Windows 10 - Nonsense memory usage

Let's start this off with saying that I know exactly how things work in computer and by memory leak I mean a piece of data stored in memory that is accidentally put there or put there for reason but accidentally never deleted, even if the program is closed, so it's wasting our memory basically.

My problem now

I just booted up my computer, running Windows 10 build 17134. I see 40% memory usage, normal, right? I have 16 GB of ram, and that means that 6.9 GB is in use. Even if you say it's normal, don't, because when I open up Task Manager and look at running processes (the Details tab) and at their memory usage, adding all the memory usage of all the processes together, I get 1.500 MB which is 1.5 GB. That isn't near to the 6.9 GB memory usage, it's showing. How is that? A 5.4 GB memory leak or something else?

Some say that it's old graphics card drivers causing memory leaks but I can't really upgrade my graphics card drivers because then it stops working (no video output). I have disabled most of my start up programs and third-party services, and I'm left with Avast Antivirus, Rainmeter and NVIDIA nView and hamachi's service.

[NEW] Problem reduced but not fixed

My computer updated now and when it booted up I saw 2 GB memory usage with the same start up programs and everything nothing has changed except I got update. It's a lot better now, compared to the 6.9 GB in the same conditions I have 2 GB or below. Even with my memory hungry browser (Vivaldi) with only tab being StackExchange, memory usage is 3.3 GB.

I'm still not quite sure why doesn't the memory usages add up in the Task Manager, we have discussed about via the comments and I know that the problem is in the Task Manager not in Windows (or memory leak of some kind) but I mean, Microsoft, is it that hard?

My only question remaining is why in the world doesn't the memory usages add up in the Task Manager ("Details" tab), or am I looking for the wrong information in there?

For any additional information needed, please leave a comment.

YoungDev

Posted 2019-05-13T14:10:34.017

Reputation: 43

Are you looking at processes from all users, which includes users like "LOCAL SERVICE", "NETWORK SERVICE", and "SYSTEM"? Check the Details tab in Task Manager... – Jeff Zeitlin – 2019-05-13T14:24:26.800

@CaldeiraG I get what you mean, it's okay for Windows to use my ram, it's some cache to make my experiencce better when starting up programs and so, but shouldn't that be visible in the Task Manager under some kind of service? – YoungDev – 2019-05-13T14:53:42.500

A screenshot of RAMMAP might be helpful in a case like this. Task Manager memory usage isn't very helpful. There are a lot of reasons Task Manager would not report every single service and/or process running on the system,

– Ramhound – 2019-05-13T14:55:43.607

@Ramhound I will check that out now. – YoungDev – 2019-05-13T14:56:36.370

@Ramhound Here's the "Use counts": https://imgur.com/a/3A1Uxw9

– YoungDev – 2019-05-13T15:01:21.437

All helpful relevant information should be in the question body instead of a comment. Be sure you use the upload image functionality instead. You can simply provide the link to the image and somebody will inline the image for you. – Ramhound – 2019-05-13T15:12:12.420

What's the most useful information in the RamMap that I should include? – YoungDev – 2019-05-13T15:12:58.977

You seem to be posting out of emotion. Even though you haven't provided enough info about your system to tell. From an abstract point of view, all I can tell you is that Windows are just pieces of toys, and this has gone worse and worse since XP, and become a hell in W8 and later. Probably your Windows machine is doing some unnecesary operation in the background wasting resources for nothing you asked for. Also, Windows has allways been an i/o cookie monster, maybe they're trying to solve them with huge ram caches using unused spac, however, based on experience with MS, I doubt so – DGoiko – 2019-05-13T20:51:31.333

I found something, if I also made the "Memory (shared working set)" visible in Task Manager "details" tab and added up all the memory (private working set) + memory(shared working set) I get alot bigger number, around 3 GBs, but the things is... Task Manager shows total of 7.8 GBs so the difference is still huge... – YoungDev – 2019-05-16T13:32:48.497

I'm trying it right now, I will let you know if I spot any improvements! – YoungDev – 2019-05-15T13:17:17.840

Superfetch isn't using a lot of memory at all, around 100 MB and disk usage for Superfecth service is also very low and almost non existent while opening different kinds of application so that isn't the problem I guess... – YoungDev – 2019-05-15T13:24:16.657

As far as i have noticed, windows 10 uses most ram it needs implicitly, so maybe superfetch does the same. – ymdred16 – 2019-05-16T12:07:08.020