Memory Usage Goes Up Gradually (Memory Leak)

Discussion in 'Windows 7' started by raya2, May 25, 2010.

  1. raya2

    raya2 MDL Novice

    May 25, 2010
    15
    0
    0
  2. Trinket

    Trinket MDL Senior Member

    Feb 20, 2010
    487
    169
    10
    You may spend weeks on this... but I'm afraid sometimes you will just have to reinstall. I've had problems like this in the past and it was hard to diagnose and fix and only reinstall would fix it. :(
     
  3. raya2

    raya2 MDL Novice

    May 25, 2010
    15
    0
    0
    Unfortunately I spent two weeks on this in many forums but don't have any luck
    you talk about reinstalling windows , you mean formatting windows drive and installing a fresh installation or just reinstalling and repairing the current windows ?
     
  4. TheSkaffer

    TheSkaffer MDL Senior Member

    May 16, 2010
    288
    56
    10
    Why do you not start by uninstalling some software that are clearly consuming above 100MB of memory. Why is Hypersnap running twice? Do you have any java based application installed (java is well known for memory leaks).

    You say you had the memory modules for 2 years, well, it may come as a surprise but software tend to develop towards higher memory usage in time and if you upgraded a number of applications, without increasing your available ram, then you might have to rethink your strategy.
     
  5. tcntad

    tcntad MDL Guru

    Oct 26, 2009
    4,487
    1,505
    150
    I also (my computer) suffers from memory leaks but only when copying from my external drive (Seagate 400GB i think) and storage drive (WD Green 1.5TB)..
    Goes up to 2GB or slightly more of my 3GB ram.. reinstalling OS doesnt work either, nothing in taskmanager indicates something using 1GB ram (since 7 uses bout 1GB itself).
     
  6. chokobanana

    chokobanana MDL Junior Member

    Aug 28, 2009
    50
    0
    0
    That doesn't sound like a memory leak. Isn't Windows 7 just making use of the memory (caching) ?
     
  7. ippytattoo

    ippytattoo MDL Senior Member

    Jul 17, 2008
    401
    85
    10
    #7 ippytattoo, May 25, 2010
    Last edited: May 25, 2010
    Have you tried looking at programs that start automatically? I use tuneup utilities to make sure that there are no unwanted programs running in the background as these can significantly affect mem usage.

    P.S. I am running win7 x64 ult and my mem usage with pc running constantly is approx 2GB (of 8GB installed) at idle.
     
    Stop hovering to collapse... Click to collapse... Hover to expand... Click to expand...
  8. tcntad

    tcntad MDL Guru

    Oct 26, 2009
    4,487
    1,505
    150
    Havent happened before, im sure of that.. i know w7 cache's memory and that fine with me, who wants 3-4 GB unused memory ?

    but when i start copy files to/from my external drive or storage drive, specially larger files, GB's and up the memory usage climbs, sometimes it uses all 3 GB for just copying an iso file (of lets say windows 7).
     
  9. Trinket

    Trinket MDL Senior Member

    Feb 20, 2010
    487
    169
    10
    Well, you could try to repair, this will only overwrite your system files but keep your other settings, etc. But yes you should of course check your start up items, and I would go ahead and unload all CPL start items (soundcard cpl, etc.). Plus I would just uninstall TuneUp Utilities for now, see how that goes. If I were you I would also see if there is another or newer version of your network drivers available, those caused me pain in the past. Maybe you just loaded Hypersnap to make your screenshots there, but make sure you also don't have that on startup items. Have you tried disabling Avast to see what happens?
     
  10. raya2

    raya2 MDL Novice

    May 25, 2010
    15
    0
    0
    but none of my softwares shown in process explorer , uses more than 50mb memory
    I only uses hypersnap for taking pictures and most of the times it is not running
    yes I am using JonDo that uses JAVA
     
  11. t0mn8r

    t0mn8r MDL Junior Member

    Aug 21, 2009
    70
    7
    0
    Can of worms but here goes:
    I don't see anything in particular that's wrong. My own memory usage is also about 1.7GB but I run 8GB of RAM which helps large file transfers to my backup drives.

    My suggestion is 4GB of RAM which I consider the minimum for W7. W7 doesn't release the cache memory the way Windows Server 2008 (including R2) does. I personally do not consider this to be a bug just the behaviour of the OS.

    I regularly restore using a system image with all of the applications installed so therefore I never have any issues with a "dirty" system.

    HTH
     
  12. burfadel

    burfadel MDL EXE>MSP/CAB

    Aug 19, 2009
    2,627
    3,856
    90
  13. raya2

    raya2 MDL Novice

    May 25, 2010
    15
    0
    0
    Maybe you are right and win7 needs more memory
    But I installed Windows 7 about 3 months ago with the same 2GB RAMs but I didn't have this memory leaking problem until 2 weeks ago . What do you say about this ?
     
  14. raya2

    raya2 MDL Novice

    May 25, 2010
    15
    0
    0
  15. fdjc

    fdjc MDL Member

    Feb 27, 2010
    193
    21
    10
    Is the CPU HT? (Hyper Threaded)

    TBH the handiest thing would be a format and reinstall dude.

    Its a piece of software that's doing it, maybe even some virus or worm.
    Scanned with Malwarebytes or SuperAntiSpyware Free?

    Wouldn't really trust Avast tbh either. Try an online scan of like Norton, eset nod or kaspersky
     
  16. sam3971

    sam3971 MDL Guru

    Nov 14, 2008
    2,235
    311
    90
    One word guys "Superfetch." Remember what that does? You will use a lot of Ram on your system because that service does that on purpose. Try disabling the service dude.
     
    Stop hovering to collapse... Click to collapse... Hover to expand... Click to expand...
  17. Trinket

    Trinket MDL Senior Member

    Feb 20, 2010
    487
    169
    10
    #18 Trinket, May 26, 2010
    Last edited: May 26, 2010
    I think you should uninstall Avast completely. If you're not sure/can't see what's running in the background, use the freeware version of Anvir TaskManager, this will allow you to see all startup items, even the ones that are normally hidden. After you reboot, run your computer for a while, look at the memory usage. If you're not sure about the network driver, go to Device Manager and disable the network card, and see if that helps. You can enable it again if that's not the cause. I know your network card is installed with a driver already, what I was talking about is maybe that driver is not right for it. The reason I push this is because on 2 different Windows installation I had the network driver cause system crashes. Did you try booting in safe mode to see how your memory is doing? Etc. If all is said and done, install Avira instead of Avast -- it's better anyway ;)
     
  18. ayampetok

    ayampetok MDL Novice

    Sep 14, 2009
    6
    0
    0
    Some people reported memory leak using Avast Internet Security 5 beta.
    Try google "avast win7 memory leak".

    Your best shot is try uninstall your programs one by one, and check if the memory leak still there or not.
    Use process explorer to see commit history and physical memory history growth, like how it described in avast forum.