networking - Memory leak with Killer Network Manager (e2400)

I'm not really into hardware but my friend suggested I should try building my next rig and so I did (around a year ago). I've been totally unhappy with the result because of one problem - after downloading games from Steam I notice the computer slows down a lot and I've been living with this since I built this rig.

I believe my computer specs are well above and beyond what I need since I got an i7-6700K, 32GB RAM, GTX 1080, and an MSI Z170A Gaming M5 motherboard. I actually started with 16GB of memory but when I first noticed this problem I thought it was just because I didn't have enough memory so I ordered another 16GB (I'm stupid like that). Now that I have a total of 32GB it still happens. And since I didn't really know anything about hardware I didn't bother fixing it and simply restarted my computer after downloading large files to release the memory usage.

I grew tired of constantly rebooting my PC and I had a bit of time today so I searched for possible solutions and came across this PSA - it also links to another Reddit post.

So I'm guessing the problem is with this software I have running on my taskbar called Killer Network Manager (e2400).

• Is it safe for me to uninstall this software and just go with a generic driver from Windows for my networking needs? When I read about what the Killer software does, it seems like the only benefit I get from it is that it prioritizes network traffic for my games above other applications. I don't think I need that because I generally don't play online games when I'm downloading stuff.


• If I need to keep the Killer software, what can I do to prevent these memory leaks? Just download the latest version and hope for the best?

I think another option I have is to simply uninstall the software and update the drivers? They have a driver only download.

Answer

So I ended up uninstalling the Killer Network Suite which included the Network Manager and the drivers.

I downloaded beforehand the latest driver (driver only installation) from here and installed it.

Downloaded games from Steam and Battle.net simultaneously and even played a game during the downloads. My memory usage is around 15-16 percent. After everything has finished my memory usage is down to 10%.

I think I can finally be happy about this rig I built.