Why does Windows 11 keep using more and more ram the longer it's on?

[Grantelicious]

I have 128GB of ram and it slowly creeps up until it's full and nothing is running, I look at task manager and according to that I'm using barely anything. I've tried reinstalling a fresh install, but Windows 11 always does this and the problem is it slows the whole thing down over time. I'm someone that likes keeping their PC on 24/7, so right now it's been on three months, but that is no excuse to be using all my 128GB of ram. My Macbook hasn't been off since I bought it in 2020, yet that is still fine, it is barely using anything still.

What is Windows doing? Cause Resource Manager and Task Manager do not show what is really going on.

 

[Grantelicious]

Surely in three months you've had updates requiring a restart?

I removed updates

 

[Grantelicious]

As mentioned above, is it actually being "used" or is it just part of the cache?

If a program is gobbling it up then you can see that in task manager (expose the commit size column in the details tab, if you're not sure).

Browsers can slowly consume your memory if left open (never closed) and you don't restart the PC regularly.

The cache is not a problem, you'd usually want that memory to be used because it improves responsiveness and loading times.

To be blunt, 3 months is a VERY long time for any OS to be up for (assuming that's without a restart) and in my experience, many programs have poor memory hygiene if they're left open.

I cannot find out where the memory is going, resource monitor and task manager both do not say anything, I cannot find out where it is going.

Is there a way to clear the cache without restarting to see if it's that?

 

[Grantelicious]

Nvidia was using a lot of ram but I install the version with all that crap taken out now so it's just a pure driver and have gone through several updates. I have nothing installed other than Steam and that isn't doing it :/ Something weird in Windows, it must be caching but it just isn't telling me, I use a really small C drive partition so if Microsoft decide to active updates again it cannot physically do it. So I'm thinking it's going to my ram instead of my drive maybe?

The only thing that Process Explorer showed was several GB in memory compression and everything else was that svhost thing. I just cannot see where it is going, the only thing is restarting Windows.

 

[Grantelicious]

Ah your small drive C partition is likely the cause of problem. Is drive C size 250GB? That size is too small to use file paging for Windows virtual memory. It probably explained your Windows 11 used whole 128GB RAM as virtual memory.

I recommend you to get large 2TB SSD for OS drive to mange large virtual memory for 128GB RAM.

I wont be doing that, I just need Nvidia to support Linux properly so I can switch there, Microsoft do my head in. What would be good is allowing me to flush the cache instead of having to restart but Task manager isn't showing that much cached, only several GB.

I dunno what is going on, I'm done with Windows tbh, it wouldn't be so bad if they didn't force updates. So many times I've been away to find out my PC has updated and I cannot remotely access it until I get home. You can only push them back for so long before they force you and so why I had to install a custom version with all the updates disabled. However in the past it has somehow magically turned the updates back on, which is why I only have a few hundred MB free so it cannot update at all.