Memory leak (usage gradually increases)

Here's a screenshot of Task Manager (right now the usage with nothing open is around 43%)

I did not upload the screenshot the first time. Here it is

Looks normal to me for a 6 GB RAM size. Mine is already 3.3 GB out of 8 GB for 5 programs running:

Sorry, but that is not what I asked for.
What is needed is a screenshot of Task Manager - Performance tab, showing memory info when the problem occurs. This provides an overview of memory usage with important information not shown elsewhere. Very often such problems are not caused by a process at all.

LMiller7 said:

Sorry, but that is not what I asked for.
What is needed is a screenshot of Task Manager - Performance tab, showing memory info when the problem occurs. This provides an overview of memory usage with important information not shown elsewhere. Very often such problems are not caused by a process at all.

Okay, here is a screenshot of the Performance tab. Please note that there was nothing running at the time other than Snipping Tool which does not use much memory.

The Non-paged pool value is high. A more usual value on a 6 GB system would be about 100 MB although it will vary depending on the hardware. The usual cause for this would be a driver problem. Can't help you with that. Otherwise usage seems normal.

Be aware that memory usage in any modern operating system is highly dynamic. Memory usage with little running may seem high but that is only because there is no better use for it. Memory was meant to be used, not sit idle. But if a large program were to be started this usage would be automatically trimmed back to meet the demand.

Is the non-paged pool increasing over time?

As I said, the memory usage with nothing running gradually increases, starting around 1.7 GB on my system and gradually climbing with no end in sight.

I understand the overall memory usage is gradually increasing, but is the non-paged pool also increasing?

Memory usage in Windows is by no means confined to processes. There is the Non-paged pool, the resident portion of the Paged pool, the file cache (quite different from the "Cached" value shown in Task Manager) and more. Most of this is not itemized in Task Manager at all.

The Non-paged pool usage is very real memory usage. And in fact a high value here is far more serious than is process usage. Almost all process memory usage is pageable. This memory can be removed from RAM to the pagefile or elsewhere thus making it available it for more important uses. Windows memory manager has almost complete control over this. Under memory pressure the usage of processes will be reduced to meet the demand, drastically if necessary.

Not so with the Non-paged pool. All of this must remain in RAM at all times, even in the event of extreme memory pressure. The memory manager has no control over it. The only limit on it's size imposed by the OS is 75% of RAM size or 128 GB, whichever is less.

When memory usage is abnormally high it is very often caused by the Non-paged pool. From what I have seen on this and other forums it seems to be more often than not. Other than the OS itself the biggest user of the Non-paged pool is device drivers. Unfortunately this can be difficult to diagnose. Process usage of the pool is usually quite trivial, rarely more than a few hundred KB for an individual process. 1 MB would be very high. This can be shown in Task Manager but by default it is not.