Member Avatar for Dallas2009913

When i start my computer i have a commit charge (i found this from the performance tab in the task maneger) of about 210 when i have my security, wireless internet, and AOL IM programs running. After my computer runs for a few hours (most of which are when im doing nothing on it and its idle) my commit charge goes up to about 297 and slowly keeps rising. I have scanned for spyware and there isnt any on my computer. Why is my computer doing this? Any ideas? Thanks for your help in advance.

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A concise diagnostic plan to find the cause of a slowly rising commit charge (building on ’s suggestion to check processes and on ’s explorer observation).

Start with better visibility

  • Use Process Explorer (Sysinternals) instead of Task Manager to watch columns that matter: Private Bytes, Working Set, Peak Working Set, Handle Count, and GDI/User Objects. A process whose Private Bytes or Virtual Size climbs steadily over hours is a strong leak candidate even if its current Working Set looks modest.
  • For services inside svchost.exe, use Process Explorer or tasklist /svc to map which service instance is growing.

Collect a timed log (catch slow growth)

  • Use Performance Monitor (perfmon) or the command-line typeperf to log per-process counters over several hours (sample every 30–60 seconds). Example (adjust process name and path):
    typeperf "\Process(Explorer)\Private Bytes" -si 60 -o C:\memlog_explorer.csv
  • Log multiple counters: \Process(<name>)\Private Bytes, \Process(<name>)\Working Set, and \Process(<name>)\Handle Count. Plot the CSV to confirm steady upward trends.

Isolation and remediation steps

  • Clean-boot (disable non-Microsoft services/startup) to see if a third-party agent causes the growth. Use Autoruns to disable startup items or ShellExView to disable shell extensions if explorer.exe is the offender.
  • If a specific third-party program or driver shows growth, update/reinstall it; if svchost maps to an OEM service, update or remove that service.
  • Run a memory test (Memtest86+) to rule out bad RAM and set the pagefile to System Managed. Check Event Viewer for repeated errors tied to the time the leak starts.

If long logs point to a single process, replacing/updating that component or disabling the offending shell/service typically stops the rising commit charge.

Recommended Answers

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Member Avatar for DMR

The commit charge is the cumulative amount of memory used by all of your open/running applications and processes. As you continue to use programs, the amount of memory they use may grow; an abnormal increase in memory consumption could also be indicative of a "memory leak" in a program.

If you sort the processes listed in Task Manager's Process tab by "Mem Usage" and monitor them, you should be able to determine which processes are responsible for "chewing up" your memory. Have a look at that and tell us the names of the programs which seem to be the most "piggy" in terms of memory usage.

Member Avatar for zzeennaa

I need help with this also explorer is running at 22,024k an dcommit charge is 203/2462 I have a gig of memory and when I start a program it goes to 100cpu any ideas?

Member Avatar for DMR

I need help with this also

You should really start your own threads when you have questions/problems to post here; we do ask that members not "tag" their questions on to a thread previously started by another member (regardless of how similar your problem might seem). Not only does it divert the focus of the thread away from the original poster's problem, but it also makes it less likely that you yourself will get the individual attention that you need.

explorer is running at 22,024k

That's perfectly normal.

commit charge is 203/2462 I have a gig of memory

That's normal too. You have 1 gig of physical RAM installed and what looks to be about a 1.5 gigs of virtual memory (swap file) on your hard drive, for a total of 2.462G of usable memory. The total commit charge is only 203M, which is almost exactly what my XP system is reporting right now.

when I start a program it goes to 100cpu

Yes, that will happen; when you first start a program, the CPU will often give its full attention to that task. There is nothing unusual about this if the program's CPU usage then settles back down. If you have a program which continues to use a very large amount of your CPU even after the program is up and running, then you may have a problem. If Task Manager is showing you such a program, please give us the program's name.

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