Unknown memory leaks appearing in task manager

System:


Task manager:


As you can see I have 16 GB RAM, but for some reason my memory is showing 75%+ being used even when I first start up the machine. I am a Software Engineer and run Visual Studio and other development tools all the time. I used to just think those tools would leak memory and that was causing the excess memory leakage. But I recently have been shutting down my PC more and when I start it back up, the memory remains way up, but the Task Manager shows a cumulative 1-2GB used only.

My machine was custom built, but I followed a pretty well put together guide on matching hardware, so I don't think its anything to do with my hardware not being compatible (also I have had the machine for about a year now and its never had problems).

I have all the usual malware/virus protection that comes with 8.1 Pro, so I don't think it could be a virus. Anybody have any idea? Thanks

Post a screenshot of Task Manager - Performance tab showing memory info.

The problem is the Non-paged pool which is many times a reasonable value. The cause is most likely a device driver, possibly malware.

So an external device is not using memory correctly? Is there usually a solution to this?