Cached RAM Issue
August 6th, 2016
When my windows boots, it’ll show around 500mb cached ram, and 10GB is free. I had just went to msconfig and disabled useless services that I dont use anymore and rebooted. when it rebooted it showed the 10GB free, while writing this post it has went down to 8GB free and 2.5GB cached. when I run a game for hours, it will go down to 100mb or less free. I’ve read alot saying that it doesnt matter and wont make a difference, however when my free RAM is down to 400mb or less it seems to lag majorly. going from 60+fps on any game, to random lag spikes of 1fps, and it normally stays around 1fps for 90% of the time the game is running without any free ram. Should I reinstall windows 7? or install windows 8? what would help this situation?
How much is your page file ?
Are there any background apps that are running 24/7 ?
Did you disable any services that has a “Microsoft Corporation” written in the Manufacturer column ?
Check your resources either by Microsoft’s Resource Monitor or any 3rd party apps and see if there is something interesting in it.
How much is your page file ?
Are there any background apps that are running 24/7 ?
Did you disable any services that has a "Microsoft Corporation" written in the Manufacturer column ?
Check your resources either by Microsoft's Resource Monitor or any 3rd party apps and see if there is something interesting in it.
How would I check the page file?
No background apps running 24/7 aside from my anti-virus.
Did not disable any services with microsoft corporation.
I dont quite understand the Microsoft Resource Monitor.
run “taskmgr” , go to performance tab and click to the performance monitor on there
go to memory/ram tab on it and you will see detailed information about distribution.
cached does not mean anything bad , it is not same with the memory “in use” , cached means some codes and files(generally the most recently used ones + system related files) are cached in order to ease access on them. for example when run an exe large in size or run a software which needs to loads huge files for example 2-3 gb , the process is slow at first but when you close the software and restart again , it will load almost immediately.
the reason is the cached memory you are talking about , dont think like it is a memory in use , it is just a cache which can be overwritten by any actual memory demand from something else. i just looked mine , there is 16gb physical memory installed and 12 gb of it cached.
your av is kaspersky btw ?
go to http://www.blackviper.com/
to learn how to disable services through MSCONFIG is not as good as as going into services (services.msc) and doing it there
I dont quite understand the Microsoft Resource Monitor.
you want to see what’s using up the memory
sort your processes on “memory usage” column you may be running a program that has a memory leak
you can also check this in “task manager” under the “processes” tab
another thing you can try is
go into control panel
click “system”
then “advanced system settings”
then “settings..” under performance
under the “advanced” tab tick “programs”
run "taskmgr" , go to performance tab and click to the performance monitor on there
go to memory/ram tab on it and you will see detailed information about distribution.
cached does not mean anything bad , it is not same with the memory "in use" , cached means some codes and files(generally the most recently used ones + system related files) are cached in order to ease access on them. for example when run an exe large in size or run a software which needs to loads huge files for example 2-3 gb , the process is slow at first but when you close the software and restart again , it will load almost immediately.
the reason is the cached memory you are talking about , dont think like it is a memory in use , it is just a cache which can be overwritten by any actual memory demand from something else. i just looked mine , there is 16gb physical memory installed and 12 gb of it cached.
your av is kaspersky btw ?
Avast Internet Security.
I have attempted to close the biggest resource program, which is FFXIV (Game) multiple times and it still seems to have plenty of cached ram.
AKA 12238 total
5094 Cached
6068 Available
1036 Free
Yes 6GB is available, BUT when i get this low on FREE, it WILL lag my game terribly. it has not been bad at 1036 free, but when it goes down to 500 or less, it’ll lag horribly and the only fix is to reboot my pc.
go to http://www.blackviper.com/
to learn how to disable services through MSCONFIG is not as good as as going into services (services.msc) and doing it there
I dont quite understand the Microsoft Resource Monitor.
you want to see what's using up the memory
sort your processes on "memory usage" column you may be running a program that has a memory leak
you can also check this in "task manager" under the "processes" tab
another thing you can try is
go into control panel
click "system"
then "advanced system settings"
then "settings.." under performance
under the "advanced" tab tick "programs"
Programs were already ticked and i noticed it said. “Total paging file size for all drivers : 12238 MB”
free + cached = memory available for use so this shouldnt effect performance. what you said looks more like a symptom of excessive memory in use. and that kind of usage can not be caused by any service or process you can disable. it is directly related to either settings which prevents system freeing memory or an AV software or a presence of malware. did you do anything before this has started ? for example installing a software , changing settings of av or anything ?
to help you a little more let me give you a few definition related to memory.
physical memory : actual amount of ram that is physically installed on your motherboard.
pagefile : a part of your system hard drive which can be used as a memory if necessary . it is equal to physical memory by default.
virtual memory or total memory : is equal to physical memory + pagefile. it is generally 2 times of the physical memory installed since pagefile is equal to it by default.
shared system memory : it is the amount of memory which system keeps ready for use for other hardware components on demand , mostly GPUs , it is not same with system reserved memory and by default it is 1/4 of virtual memory.
https://technet.microsoft.com/tr-tr/sysinternals/processexplorer
download this and run this as admin(important) at the background always , click either physical memory graph or system commit graph on the top to open a tab.
now i need the screenshot of this tab on 2 occasions 1- just after you have restarted pc
2- just after the your lag starts
your problems seems like related to kernel memory which is mainly effected by AV software and drivers. disabling any service unlikely fix anything since their usage is memory is classified under the “in use” memory which does not reach at its peak in your case. also i noticed you didnt write memory “in use” which can be seen from the performance monitor i told on previous post.
any help here ?
How to Clear Windows 7 Cache
http://www.wikihow.com/Clear-Windows-7-Cache
"Total paging file size for all drivers : 12238 MB"
under memory intensive operations windows will fill the paging file to the size of total ram
you can try setting a fixed page file size like 1gb (1024mb for both min & max)
this will minimize disk read/write operations
you on an SSD ?
in taskmgr is there any programs that seem to be using an excessive amount of memory ?
12238 total
5094 Cached
6068 Available
1036 Free
windows is superposed to release Cached memory when needed elsewhere
free + cached = memory available for use so this shouldnt effect performance. what you said looks more like a symptom of excessive memory in use. and that kind of usage can not be caused by any service or process you can disable. it is directly related to either settings which prevents system freeing memory or an AV software or a presence of malware. did you do anything before this has started ? for example installing a software , changing settings of av or anything ?
to help you a little more let me give you a few definition related to memory.
physical memory : actual amount of ram that is physically installed on your motherboard.
pagefile : a part of your system hard drive which can be used as a memory if necessary . it is equal to physical memory by default.
virtual memory or total memory : is equal to physical memory + pagefile. it is generally 2 times of the physical memory installed since pagefile is equal to it by default.
shared system memory : it is the amount of memory which system keeps ready for use for other hardware components on demand , mostly GPUs , it is not same with system reserved memory and by default it is 1/4 of virtual memory.
https://technet.microsoft.com/tr-tr/sysinternals/processexplorer
download this and run this as admin(important) at the background always , click either physical memory graph or system commit graph on the top to open a tab.
now i need the screenshot of this tab on 2 occasions 1- just after you have restarted pc
2- just after the your lag starts
your problems seems like related to kernel memory which is mainly effected by AV software and drivers. disabling any service unlikely fix anything since their usage is memory is classified under the "in use" memory which does not reach at its peak in your case. also i noticed you didnt write memory "in use" which can be seen from the performance monitor i told on previous post.
I have made screenshots of about 10 minutes AFTER the lag started to began. (only 4ish hours of having game open, normally takes 6ish to lag badly) I also closed out chrome, steam, and any program that could be using RAM. aside from the AV)
BEFORE Reboot
AFTER Reboot
Also to answer the other persons question
I am running 250GB SSD & 1TB HDD
and there was no programs running at the time that it had 1GB free only. everything was closed aside from AV, also decided to get a new AV now. (not because of this but because I felt like it)
250GB SSD
try moving you page file to the 1TB drive
google “page file SSD” for some discussion on this topic
it only do this for the one game or all games
it lag any other times or just when gaming ?
250GB SSD
try moving you page file to the 1TB drive
google "page file SSD" for some discussion on this topic
it only do this for the one game or all games
it lag any other times or just when gaming ?
I disabled the page files on the SSD, and enabled it for the 1TB drive… It would make sense that the SSD could have caused issues because the SSD is one of the newer parts in my system. also rebooted!
I believe it does this with all games that are running for excess amount of hours, the results should still stay the same EVEN if its more than one session (not tested, but I believe that is true)
The computer itself doesnt seem to lag, only the games as they require alot more than just basic browsing.
I run a bot on a specific mmorpg for gaining money, the bot runs around 12 hours each day and rests over night. I reboot my system when I wake up, and normally once or twice through out the day when I noticed any Odd/Rapid lag spikes of 1fps.
Lets hope changing the page files will do anything!
EDIT:
I know if no solutions do come by, I will certainly be purchasing more RAM to fill my 32GB (instead of 12GB)
i cant look at your screenshots , they seem offline and it is better you paste them here with IMG code instead of standard one so everyone can see to offer different solutions.
if you buy 32 gb ram , you just postpone the issue for a few hours. your problem is not the amount of memory. every single windows computer starts with 1-2gb of in use memory where rest is free. then those free starts converting to cached as you do things. thats what is normal. your problem starts at there , caching should have been stopped after a threshold for example when 1 gb of free memory left and available cached content must be replaced with new content in case of demand. that process is handled by cpu not by windows , thats the problem , if it was windows , you could set max amount of memory can be cached but i dont know any method of it , even if there is ; it is possibly very technical.
whats your cpu model btw ? and did you do anything specific before this problem has started ?
edit : i found a topic related to same problem and on the last post , a poster claimed there is a solution but use it with your own discretion. you can read previous pages also but people are generally saying the same thing i told above.
http://www.sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/214079-limit-ram-cache-4.html
on this topic OP is suffering from an issue related to a game and i wondered if it is the same game
i cant look at your screenshots , they seem offline and it is better you paste them here with IMG code instead of standard one so everyone can see to offer different solutions.
if you buy 32 gb ram , you just postpone the issue for a few hours. your problem is not the amount of memory. every single windows computer starts with 1-2gb of in use memory where rest is free. then those free starts converting to cached as you do things. thats what is normal. your problem starts at there , caching should have been stopped after a threshold for example when 1 gb of free memory left and available cached content must be replaced with new content in case of demand. that process is handled by cpu not by windows , thats the problem , if it was windows , you could set max amount of memory can be cached but i dont know any method of it , even if there is ; it is possibly very technical.
whats your cpu model btw ? and did you do anything specific before this problem has started ?
edit : i found a topic related to same problem and on the last post , a poster claimed there is a solution but use it with your own discretion. you can read previous pages also but people are generally saying the same thing i told above.
http://www.sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/214079-limit-ram-cache-4.html
on this topic OP is suffering from an issue related to a game and i wondered if it is the same game
The “Better” old image uploading website named Tinypic, is not allowed here anymore. do u have any other image provider that I could upload to for u?
convert them to JPEG and post them in the topic
preview your post and use the “img” tag
and I can open them in FF after re-enabling cookies for the site
also
try running the games in “compatibility mode”
they my not have memory management compatible with 7
I downloaded RAMMap which seems to free my Standby/Cached RAM at the click of a button, actually works! but ill post back on some information tomorrow and see if we can solve it. Page files didnt seem to solve anything, ill post pictures again tomorrow for u
rammap is reliable program from sysinternals ; microsoft’s own tech staff. i used some of their tools but not rammap , so check if there is any setting in it for max limit of cpu caching or cached memory. if there is a disable option for caching , dont use it. it will increase the load time of everything , especially when you run them second time.
you can send screenshots but i dont think they will help anymore your problem is unusual , if it was “in use” memory which caused the problem then disabling services and such could have helped but when “cached” , “system reserved” , “changed” memory causes the problem , there is not much to do. they are handled mostly hardware based not software. on the topic you found rammap , there were microsoft professionals also replied but have given no solution. if there was a solution which can be done inside the windows ; they would know it better than me.
there are a few things you can do 1- find 20-30 gb of video or movie files , copy paste them from ssd to standard drive or vice versa for a few times while you are monitoring the cached memory. it will increase as usual but after a time it should be rewritten during the process if not , your problem starts. i m asking this to understand if the nature of problem is related to 1 specific software such as a game or there is a problem in general. if this doesnt cause the slowdown you had mentioned , then problem related to a software you use.
2- whats your cpu model ? since caching handling by cpu , using latest drivers for it , along with chipset ; may fix the problem. 3 – whats your motherboard and its model ? and run dxdiag , under the system information there is BIOS , write here its version and date. if there is a problem related to specific bios version , i can check it.
4- try rammap freeing memory option when lag starts to be terrible. does it immediately fix the things ? by checking it , you will understand that if problem solely related to cached memory or something else.
unfortunately i dont think that your problem can be solved by normal means through helpdesks of any kind cuz i also searched similar type of problems on every different kind of forum and there is no solution. but we can narrow the scope and make you live easier with your problem where you use rammap once every a few hours to clear your cached memory.
edit : i have found solution for disabling memory caching or some part of it , funny thing is ; it had a specific name “superfetch” http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-performance-tweak,2911-5.html
there are information about it and it is easy to disable. since you have ssd , disabling it will cause less advantages for you but i recommend you to do as a last option.
my values are ; if you want to compare. the article actually says those should be disabled automatically on ssd drivers by windows but in my case , 2 of them are enabled.
0 for EnableBootTrace
3 for EnablePrefetcher
3 for EnableSuperfetch
1. Cleared my ram using RAMMAP and while transferring 7.77GB from 1TB HDD to 250GB SSD. there is only “40” free. 5 minutes after, i deleted the movies on the SSD, and there was 5GB Free. not ALOT but it did free some. Decided to transfer a single 2.6GB movie. “44” free. deleted it ASAP, 2.7GB free. transferred the same movie again and I ran another game. “Starcraft 2” It didnt seem to lag much but it did lag some. after shutting off the game after 5 minutes of testing, 1975 free RAM. then I deleted the video and 4.6GB free.
2. Intel i7-4790k 4.0GHz – I normally update all I can but it has been awhile so I’ll do it again.
3. ASRock Fatal1ty Gaming Fatal1ty Z97 Killer – 05/12/15 Ver 04.06.05
4. I can clear the RAM while gaming even and it clears it all and works fine ingame, never had to reboot yesterday.
EDIT:
When I woke up, I had 4.3GB Free RAM. (Did a few hours of afk gaming last night) and after waking up, I checked this post, installed new video drivers and looked at dxdiag. now my FREE memory is 1.3GB (this is without ANY games or extensive programs)
EDIT 2: I am now updating all drivers, and will check results. if they are not better, I will download Windows 10, over night. and see how that works. I do not mind as I’ve heard it seems to actually work better for my main bot game, Final Fantasy XIV. atleast DX11 mode runs better on windows 10, I’ve heard. (less crashes etc.)
EDIT 3:
Seems I cant even update my processor unless I have Windows 10…. ill download it and install. ill let u know what the results are.
we have the same cpu
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/20775/Intel-Chipset-Device-Software-INF-Update-Utility-
download and install this , it is the only thing you need.
as for motherboard yours should be one of those but version numbers and dates of bios do not match. and i looked at notes , there is no mentioning of a serious bug so it probably wont solve your issue.
http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal1ty%20Z97X%20Killer/?cat=Download&os=BIOS
http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal1ty%20Z97%20Killer/?cat=Download&os=BIOS
i strongly suspect avast also. just try uninstalling it and move movie files again then run the game and check for lag. at least now we know that your problem is not related to a specific software or game but a general problem. av software can take over many things and may cause memory related problems in general , is it cracked ? is your windows original ? those things maybe also a factor.
12 gb of ram yours is 4-4-4 ? and are they identical ?
also check your registry values if it is same with mine which i told above. and dont install win 10
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25848/Intel-Beta-Graphics-Driver-for-Windows-7-8-1-10-15-40-
ah, thats what i was downloading… IG i should have read the name better :p I already updated mb chipset. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314
Thats my RAM, however 4GB of it is different, should be same model and everything but i cant confirm that its 100% the same. but close!
______________
I uninstalled avast after making this post to ensure it wasnt that, also installed a new one called Avira.
also, tried ur other methods on the SSD just to test them. (all but one, but im about to try that one if this processor update doenst work.
EDIT:
I updated the processor as u said, and transferred something. im at about 0 free and thats not changing much (0-10 free) but it doesnt appear to be lagging on the FFXIV game that it normally does. ill do a full day NORMAL test and post results later today.
EDIT2: Running the game without anything else, aside from Antivirus for a hour or 2. seems to only be 643 cached and 9GB free… seems like a big change but we’ll see after 8+ hours!
EDIT3: Shortly after Edit2, it went up to 1.8GB cached.
caching will constantly and dynamically be changed , it is whats normal. so dont stuck about caching and its size. atm of writing i have 2 gb in use 13 gb cached and 1 gb free and i have 0 lag whatever i do. your problem is related to rewriting cache. just test if you are having lag again , other numbers are unimportant. if your problem persists there are 2 things you can do until someone with a better idea for solution comes up.
1- periodically using rammap to prevent lag.
2- disabling caching completely by setting all 3 registry values i had written above to 0 and restarting system. this may offer a better solution since you have the ssd available. i mean you either wont suffer or suffer just a little disadvantages of disabling it. it is explained by screenshots on the tomshardware link i have provided.
btw whats the brand and model of your ssd ? i can check its firmware too to see if any serious issue about it. for example there was an issue with samsung 840-850 pro series , a very serious issue which was patched later. i excluded malware possibility cuz you dont have any other symptoms but you told that you are using a bot for a mmo game , those things are tend to be malicious so check it.
———–
edit : today i did some test with large movie files , i also saw only 0-5 mb free memory available and just then i tried a few very demanding games. i had 0 lag , games was able to write down their own demand by clearing cached memory for their use and converting it to “in use” while free stayed 0-5 mb still. i was expecting a threshold for that but it seems it doesnt so even 0 mb free memory should cause any lag as long as not all the rest is “in use” but “cached”. this proves that your problem again about rewriting cache. 14 gb of cached video file may be cleaned either by deleting them as you said but there is another way , when you scan them with your AV software , it may also cleans up. majority of av software works like that , keep not scanned but processed files other than executables on cache to scan if only necessary ; for example when it interacts with an executable such as a media player. thats where the avast comes in , it may prevent rewriting cache so try another thing for some time. i again strongly suggest that to check farming bot , they are both illegal and one of the best methods of carrying out malware. even if there is no malware , its poor coding may cause your condition. so check the situation without running it at all.
The game seemed to still lag at moments, but with farther testing and research. It may have BEEN the game in specific that caused lag. I wanted to install windows 10 in hopes that it improves performance on the game. (Apprently its a video driver issue or something) where the game would randomlly lag to death until it crashed. SO FAR after 1+ hour, ive had NO lag on the game. however. the version of windows 10 i downloaded was false advertised as both 32-64bit, but it was only 32-bit. so i ended up installing windows 7 ultimate (instead of basic) and the game SEEMS to be running fine on a nearly clean install. If i run into problems, ill try the few things u said and ill let you know!
Considering u want to know my SSD and it wont be a bad option to update it.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147372
this ssd had serious firmware issue when it was released first but you said everything ok for now so you can assume its firmware is updated. if everything is ok , do not try anything i said until your problem reappears if that specific game ; is the game you use bot , it is very likely that it can cause this kind of problem after running 12 hours.
this ssd had serious firmware issue when it was released first but you said everything ok for now so you can assume its firmware is updated. if everything is ok , do not try anything i said until your problem reappears if that specific game ; is the game you use bot , it is very likely that it can cause this kind of problem after running 12 hours.
Well I realized that it even lagged badly every few minutes sometimes until it felt like crashing. it just was lucky from time to time and didnt lag until a few hours. after doing extensive testing.
AS of now, no issues. was even running the bot (ffxiv) and starcraft 2 on a very demanding arcade mode. (ffxiv on max settings DX11/ and sc2 on high settings)
I wanted to update firmware anyway but I could not find any for the 850 evo model, only 840 and below.
I didn’t get it. First of all the page file is virtual memory and is big as memory itself, so it should be 12GB. You can disable it and enable it again but you will not do anything because page file and virtual memory is there to pc work normal and faster. I hear for the first time that someone swap partitions for page file and I don’t understand what is so wrong with 12GB of ram, can you start the Photoshop?
I have 8GB of ram and everything is perfect, had some issues with games but that is more cpu-s fault.
his problem is not running out of physical memory but a strange one.
when you do many different things on a pc for hours such as playing games, use winrar , watch movies etc.. all files related to those things gets cached into the memory to reach them faster in case of re-running. cached memory can not be seen by normal means but advanced tools and built in performance monitor of windows. so if he has 2 gb in use and 10 gb cached , you will see only 2 gb is used where rest is free when you look with standard task manager. cached memory is actually free memory , you can think it like the files in a formatted harddrive. when you format a drive you dont delete files but the path to them so drive is seen empty and those files can be overwritten on demand. cached memory is the same thing , after you close a game which uses 4 gb of memory for example , windows along with cpu just deletes the path to those files on physical memory but do not delete the actual files so they stay cached. in any demand a new connection to them is re-established for faster access or they starts to be replaced by adding newest files to memory and deleting the oldest when in use memory + cached memory reaches the number of total physical installed memory.
thats where OP problem starts , his cached memory can not be replaced which is an automatic process so system treats it , like 12gb in use and starts using pagefile which is really slower compared to physical memory. on most cases this was caused by a specific software with poor coding , if there is a software candidate for the OP ; it should be either bot software for mmo or an antivirus. there is no other permanent solution i found other than disabling caching completely.
Maybe it can help to wipe free space than?
I’m not that good in english so don’t mind me, just suggest and want to help.