Strange Win7 Ram issues

opethdisciple · 9 May 2011 at 22:59

This is puzzeling me.

I have a windows 7 x64 pc with a 5870 gpu.

This pc I use for gaming so there is hardly anything on it other than:

Windows 7 - uptodate
AVG Antivirus and comodo firewall
Steam
ATI 11.5 driver (today)

It might not be ATI related at all, but when I installed the 11.3 drivers in march, I strated experiencing issue where my system ram usage would go up to 2 or 3 + Gb of usage at idle, with no process using up any cpu cycles.

I went back down to 11.2 and all was well.

Updated to 11.4 2 weeks back and still no reoccurance of issue.

However today, I opened up firefox to get the latest 11.5 drivers, and my pc was behaving as if the cpu was being over utilised.

However when I looked at the task manager I saw that the ram usage was up again to 3+ Gb, all I had done was turn the pc on and fire up firefox.

You can see a picture here of the issue:

Its very odd.

Im 100% sure my pc is clean of viruses etc.. like I said, I keep it very basic and minimal interms of software, as this is my gaming pc.

99% of the time Its fine, but since march this issue has appeared.

Currently using the 11.5 drivers now, so issue may not be there any more, but it might not even be anything to do with ATI at all.

Maybe a windows 7 bug?

opethdisciple · 10 May 2011 at 10:56

Its unexplainable isnt it!

Dirk · 10 May 2011 at 11:49

It's called Superfetch. If you don't want your RAM to be used can you take it out and send it to me please?

opethdisciple · 10 May 2011 at 12:51

Superfetch?

But it renders the computer unresponsive....

It cant be a 'feature'.

The knock on effect, is like having a cpu at 100% usage.... its unusable.

Six6siX · 10 May 2011 at 12:58

What process is using the RAM?

yashiro · 10 May 2011 at 13:04

Look at the processes tab and see what is actually going on.

opethdisciple · 10 May 2011 at 13:09

There is nothing happening in the processes tab

The cpu utilisation stays 0-1%

Literally I turned my pc on, fire up firefox, and boom, crunch crunch crunch, ram usage going sky high.

yashiro · 10 May 2011 at 14:12

Does this occur only when using Firefox? It's not clear if this is the case.

Something HAS TO be using the ram. Show us screenshot of your processes tab when this is occurring.
Screen of all running services might also be helpful as well as investigating memory used by the processes. Enable these in task manager.

If you don't know what to look for maybe someone else will.

ShakenNstirred · 10 May 2011 at 14:43

why say its a win 7 bug when its only ever happening with firefox and ati drivers

opethdisciple · 10 May 2011 at 17:09

yashiro said:
Does this occur only when using Firefox? It's not clear if this is the case.

Something HAS TO be using the ram. Show us screenshot of your processes tab when this is occurring.
Screen of all running services might also be helpful as well as investigating memory used by the processes. Enable these in task manager.

If you don't know what to look for maybe someone else will.

I got no idea, if its a firefox issue, an ATI issue a combination of the above or neither.

There is hardly anything on this pc, everything is pretty much default, nothing out of the ordinary on the pc, uptodate with patches etc......

Its strange. I thought it was linked to the 99% bug in ATI drivers.... but having never 'seen' the bug I was just guessing, it could be consuming 2Gb of vram, which would have a knock on effect on system ram.....

Fourtuntalty I dont see it often......