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I bought a new PC that has 40gb of ram, and just installed a clean windows on it, with only chrome and few tabs open my ram usage is 21 GB ! the numbers in task manager don't add up to even 30% of this usage, chrome is only using 1gb of ram and the other processes are using less. I searched and followed many tutorials to track the problem that seems to be in the paged pool, I used poolmon.exe and I found the most 2 using paged pool memory are MmSt and Ntff which are related to windows file management and ntfs filesystem, most tutorials and answers suggest that high usage is because of a faulty driver or something similar and updating or removing it fixes the issue. what should I do knowing that the problem is from windows itself ? remove windows ?

ram usage

And here is the output of poolmon.exe :

enter image description here

Rammap output: enter image description here

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  • Is this after a clean reboot? Not shutdown and restart, an actual reboot.
    – Mokubai ♦
    Commented May 19, 2021 at 9:50
  • The OS simply doesn't care about 'saving RAM' when it has RAM to spare. If it sits idle it's just wasted. You bought all the RAM, let it be used. It speeds your machine up. Here I have 64GB, typically, after a couple of days' usage, it "using" maybe 50 of that. That's exactly what it's supposed to do. No pressure, no worry. Not even any swap used yet.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented May 19, 2021 at 9:51
  • Can you go into the Resource Monitor (linked at the bottom of task manager in your screenshot) select the Memory tab and then sort by the "Commit" column (click on the header). Would be good to see what is in there.
    – Mokubai ♦
    Commented May 19, 2021 at 10:36
  • @Mokubai I went to resource monitor and it is the same as the task manager, no processes are eating ram, the process using most ram is perfmon which is the process of resource monitor itself, it is using 890mb. the OS is the guy using the ram not the programs, I am 100% sure of that.
    – Elyes Lounissi
    Commented May 19, 2021 at 10:53
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    I hate to disagree with everyone, but my system has been up for 6 days, and my paged pool looks nothing like the authors. I have nearly 50 GB out of 64 GB. However, Chrome is using 2 GB out of that 14 GB, that is being used. The author has something going on that should be identified. I would need a screenshot of RAMMap to diagnose honestly.
    – Ramhound
    Commented May 19, 2021 at 11:11

1 Answer 1

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You are looking at the cache memory of Windows, which is typically 50% of the RAM.

This memory is not reserved, and will be used by Windows for other uses, if required.

This is standard behavior in most operating systems, not only in Windows.

So don't worry - your memory is still there and available for use.

This is a classical situation that comes up all the time on our site: Large memory seems to be used, but looking at the processes there is no explanation. It is used by Windows, certainly, and the output from poolmon is open to various interpretations. The best answer is: If you are not running out of memory, then everything is working correctly. Keep an eye on the used memory figures and see if they increase appreciably without you doing anything to cause it. If it doesn't happen, then no point in worrying.

In addition, you are using Windows Server, which is also a File Server for the local network. As such, it will tend to keep more data in RAM, to better serve the local network. The fact that in your case the network is made up of only your computer will not change its behavior.

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  • So typically windows will always be using 20Gb of ram on a 40Gb system ? and if other processes need the ram it will free it ? I am afraid that I will run out of ram because after restarting ram usage is low and then it is gradually increasing, after 6 hours of use it reached 21Gb then I shut it down. Won't it go beyond that if I leave my workstation working for 3 days or a week ? or fill the whole 40 gigs and leave me with a ram shortage ?
    – Elyes Lounissi
    Commented May 19, 2021 at 9:41
  • It's not really "using" the memory and it's still still available to be allocated for programs, in case that the programs gobble up the other 20 GB and still need more. In situations where the cache memory is much reduced, repeated disk accesses could be degraded, as there is less chance of finding disk data already in memory, so the data needs to be read again from the disk.
    – harrymc
    Commented May 19, 2021 at 9:47
  • The cache shows very differently and is the right hand very pale block beside the 20GB that is used. sure the cached is the other 20GB but it is not the "main" 20GB. Hover over the blocks shown under "Memory composition" and you get a description of each block, the largest 20GB used block will show "used by processes, drivers and the operating system", the block to the right will show "Standby: contains cached data and code not actively in use" you are looking at the wrong block and they do have a problem of some kind here
    – Mokubai ♦
    Commented May 19, 2021 at 9:49
  • @Mokubai: I don't get your remark. Where do you see "Memory composition" and where do you hover. On my computer I also have a large number for used memory, but no memory leak.
    – harrymc
    Commented May 19, 2021 at 10:15
  • @ElyesLounissi: To check if you have a memory leak in any of your programs, go in Task Manager to the Details tab, right-click on any header, Select columns, add "Memory (active private working set)", click OK, then click on the header to sort by descending order.
    – harrymc
    Commented May 19, 2021 at 10:18

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