High Ram Usage.

A few days ago when I opened Task Manager I noticed the RAM usage was at 48% - normal use is no higher than 30%. I then ran MemInfo and it also showed 48%. I restarted and everything was back to normal.
What could possibly 'hide' in RAM that neither Task Manager nor MemInfo shows?

 

Attach the Performance tab, please?

 

Sorry satrow, this was a few days ago.

 

Your first image shows CPU usage at 7%. Next time that happens, resort the list by CPU column to see were the activity is.

 

I recently had an issue with runaway RAM that was caused by the Hard Disk Sentinel gadget. I was using the gadget to get a look at disk activity. Couldn't explain why the RAM usage kept climbing, so I started shutting things down.

I think the program somehow was storing data in RAM without it showing up as part of any process,. I added up the total used RAM in Task Mgr, and it was like 500 MB, and the system was using probably 1 GB, but HWiNFO was showing 6 GB before the Windows would start giving error messages that it was out of memory...

 

Looking at the screenshots, the total RAM used is not even 200 MB. And CPU uasge was at just 7 %. I'm baffled.

 

Yeah, Eldon. I wonder if the total you get from adding the RAM usage of apps in Task Manager should be added to the amount of RAM the system uses, as in on boot. By this I mean to get the total % as it shows up at the bottom of Task Manager. I can't remember where I saw the types of RAM separated, but I think I have seen in some app some RAM designated as system and then the rest overlayed...

 

I think I found the answer.
By default, Task Manager in Windows 7 shows only 1 memory column - Private Working Set.



Also selecting Working Set shows much higher values.



Here's a short informative article.
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ff382715.aspx

 

That makes sense. Wish I could remember what program I was looking at, but it may have been the difference between working set and private as the system memory and then the private overlayed to show the total memory used.

Thanks for looking into that...

 

I did a rough estimate, and it appears it works this way. Working set is what the system requires, including all processes. Private set is the extra that the app petitions for during use. That means you add two together to get the total. Maybe that's what you were saying, but I see how it works now. Have to add the two together to see how much RAM a process is actually using. I added the two together, and it matched the amount being shown in HWiNFO and the % in Task Manager at the bottom.

A little bit strange that MS didn't make "Total RAM" a column in Task Manager. That way you could use Private and then Total to see if a program is using an unusual amount of Private set RAM. Total is definitely not any of these in W7 columns header list:

Memory-Peak Working Set
Memory-Working Set Delta
Memory-Commit Size
Memory-Paged Pool
Memory-Non-paged Pool

I looked at all of them and they are way (very small numbers other than Peak Working Set which is a self-explainatory descriptor) lower than Working Set + Private Set or either one by itself, actually.

Good to finally get a handle on this...