My Windows 11 PC is using about 89% of its 32 GB of RAM immediately after startup, even with no applications open besides a VPN. Launching Firefox with just one tab pushes usage to roughly 97%. Firefox itself shows around 2 GB, though I have two extensions installed that use additional memory. RAMMap also reports about 10 GB associated with svchost.exe.
This was not happening a couple of months ago, when I could run Firefox with around 10 tabs—including video—and play a game at the same time. Windows is installed with the latest updates, which I normally apply when shutting down. What could be causing this unusually high memory usage, and how can I determine whether it is actual consumption, cached memory, or a memory leak?
2 Answers
Check Resource Monitor rather than relying only on the overall percentage in Task Manager. It can show whether the memory is actively being used by processes or is mostly standby/cache data that Windows can reclaim when another program needs it. Also check whether usage stays near 100% for a long time or drops when you open other applications—Windows often uses spare RAM for caching, which is normally harmless.
A proper restart may clear this temporarily. Windows Fast Startup makes a normal shutdown more like a partial hibernation, so some system and driver state is preserved instead of being fully reinitialized. If memory usage keeps building after shutdowns, try disabling Fast Startup and use Restart, then monitor whether the problem returns.
If the high usage returns, that points more toward a background-service or device-driver memory leak. A full restart only clears the symptoms, so the next step would be identifying which service or driver is gradually consuming the memory.
I performed a full power-button reboot and memory usage dropped to about 20%. The previous shutdowns and restarts apparently were not clearing the issue, so I am checking Fast Startup and will watch for the usage to build up again.