Im pretty sure there is a virus that is taking up my memory because with nothing running, its at 30% and I have 24GB of ram, additionally when I look at how much ram task manager says is being taken up its high but when i add up how much each program is using its no where near that number, what should I do?
I'm not sure how we can advise you as you have provided no info at all about device make/model or Windows 10 edition, version or build no. nor what you have tried to see what's happening. Like you, we would just be guessing.
Is it RAM or CPU usage that concerns you? Or both. And when?
Why do some users immediately assume that they have virus when something looks odd? Are you visiting some dicey web sites? Personally, I have been using computers since the early 70s and have never seen a virus.
On my W10 desktop I have 10 GB and probably 50% is constantly in use. On my W11 laptop I have 8 GB and 60% is constantly in use. The time to worry is when you CPU/Disk/Network percentages are high. As long as you have enough free memory for your programs to load, you don't have a problem. What are you running that you think you need more memory not doing anything? What is all that unused memory doing for you?
could be a memory leak which is where ram is not released as it should and held onto basically dead weight, go into task manager and click the ram column heading so that it has a down arrow for descending on it, look then what apps are at the top of the list.
Determine from there why they are using the high amount of ram.
there is no reason to think there is malware if the av solution is not picking it up, past that if it was then it would be pretty advanced.
After that you want to start looking at resource monitor and other applications to start going more granular but usually task manager is going to show you pretty easily what is happening.
Except that, you never said "96% ram usage". I run chrome too, which eats about 1 GB on my W11 laptop. Much less on on my W10 desktop. But I doesn't go near 96%. I see Disk usage go to 100% when I am downloading a monthly update. But not Ram.
How about filling in your system specs and post a image of what your seeing, so we can see what you are talking about. Right now it's all just vague guess work.
Hello,
I'm currently on my Windows 11 desktop which was running at 37% memory usage before disabling a few startup apps in Task Manager, now it's at 32%. Which I'm comfortable with. To get it lower, I have to go into MSCONFIG and stop all non-Microsoft Services, doing this brings it down to 18%, and shutting down my browsers and Protection software brings me to 13% memory usage. But, since you need many of the services, a browser, and protection software, you'll usually run between 25% -35%, based on 32GB of Ram installed. Add more Ram and those numbers drop, but there's a point to where too much Ram is pointless, unless you're some kind of a multitasking, power user. The vast majority of us will be comfortable with 32Gb of Ram, which is the amount I use.
If you'd like, I'm sure some of these good folks here would be willing to help you troubleshoot your system in order to verify it's not infected with a virus.
Most likely, you've got too many programs running in the background, which startup automatically with the Computer, using up a portion of system memory. If you'd like help with configuring that, we are here to help, just ask.
An idle computer should not be using anywhere near 30% ram, 30% of 24gb = 7.4gb
There is no chance an idle computer that is doing nothing should be taking up that much ram.
Booting a computer into windows that is running well and is optimized will range roughly from 1gb to 2.5gb ram usage at idle. This is with an AV loading at startup. Anything over 3gb to 4 gb is extremely high if the computer is not actually crunching anything and idle where there is not anything else loaded that does not need to be.
windows 10 is stated for 4gb minimum so if you are going over that at boot and with not much loaded then that is out of spec.
in this case you use a freshly booted computer to track your resource usage because a freshly booted one has the best chance of giving accurate metrics. Computers compound over time. Many services are pointless use a fax? no? me either turn it off turn of pritn spool telephone biometrics all that stuff if the computer is not doing any of it turn it off.
try turn off sys main its pointless but something that can hog memory. then just start looking at what is running slime down the footprint of stuff you need vs don't. Go through Use autoruns.
The only time 30% would make sense is if you had only 4gb of ram, only then should the ram column say 30% on it at idle.
You should upload a snapshot of your taskmanager or even Processhacker2 and show the "Private Bytes
Run this first -> Shutupwindows10
Checkout Taskmanager or download "Processhacker2" ( or system internals but I prefer the non-Microsoft stuff ) and you should see everything using the RAM.
For me any problems with RAM is literally the Search app indexing or whatever.
Windows uses less then 1G of RAM based on how much is setup to begin with. If you have enough RAM it will settle for at least 4G of RAM. My computer is currently drawing 6Gigs out of 32G but I know I have things in the background ( like the anti-Virus tool ) running. Remember nowadays we all should have 64GB-128GB of RAM systems. That sounds insane but that is the realm we are living in. 32GB is a joke.
Depending on what tasks your running. You RAM might not be enough. An easy example is
Photoshop CS4 x64 v. Photoshop CC 201X x64. Both are x64 but 201X wants a specific amount of RAM set before I run it.
Where I could run CS4 and do the same work with next to no RAM at all.
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Windows runs many functions inside a package made for most people. Unlike Linux you need to turn off some of those features and fine-tune the system to your liking
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