Win10 constant "low memory" warnings / crashes

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Linuxluver

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#219093 25-Jul-2017 21:25

Why am I contantly getting these low memory warnings....and programs start crashing all over the place?

I have 8GB of RAM. iCore 7 CPU.

I have 100GB+ swap file defined.

Task manager never shows more than 31% of memory used. Ever.

I basically just use Chrome.

What's going on? It's a flakey peice of crap compared to my MacBook.

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freitasm

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#1830337 25-Jul-2017 21:34

I'd start by reducing that swapfile... You shouldn't need more than the same amount of RAM you have. And with 8GB RAM it shouldn't be using it anyway.

MikeB4

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#1830339 25-Jul-2017 21:40

I find it better just to let Windows 10 manage memory. I have never had an issue leaving it in W10's hands.

yitz

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#1830340 25-Jul-2017 21:41

When was the last time you did a full restart? Not a shutdown / hybrid sleep but full restart. If it has been weeks/months then you should try restarting first.

Linuxluver

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#1830362 25-Jul-2017 21:43

freitasm:

I'd start by reducing that swapfile... You shouldn't need more than the same amount of RAM you have. And with 8GB RAM it shouldn't be using it anyway.

Thanks.

I set it to System Managed....and I was wrong. I'm tired. I'm trying not to be an idiot. #FAIL.

It isn't 100GB - that's the space available on the drive.

The paging file is actually 14GB. It's system managed. I've set it so the only paging file is on my 2nd SSD drive, assuming that paging from an SSD drive would be much closer to memory speeds than spinning metal.

Here's my config.

C: is an SSD.
E: SATA drive
H: SSD / paging
M: USB3 to external drive
O: USB3 to external drive

Probably over a million files overall. Maybe I should turn off indexing......

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Linuxluver

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#1830364 25-Jul-2017 21:46

yitz: When was the last time you did a full restart? Not a shutdown / hybrid sleep but full restart. If it has been weeks/months then you should try restarting first.

I have to do a full restart every two days due to these errors. Once they start you can logout and kill all the programs, but the errors resume about 10 minutes after logging back in.

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gzt

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#1830368 25-Jul-2017 21:52

Windows 10 has a memory tester built in. It's not great but it's the easier thing to run tonight.

yitz

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#1830380 25-Jul-2017 22:20

Would also pay to run a health diagnostic to make sure H: [SSD1] is not on the way out.

Also review the Windows > System log in Event Viewer for any further clues.

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Item

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#1830454 26-Jul-2017 08:09

Might be worth just setting the pagefile back to C: and take the other drive out of the equation...assuming you have room on it?

timmmay

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#1830460 26-Jul-2017 08:40

This isn't normal for Windows. My 5 year old home built PC runs smoothly, I've never had anything like this. I did have bad RAM a while back which caused odd problems, but not this.

I'd run the Windows memory tester which is built in. It's based on memtest x86 which I don't find reliable, but it will find bad problems. You can run memtest x86 from a USB stick if you like. If it doesn't find anything I'd do a fresh Windows install, but do an image of your current OS just in case you want to roll back.

Once you have a new or temporary Windows install run HCI Memtest for 24 hours. Note that it runs in Windows, and tests 2GB of RAM at a time, so with 8GB of RAM you'll probably want three instances testing 2GB plus another instance testing 1GB - the OS takes around 1GB.

Another way to test RAM is to use Teracopy with verify turned on, and copy lots of large files. It's not a great test, but if it fails verification even occasionally something's wrong.

You typically don't need another SSD for your swap / paging file. Windows only takes around 1GB of RAM, so paging will only happen once you start running applications that use a lot of RAM. Once Windows is loaded that SSD is basically not used, other than to load programs which isn't a big load, so you might as well put swap on it.

1101

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#1830495 26-Jul-2017 09:24

Linuxluver:

Why am I contantly getting these low memory warnings....and programs start crashing all over the place?

sounds like the system(win) is unstable
The low mem error could be a symptom & not the cause >
Start looking elsewhere , chances are its nothing to do with the pagefile

How many programs do have have open at once ?
how many docs,pdfs,movies/pics etc do you have open at once ?
how many websites open at once

have you run AV & malware scans ?
Turning off the indexing service is a good place to start

gbwelly

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#1830515 26-Jul-2017 09:42

You may have a process with a memory leak, even Chrome with it's appetite for RAM shouldn't do this. A badly written device driver can also do this. The 'Killer' Ethernet adapter on my machine certainly was a nightly killer -until I found a basic driver without all the gaming QoS junk in it.

Amosnz

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#1830530 26-Jul-2017 09:58

I had this come up once recently while I had my work application open, but I've run my work application for years and never had it happen before.

My system has 16gb RAM and at the time my work application was using 1.6gb.

I wouldn't be surprised if an update has changed something.

Speedtest

Eimaj

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#1831670 26-Jul-2017 15:16

Had the same persistant warning directly after the creators update. Turned out it was an old version of vmware causing it, updated it and smoooth sailing since.

Any particular program that sets it off? May need to do a bit of trial and error...

Linuxluver

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#1831718 26-Jul-2017 16:22

Eimaj: Had the same persistant warning directly after the creators update. Turned out it was an old version of vmware causing it, updated it and smoooth sailing since.

Any particular program that sets it off? May need to do a bit of trial and error...

I don't use many programs. These days most stuff happens on my phone. Mainly Chrome or Firefox and not much else. Though there are hundreds of things actually running on the system.....mostly to do with Microsoft. The desktop is really more for 3D VR video rendering....but I haven't done any of that for a few weeks......and now I can do it on my HP laptop....which doesn't have this problem. So it must be something with my system. I'll update everything and see what happens.

I did see a Microsoft tech note saying if the problem persisted to re-install the system. Takes me back to the Win3.1 days: If a re-boot doesn't sort it then re-install.

The Macbook Air is going to see more use, I think.

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