Memory allocation

[Schroeder]

Hello everyone.
My system has recently hit a very strange wall with memory.
Every once in a while, my system will spike its physical memory usage up to 100%. For usually no aparent reason.
I've tried looking in task manager, and resource monitor to see WHAT is using all of my memory, but when I do, their is never any program using an unreasonable amount of memory!
Here is an example image from the Resource Monitor:

What program can I use to find out more about EXACTLY how much memory is allocated by each process? The system is CLEARLY using more memory than the sum of the pieces from each process. So how do I figure out what is using it?

I've heard performance monitor is a great tool, but I have no idea how to use it. And I'm not even sure if that program will be able to tell me anything useful...

I am on
Windows 7 x64
8GB memory installed
AMD Phenom II x4 3.2GHz processor
ATI 5770 GPU

Thank you in advance for any help you can give me,
Schroeder

 

[blazorthon]

I don't know all of your programs running but I don't think any svchost should use even close to 300MB of memory. Same goes for explorer, search indexer, and probably much more.

You could download a program called speeditup free. It removes unnecessary memory usage that is wasting space and bandwidth. Whenever your memory spikes you could use it and it should get it done to normal levels (it works for me and has worked for more than a year now).

http://register.freeze.com/download/downloadpop.aspx?shortname=speeditup&a=8164&f=google2009

If you're interested.

 

[Schroeder]

Well, my issue is more the fact that my computer says I'm using all my memory, but fails to tell me WHAT is using all my memory.

If you add up all of the Committed pieces of memory, you'd get only about 2~3 GB. Well below the 8GB it says it is using.
I'm not too worried about a couple processes using half a gig of ram. I'm worried about one process secretly using up 6GB of ram!

I'll try using speeditup to see if it'll help, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[blazorthon]

There is always RAM being used that isn't reported in the task manager. It shouldn't be that much so if speed it up free doesn't help at all I think you might want to reinstall windows.

You might have a virus of some sort. Viruses get past all antivirus programs occasionally and reinstalling could fix that if you back up your data and format your drive but a less drastic approach you should try first is getting a very deep scan of your computer done.

 

[blazorthon]

Watch the installation carefully because some trial programs were optionally included in the installer when I installed it. Be sure to uncheck anything you don't want.

 

[Schroeder]

Yup I know how careful you gotta be.
And I tried the program, and it didn't seem to do anything.

BUT I believe I've found at least 1 culprit!
explorer.exe.
Sometimes, when I'm in a folder with a massive video file, or I try to move a massive video file, my RAM spikes to max.
Killing explorer.exe brings my RAM back to normal.

It does still worry me that I could never see any sort of a spike in explorer.exe's memory use... ah well!

 

[Thegeek]

So you know now that it is the explorer.exe itself? If it's not a virus of some sort, do you think it's worth repairing the operating system? Try running the System File Checker command in the command line. System file checker should scan, restore corruptions in Windows system files.

 

[Schroeder]

"Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations"
oh well...

Could it be faults in the files themselves that causes explorer to go crazy, and allocate memory silently?