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Memory Usage Goes Up Gradually (Memory Leak)

Last response: in Windows 7
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Memory Usage Goes Up Gradually (Memory Leak)

When I starting the Windows (in the first few hours) everything is normal But after 1 day or 2 (sooner or later) the amount of available memory gradually goes down and the physical memory usage increasing. This increasing, continues until the memory usage reaches near the 88% and at that point , there isn't any memory available to operate any software . Also when memory reaches that point, I can't access any drive in the HDD; because everytime I want to open any folder, the following error appears :

c:\ is not accessible.
Insufficient system resources exist to complete the requested service

At this point, I even can't shutdown or restart Windows normally; I must restart windows manually by pressing the restart button. after restart, everything goes to normal again; but this problem appears again and again ... (I had to restart Windows every 1 or 2 days)

here is the screenshots of processes and performance tabs in the Task Manager (at 88% memory usage)
You can see that there is no software(application) that uses this amount of memory :









my system :
------------------------
OS : Windows 7 Ultimate x86
Cpu : Intel P4 3.0GHz
Vga : nVidia 6600
MB : Gigabyte GA-8I915G Duo
PSU : Corsair 750W
RAM : 2GB DDR-400 Transcend
(I have these memories for 2 years)

Physical Memory: 2000 mb
Paging File: 2000 mb
Virtual Memory: 6000 mb


I already did the following actions but unfortunately none of them helped me :

0- using some optimizing and freeing softwares like (Memory Booster Gold - RAM Saver Pro - CleanMem)

1- Scanning my computer with antivirus and antispywares

2- Changing antivirus software

3- Updating windows with all updates available via Windows Update

4- Updating drivers of all hardwares

5- Downloading and installing the following hotfixes that are related to memory leak :
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/976658
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977357
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/978042
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/978155
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/979223

6- Using CClenaer for clearing everything and using memtest86+ for finding any possible error in memory

And here is screenshot from Process Explore (from Sysinternals Suite) at 90% memory usage :



So is there anything that I can do to solve this problem ? any solution ? hotfixe ? trick ? suggestion ? anything ? ...

More about : memory usage gradually memory leak

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Well that's a fast leak if ever I saw one. That's bizarre and it's gonna take of lot of time and patience to track down. A few places you can start :

Can you remember the last program/patch you installed before things went bad?
Is any process using more 'Private Bytes' than what seems normal?
If the user processes doesn't add up, then check kernel usage under 'system information' in process explorer.
You might have start shutting down programs one at a time and see when memory usage levels out.

Good luck!

panto said:
Well that's a fast leak if ever I saw one. That's bizarre and it's gonna take of lot of time and patience to track down. A few places you can start :

Can you remember the last program/patch you installed before things went bad?
Is any process using more 'Private Bytes' than what seems normal?
If the user processes doesn't add up, then check kernel usage under 'system information' in process explorer.
You might have start shutting down programs one at a time and see when memory usage levels out.

Good luck!


The Last softwares that I installed before the problem were :
1- Avast Internet Security from 5.050 to 5.0.545
2- Microsoft Dot.net Frameworks 4.0

I Unistalled both of them ( and replace avast with another security software (Avira)) but my problem didn't disappear

here is the kernal usage screenshot (at 50% memory usage):



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ksampanna said:
Backup your data & do a clean install of windows.


I think Formatting and Installing a fresh windows Installation is the last option
But can you certitude me that after the installation , the problem be solved ? maybe it occurs again

Well you have a clean HDD after a format & clean install, so naturally, it runs perfect w/o any problems (unless it is failing or is corrupted).
The only way the problem would resurface is if the backed up data contains some virus/malware/spamware which would again infect the new system. So make sure you keep your backup as clean as possible. Scan it through multiple Antiviruses & other cleaning programs from other PCs.

I don't know what the system cache is but your looks high (mine in comparison is 300k). Could it be a read cache? Maybe someone here can answer that..

It may be more trouble than it's worth, but if you're curious at the same time you could try memory dumps. I've never done this sort of thing before, never had a reason to, but it looks quite interesting. If you google for it, MS seem to have some documentation on the subject or you could look for tools to dump per process. This looks like an older tool so I don't know if it's going to work on win 7 http://www.ntsecurity.nu/toolbox/pmdump/ .
Windows 7 Expert

Strange issue. I had a similar problem with the RC on my desktop, i.e. memory usage would go up to 6GB+ after leaving it on for a few hours and obviously, there was nothing running that would use that amount of memory (RTM- it "idles" at around 1.4GB). Like everyone is saying, if possible, try a fresh install of W7 and see if that corrects the problem.

buwish said:
Strange issue. I had a similar problem with the RC on my desktop, i.e. memory usage would go up to 6GB+ after leaving it on for a few hours and obviously, there was nothing running that would use that amount of memory (RTM- it "idles" at around 1.4GB). Like everyone is saying, if possible, try a fresh install of W7 and see if that corrects the problem.


Doing a fresh installation is like escaping
I want to find the source of the problem and solve it


First : Every time I launch TuneUp Utilities 2010 , It shows me the following error about deleted prefetch folder :



Second - I found something important related to my problem:

Each time I use my hard drives (copying, cutting, writing, downloading files on any of my 3 hard disks) , the speed of memory leak , increasing.(the memory usage goes up more quickly)
It seems that the source of my problem is related to H.D.Ds.
I already defragged all of my hard disks but it didn't help.
Any other solution ?
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