Windows memory question - 1GB disappeared?

yugs123

New Member
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Hi there,

I have a question that I'm not sure is a general occurrence with Windows, as opposed to just Windows 8. Nevertheless, it seems like Windows is somehow reserving/using ~ 1 GB of memory.

It seems like the user is using 1GB less than the total used memory on the system. In other words, the processes add up to <1GB, but the usage is ~2GB. How is that possible? There are no other users logged into the machine.

I might be wrong, but I'm under the impression that the process list memory usage will add up to the total memory used.

Please note that the computer has 4GB installed (and 1GB is allocated to VRAM), so I'm aware that only 3GB RAM is usable, there is still a 1GB discrepancy which I'm unsure about.

This is a corporate environment (although desktops are standalone), and I've seen this most Win8 machines.

Thank you!
 

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My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win 8
Looks normal to me, windows uses the RAM it needs depending on the processes running. You could always open resource monitor to see what is running.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    windows 8.1 Update 1 Pro 64bit
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Pavillion H8-1202
    CPU
    I7-2600 @ 3.4 GHz
    Motherboard
    PEGATRON
    Memory
    8 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    NIVDIA GeForce GT 520
    Sound Card
    Realtek ALC656GR CODEC
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung SyncMaster S22B350
    Screen Resolution
    1920X1080 32 bit color
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 850 EVO SSD 500GB
    Keyboard
    Razer Blackwidow Ultimate 2013
    Mouse
    Logitech M510
It seems like the user is using 1GB less than the total used memory on the system. In other words, the processes add up to <1GB, but the usage is ~2GB. How is that possible? There are no other users logged into the machine.

Because processes aren't the only users of memory.

The screenshot shows 866.2 MB usage but that is only for processes running under your account. It does not include usage for processes running under any of the system accounts, such as system services.

There are very significant users of memory that are not processes. This includes the file cache, non-paged pool, the resident portion of the paged pool, and more. Task Manager tells you nothing about most of this.

Adding up the memory usage in the process list will rarely produce useful results. Unless you are a real expert there is nothing on that road but confusion.

I see nothing in the screenshot that is in any way unusual.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 7
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
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