Windows 8 out of memory?
I thought that Windows 8 was supposed to be better with memory than Windows 7. So far, that is not my experience.
When I boot up my brand new laptop (Samsung NP550P5C-S03CA Intel Core i5 3210M 8GB 1TB ) , the Task Manager Performance tab tells me that I have:
8.0 Gb of DDR3 available of this:
3.7GB is in use, leaving 4.2GB available
3.5/25.9 GB is committed and 1.4GB is cached.
162Mb paged pool, 2.4GB non-paged.
I then go to the Details tab, and I add up the Memory used by all the processes. It comes to about 300Mb. That is 0.3GB. So what is using up the other 3.4GB of memory???
I then load up a bunch of programs that I use concurrently - notably Firefox (with about 30 tabs), Chrome, Thunderbird, Notepad++, Filezilla and my memory consumption goes up to 4.4GB. That seems about right.
I then work on it for a number of days, hibernating in-between, and I start to get notices that I am running low of memory. The performance tab says I am using 90% or more of my memory. The committed has gone up to 31GB. But if I add up the memory usage listed in the Details tab, it comes to only about 1800MB (I notice that Firefox has gone up to about 1300MB)
So, again, where has all my memory gone?
If I then close all the programs, it doesn't help. The details tab shows little running, yet the Performance tab shows I am still out of memory?
What is using up all my memory?
The only thing that clears it, is to do a restart. Which brings us back to the top of the loop, with the same initial question - what is using up over 4GB of my memory?
I never had these problems with windows 7.
As a sidenote, Win 8 also seems to be very unstable. Frequently getting programs not responding and crashing, including Windows Explorer, which seems to have to reload itself frequently.
Oh, and my wifi connection keeps dying and then I have to run the troubleshooter to get it all running again (my wife has that same problem on her brand new Acer).
So, what gives? How do I get my new laptop to work as fast as my 4 year old Sony Vaio with Win 7 and lower specs?
Anyone got any ideas? Or is this normal for windows 8?
Solution 1:
Okay, let's use some real numbers. My computer has 16 GB of RAM.
The Performance tab in Windows 8's Task Manager says:
- In use: 4.2 GB
- Available: 11.6 GB
This in use value matches the Resource Monitor:
- Hardware Reserved: 106 MB
- In use: 4462 MB
- Modified: 7 MB
- Standby: 11788 MB
- Free: 21 MB
So, i have 4,462 MB of RAM "in use". What is the breakdown of that 4,462 MB of RAM? Who is using it?
If we add up the "Working Set" of all processes from Task Manager, e.g.:
- explorer.exe: 244,936 kB
- glcnd.exe: 202,964 kB
- chrome.exe: 201,372 kB
- chrome.exe: 133,060 kB
- MsMpEng.exe: 84,568 kB
- uTorrent.exe: 70,496 kB
- Skype: 79,084 kB
- ...
- GoogleCrashHandler64.exe: 868 kB
- smss.exe: 548 kB
- System: 532 kB
We only get 2,713 MB. i have 4,462 MB in use. What is taking up the extra 1,749 MB of RAM?
The answer is the the kernel and drivers.
- Cache Working Set: 357 MB
- Kernel Working Set: 35 MB
- Driver Working Set: 11 MB
- Paged Pool Working Set: 483 MB
- Non-paged Pool: 286 MB
- Metafile: 577 MB
- Total: 1,749 MB
Windows 8 uses 64% more RAM than the applications alone.
But is that normal?
Yes. Here's a Windows 7 computer with 16 GB of RAM:
- "In use": 7,276 MB
- Process Working Set: 4,214 MB (a difference of 3,062 MB)
- Cache Working Set: 604 MB
- Kernel Working Set: 4 MB
- Driver Working Set: 7 MB
- Paged Pool Working Set: 2,426 MB
- Non-paged Pool: 0 MB
Windows 7 uses 72% more RAM than the applications alone.
More comparisons
Windows 8 Windows 7 Windows Vista Windows XP
========= ========= ============= ==========
Total RAM 768 MB 768 MB 768 MB 768 MB
In Use 682 MB 611 MB 631 MB 651 MB
Process WS 642 MB 565 MB
Cache WS 24 MB 70 MB 98 MB 53 MB
Kernel WS 3 MB 1 MB 0 MB
Driver WS 3 MB 3 MB 2 MB
Paged WS 37 MB 66 MB 48 MB 18 MB
Non-paged 27 MB 19 MB 28 MB 6 MB
Solution 2:
You have a Samsung device, so you probably have a non paged pool driver leak caused by the tag ECMC. Run Poolmon to verify this. If this is the case and you see intmsd.sys which uses ECMC, uninstall the tool Intellimem
Solution 3:
From your simptoms my best guess would be that your have a memory leak in some resident programs you are using. My Windows 8 is running weeks without reboot, and does not run out of memory.
I would recommend to pay attention to individual processes that consume large amounts of memory, something must be there that eats all that RAM.
Since, as I guess, you are using new notebook with preinstalled Windows 8, I suppose you have some of the preinstalled "vendor tools", which usually tend to be some poorly written useless programs. So I would also try to turn them off, and see if it helps. Some of them could run "invisible" and run on startup, so take a time investigating that too.