My Laptop is consuming all the RAM despite no programs open

Question

My HP Pavilion G6 1160se Laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium x64 has a 4GB RAM and i5 Processor. The laptop is taking up all the RAM with no programs open. The Task Manager shows 100+ processes all the time. The RAM usage is 3.18-3.5 GB all the time. It doesn't go lower than this. In result the computer has become slow, sluggish and I can't open Chrome, Dw, Ps etc. The heat level Is going up due to this and the battery runs out in 1:30 hour max.

I have tried closing many processes and got down to 89 running but still didn't help.

I know about the superfetch thing but I haven't disabled it yet.

I have disabled unnecessary programs at startup.

I really need a solution to this please... help!

Answer 1

I figured out the problem. It was RAMDISK. I started it and it was mounted as a drive of 1.5 GB which was taken from the RAM. I uninstalled RAMDISK and removed the mounted drive and the computer is now running ok.

Answer 2

You'll need to pinpoint which process is eating up your RAM.

Try downloading the utility RAMMap - click on the processes tab and sort by "Total". You'll see which processes are taking up the most RAM and can go from there. You can also do the same on the "Files" tab, which may help in determining where the problem is.

You can also try Process Explorer, which is like a beefed up task manager to really drill down on the processes.

Answer 3

I think you have a driver issue. This is what users often don't know, that leaky drivers can use a lot of RAM (paged or nonpaged pool).

Look in Taskmgr if one of hte values is too high. If you have a high value use poolmon, find the tag and use findstr to find the driver which uses the tag.

findstr /s <TAG> *.sys

Answer 4

Try reinstalling the operating system. Or get some ram compression software. I use a mac and I got "memory clean" for free from the mac app store. Try the window's store or search online. If worst comes to worst get a new computer.

Answer 5

do you have the word "RAM DISC" listed in your computer? if so this explains a bit, but its behavior is unusual to say the least. it is there because someone needed more memory while they had no other way to create more so they made a Ramdisc and this method actually works in windows XP and some others but not as well as XP does with it. I have been fixing and troubleshooting computers since 1996 I am 42, I am a certified technician I say this to you so you know that this info comes from a good source. and I hope it helps good luck to you. if you hadn't said what you said above i would have then told you that you had a virus for sure, "this behavior in memory is a typical re-action from a Virus attack" to eat up memory like that while your at Idle is crazy. if you delete Ramdisc and the situation does not improve then i would certainly say it is in fact a Virus or a defect. But honestly Ramdisc does not normally act this way either see? it is a good trick infact., it is for low end computers that have very little memory. what this trick will do is give you a boost of speed but your memory amount is physically the same, if you have 2GB installed and use Ramdisc your still going to show 2GB see? but performance will certainly gain. if this situation continues i think you may still have a problem going on? please tell me if you have solved this issue. with uninstalling or re-creating RAMDISC..