see.

I read the posts and wanted to add my two cents. I have 6GB of ram, a fresh install of Win7 x64, and the screenshot shows what happens after leaving my PC on for a couple days. (3782+MB being used by modified memory ATM).

http://wow.deconstruct.me/images/ExcessiveMemory.jpg

Any ideas on this?

 

[nick632]

Bump.

I'm having the same problem all of a sudden. Getting a little tired of losing 3 GB of system memory.

Win7, 64-bit. 4GB RAM.

Thanks!

Nick

 

[charles3]

Something is very wrong with what is displayed on the resource monitor.
The graphs only show %21 usage, but the totals for Modified exceed what an idle system should have. What size is your swap file?
Have you tried disabling Forefront Client Security Assessment Service?
Try running mpcmdrun –trace and see if it is getting stuck on any files.
Do you have ICS enabled / firewall enabled on your pc?

Also check and see if there are there are any antivirus programs that might be causing conflicts.

 

[nick632]

Here is what I have gathered:

MpCMDRUn -trace returns "Tracing could not be started: error 0x80070005" (damn...turns out I was running it as my unprivelaged user I normally use (for web browsing, etc.) I'll try this again from the Administrator account next time the error pops up)

Page file is 12251 MB. After reboot it's 4081 MB. Computer manages it. Hmm..

No ICS.

No Forefront.

Running Microsoft Security Essentials only.


Now, a couple suspicions I have:

I've began using Google Chrome recently. However, I didn't use it this time and the problem presented itself again.

I use TrueCrypt. But it has been on my laptop since late March when I purchased the laptop. However, this problem is new for the past two weeks.

The behavior may or may not be related to the laptop being hibernated at night.

Thanks for your help so far. Really appreciated. : )

This is more of a nuisance than anything, but as a computer tech I would love to get to the bottom of it if you will continue to work with me on it.

-Nick

 

[charles3]

What power plan are you running?
What files are encrypted?

 

[nick632]

Hi Everyone,

I nailed it down today. It was a result of processes running as part of iBackup.com that I use for online backup. As soon as I ended the three processes associated with iBackup, the modified memory fell from 2200 MB to 61 MB this morning.

 

[bob13bob]

yeah ,modified should not get that high. I believe this is an example of poorly written software = memory leaks. wltray.exe is one I just ran in to.

try openin gup task manager and adding the memory faults column. look for something that's extremely high after one day of being on. e.g, wltray was 500k+. it grew since boot up until machine crashed never releasing the memory.