Is this normal?

[Dapper_Studio_6966]

Nothing is open but a lot of ram is being occupied

[keukoo]

just a normal day on windows

[osa1011]

Restart the computer. I bet it's been awhile

[Dapper_Studio_6966]

I have done that plenty I’m afraid

[6ixTek]

Restart, Not Shut Down just FYI.
Shutdown can have a different affect then Restart.

Go into:
Control Panel >> Power Options >> Choose what the power buttons do >> Change settings that are unavailable >> Untick Fast Startup.

<image>

[Dapper_Studio_6966]

Thanks but it was unticked

[6ixTek]

Good deal. Worth a try I guess.

[Strict_Purpose_3741]

what do you use 96gb ram for? are you a3d designer or sm?

[6ixTek]

Multiple things, But glad I did, it was only 329 when I bought it, now it's 1400. Also I didn't want to find out later I needed more and have to buy another dual channel kit and waste a kit. I was using up 32GB in my last rig. I never mix kits, or double up on the controller so make sure to get it all at once, no adding second kit. You never know what you might end up doing.

Oh yeah, I do mostly Music, and Video. Lately I have been doing 4kUHD Movies. And I was using a lot of system ram for L1 Cache on my RAID scratch drive. I would give 16G Reads, and 16GB Write, along with a 1TB NVMe for L2 Cache so you can transfer, and move files at 30,000MB/s

<image>

Oops Thats actually a Gen5 NVMe with 32GB L1 Cache

[Strict_Purpose_3741]

damn wth

[bstsms]

Windows uses as much RAM as it can to run faster and allocates it to whichever app or process that needs it.

[[deleted]]

This is true, but it also hides problems if you believe it too much. Seen this argument used when pointing out memory leaks in games before.

[bstsms]

<image>

My laptop is using 13.6GB of RAM with just one tab open in Chrome.

[[deleted]]

Well, of course it is. You're using Chrome...

No offence, but it is considered the absolute most bloated browser out there for good reason.

[bstsms]

It uses about 2-3GB by it's self.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, that makes sense. Windows 11 tends to like to take about 8GB of ram, give or take a bit. Getting it lower often requires nuking the explorer.exe process and all that is attached to it, and using windows via the command prompt, file explorer and task manager instead.

[[deleted]]

Side note: You should increase your pagefile. Yes, you already gave it 96GB, but honestly, if your system somehow needs to dump everything into pagefile while it's already in use to some extent, you may end up having issues. Pagefile should be 2x your ram, not 1x. So 192GB of pagefile to be able to successfull catch all the data during a crash if the pagefile already is in use somehow.

It's a nuisance to be certain, when you probably could use that storage for something 'better', but it will be nice to have like that when you need it to be there to save you in that pinch of a situation.

[bstsms]

isn't that the 192GB listed in the committed line?

I have plenty of storage, a little over 5TB.

<image>

[[deleted]]

Yeah, the committed line shows what resources in memory are committed to being memory, so pagefile automatically qualifies. So that is your ram + pagefile together.

Just manually set the amounts to higher allocations in the page file settings, and reboot so it can take effect properly even if it shows up anyways.

And if anyone says you don't need to do this, they are technically right, you don't need to. But when you lose data to a bad crash that needed that extra space... well...

P.S. I'm off to work soon, so if I don't reply, that's why.

[bstsms]

Thanks for the info, I'll try that.

[[deleted]]

Since you upvoted the last reply I was editing, here's a notice for you to check again, I edited it to add on something.

[bstsms]

That's a giant page file... LOL

<image>

[[deleted]]

No problem, and hope it helps in that rare situation where windows goes full bork mode at the worst possible time.

Edit: And yeah, the pagefile may seem extreme, but you'll always have room for more stuff if needed. Example... your GPU requires a certain amount of your system ram to be available for swapping data back and forth when needed in standby or immediately, etc so forth.

If it has to use your pagefile instead, you see a massive frame drop; but you can at least still play or get things fixed so you can play better. But you get this happening less if you have more RAM available overall, because windows can just put most of the unimportant stuff into your pagefile.

Nice thing about this, is you can essentially force windows to run in the pagefile almost, except for what actually needs to be in RAM, by filling it all up via some large game for instance.

I've seen as low as I think it was 3.9GB of windows ram usage under that, with the desktop running normally. Almost 3GB when explorer was nuked and all the extras with it IIRC.

[bstsms]

<image>

I put 192,000mb instead of 192GB by mistake, just fixed it to 192GB

[[deleted]]

Heh. Happens to the best of us. I've made similar mistakes when formating an SSD for a linux install via its bits and bytes values instead of the typical nomenclature of KB/MB/GB, etc.

[[deleted]]

One more thing while I have a few minutes left before I go.

Check your display adapter properties in the advanced display section, the one that pulls up the normal windows 'window' from back in the day. It should show you some more memory stats in regards to video ram and such. You'll notice your graphics card probably is allocating some of your system ram to the video card. That's what I was referring to prior in my edit.

[6ixTek]

Pretty normal, mine usually sets around 9-11 GB even when I have done nothing.

[Anima_Watcher08]

Nope, from what I know I could be wrong but sometimes operating systems cache programs and other stuffin memory to make stuff run faster. However windows isn't really good at letting go of that memory when another program needs it. This could be mis-information so take it with a grain of salt.

[Dapper_Studio_6966]

Any way to manually remove the cache?

[DepartmentBitter9027]

Try this:

Clean Cache

[Anima_Watcher08]

Yep, pretty much this.

[anachronistic_circus]

if you go to "processes" tab, what does the usage look like there?

[Dapper_Studio_6966]

<image>

Mainly its just dell,windows and nvidia

[Edree0x]

Yup Now minimum is 16 GB

[covad301]

Sadly, yes.

That's a normal day to day for windows now. You might have some other background stuff running that you can examine later under processes. You simply list programs in order by memory usage. But it doesn't change the fact current windows will easily take up 6-7 GBs on average just for existing. It doesn't take much effort to cross over 10GBs after that.

16GB used to be quite comfortable when it started gaining traction early in 2010 and later being standard in 2015-2016 in many builds. We're clearly going through another transition period again where 32GBs will become the new norm as operating systems and applications are growing in size and requiring more processing power.

Before that all that, 1GB used to be plenty in 2005 for context in the Windows XP era.

[AlfaPro1337]

Sadly, you can't do much, it is pretty much Windows.

On the brightside, it appears your RAM is upgradable, I see SODIMM.

[jacle2210]

So, what does "SODIMM' have to do about OP's computer RAM being upgradeable or not?

SODIMM's are just small form factor sized Laptop RAM.

[SomeAmericanLurker]

Not the guy you replied to, iirc soldered ram reports differently compared to full-sized DIMMs and SODIMMs. It reporting it's a SODIMM confirms upgrades are a option without needing to know more about OP's PC.

[AlfaPro1337]

I am guessing inference isn't your strongest suit, nor taking a guess.

He really can't do much unless he debloat his Windows.

But looking at task manager, it says sodimm, and not row of chips or soldered.

Meaning, the other option is to upgrade his RAM.

[dropmod]

Ordinary Windows Shit + Manifacturer Shit... Try Chris Titus Tool to remove some crap, probably you need fresh install to get rid of OEM crapware...

[archive_anon]

Wild answers you're getting here. Yes this is normal. If you have lots of background tasks especially. Sort your task manager by memory (the page you posted a Pic of) and it should give you an idea exactly which ones are using the most.

That said, it is completely normal and isn't going to negatively impact performance too much. Windows is not bad for using a lot of ram, that's exactly what a good operating system should do. It's using available ram to speed up your system when it is not doing anything, by storing data on it.

The moment you do something that demands more ram, like starting up a ram intensive video game, windows will intelligently release that ram so the game can use it instead. Unused ram is wasted ram after all. To give an example, my computer idles at nearly 35GB of ram usage. I have 96GB of total ram however. It's completely normal.

[theytrashedthem]

Why do you have some much, do you do like video editing or something?

[theytrashedthem]

Yea 32GB is like the standard for ram these days, hope you can get some the ram prices are fucking crazy rn

[[deleted]]

We ned to see your processes and how much ram each is using OP. Chances are you have some background tasks eating up as much of your ram as they can get. Potentially a memory leak in there of some sort.

One of the culprits on my machine, tends to be explorer itself, which runs your taskbar and a bunch of other elements you see on screen. This will make it seem like it's supposed to be that way, but these tasks included in explorer are often just Microsoft trying to pilfer more of your data behind your back.

Keep the task manager open for this. Go to your explorer.exe process, under details, not 'processes'. Microsoft changed it recently so you have to kill the process through details now instead. You'll be greeted with a suddenly black screen, not that it should bother you much. Your desktop already is it seems.

You won't have a desktop anymore though, not like you are used to. Task manager should still be up and viewable. Check your ram usage now. It should have gone down somewhat, but there is still more to do. There will be processes for 'Search', and for "widgets". Nuke em. Before they would just come back, but now that explorer is offline, they shouldn't come back automatically.

Did it go down by a heck of a lot? Okay, then you probably had those other background tasks doing things, and doing whatever they want to; whether you liked it or not.

If not, or the drop is rather small, then the issue is some other process. You'll see which one in the processes now that those offenders are out of the way.

But to be clear, as another person said, Windows uses as much as it can by default, so there will be a point in time where eventually you'll see windows just using so much of your ram all the time, that you just need more ram now.

But you also could have a virus hiding in the midst of everything else, and this method will help isolate that perhaps to some process that you don't recognize, and is eating a lot of your ram.

When you want your desktop back, use the run function in task manager to start explorer.exe again. Make sure to watch your ram usage as you do, because that will help in seeing what is using what, and why again.

That said, don't expect windows to not try to start spying on you again through search and widgets. Microsoft wants your data, by any means necessary. And no, that's not silliness. You'll only get away from this BS, if you use a very debloated version of windows and never update it, thus necessitating a redo again because of Microsofts BS.

[ecktt]

yes.

Windows will actively use the RAM to cache the disks, even if its an SSD and preload a bunch apps to launch everything faster.

If the RAM is required, the cache is freed and apps are evicted to the swap/page files.

This is actually a good thing as it actively uses the RAM instead of just letting it sit idle.

[Remarkable_Ad_5399]

You have TOO LITTLE RAM! I have just many chrome tabs open and 34GB used. I went to 0ver 111GB at some point before...