Why is the maximum memory usage 512?

Physical memory usage keeps climbing until no memory is left?

• My Dell Inspiron Laptop has a problem in which the physical memory usage keeps climbing over time until no memory is left. Its normal memory usage when nothing is running is around 23%-25%, then when I open firefox is about 27%, but if I wait a few hours it will climb into the 30s, then the 40s, then the 50s, and so on until memory usage when nothing is running is 85% and if I open firefox is 90%, eventually memory usage when nothing is running reaches 90% and it doesn't let me run anything. If I restart the computer, it will go back down into the 20s. This is actually not much of a problem because the rise is very slow, the only reason why it ever reaches 90% is because I put it to sleep instead of turning it off when I'm done with it, since electronics get damaged by constantly turning them on and off. It takes about a week to reach 90%, then I just restart it and the problem gets fixed, but I'm worried this will get worse. When the memory usage is at 90%, if I use the task manager there are no processes that take an unusual amount of memory, everything is normal. I downloaded an alternative program to the task manager called Sysinternals Process Explorer, and is the same story, all processes seem to take a normal amount of memory. This started immediately after I received a fake e-mail from the IRS supposedly speaking about my tax return, which actually contained a virus that, according to Norton, was completely removed before it had a chance to hurt my computer (I had never had this problem before). After I noticed the weird memory usage though, I did two full system scans and found nothing, a did a full system scan on safe mode and found nothing, and I did a scan with that Norton tool that removes hard to find viruses and has a big disclaimer saying you have to be careful with it because it is very aggressive and may also remove files that are not viruses, and I found nothing. So, I have no idea what's happening. Anyone know what the problem might be?

• Answer:

  It sounds like Firefox is your problem. I've had this a few times on some PCs (but not all). Google firefox memory problem. There's a simple fix in he firefox registry about:config, but I'm sorry I can't remember it specifically