Question Pagefile.sys size

[ekno]

I have a pc build. The pagefile or vram after a while keeps increasing, even when I'm not doing anything on the machine. The pagefile keeps increasing till i get an error and the computer freezes or there's no functionality. It happens all the time. So i have to restart the machine when i feel i've used it for a while. I don't know what started it but it is really annoying. Already the paging file has taken 24gb of ssd space. Sometimes i have to hard restart the machine or force shutdown.

 

[ekno]

your paged total on poolmon is 243748k which isn't that big
your commitments (Memory promised to processes) is only 7434344k
your commit total (Max you can use) is about 37709868k so you miles away from that.

on the memory tab of Task manager/Performances tab, how much is showing against paged and no paged?

Paged is 385mb and non paged is 172mb

 

[ekno]

your paged total on poolmon is 243748k which isn't that big
your commitments (Memory promised to processes) is only 7434344k
your commit total (Max you can use) is about 37709868k so you miles away from that.

on the memory tab of Task manager/Performances tab, how much is showing against paged and no paged?

Will it be best to try and reinstall my OS?

 

[Colif]

Paged is 385mb and non paged is 172mb

that isn't even high.
my paged is 474mb & unpaged is 481mb

I wouldn't clean install without looking for an easier answer.

 

[ekno]

that isn't even high.
my paged is 474mb & unpaged is 481mb

I wouldn't clean install without looking for an easier answer.

Oh wow. So it isn't necessarily a leak?

 

[Colif]

if it grows over time, its likely a memory leak. Just have to get a screenshot of it with a large paged total and then we might find it. Non paged could be part of it too, as if a driver wants all the ram, windows has to run off the page file.

Can you download and run Driverview - http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/driverview.html

All it does is looks at drivers installed; it won't install any (this is intentional as 3rd party driver updaters often get it wrong)

When you run it, go into view tab and set it to hide all Microsoft drivers, will make list shorter.

Now its up to you, you can look through the drivers and try to find old drivers, or you can take a screenshot from (and including)Driver name to (and including)Creation date.

upload it to an image sharing website and show link here

 

[CountMike]

I won't tell others to do it but I run w10 without a page file.
I suppose it depends on what you do with the machine.

That is right. For some time while I was thin on system disk (128GB) and rich on RAM (32GB) I turned pagefile right off, no problems. W10 uses swapfile for memory overflow and some caching. Right now, with 16GB of RAM I set pagefile to just 2GB so Adobe Illustrator doesn't complain.
Ps. It could be moved to another disk if space is tight or other disk is faster.

 

[ekno]

if it grows over time, its likely a memory leak. Just have to get a screenshot of it with a large paged total and then we might find it. Non paged could be part of it too, as if a driver wants all the ram, windows has to run off the page file.

Can you download and run Driverview - http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/driverview.html

All it does is looks at drivers installed; it won't install any (this is intentional as 3rd party driver updaters often get it wrong)

When you run it, go into view tab and set it to hide all Microsoft drivers, will make list shorter.

Now its up to you, you can look through the drivers and try to find old drivers, or you can take a screenshot from (and including)Driver name to (and including)Creation date.

upload it to an image sharing website and show link here

This is the link for the view tab, all microsoft drivers are hidden

https://imgur.com/iFcAxzm

View: https://imgur.com/iFcAxzm

 

[Colif]

you don't need the internet download manager. I would remove it.
a lot of the time memory leaks are Internet drivers. So it could be that or your Ethernet drivers.
So download Win10 Auto Installation Program (NDIS) from under windows header here - https://www.realtek.com/en/componen...0-1000m-gigabit-ethernet-pci-express-software

Samsung USB?

probably on newest version of Intel management engine interface for that CPU.

12gb RAM installed, GTX 980 4gb, intel core i5-3470 CPU @ 3.20GHz.

What are the AMD drivers for?

 

[ekno]

you don't need the internet download manager. I would remove it.
a lot of the time memory leaks are Internet drivers. So it could be that or your Ethernet drivers.
So download Win10 Auto Installation Program (NDIS) from under windows header here - https://www.realtek.com/en/componen...0-1000m-gigabit-ethernet-pci-express-software

Samsung USB?

probably on newest version of Intel management engine interface for that CPU.


What are the AMD drivers for?

It seems i already have the win10 auto installation program

I had an amd graphics card before switching

 

[Colif]

i would run ddu in safe mode and remove any AMD drivers. They not really helping there. Leave Nvidia alone.

How To - How to perform a CLEAN install of your video card drivers.

Updated 9-19-19 How to do a CLEAN install of your graphics card drivers using the Wagnard tools Display Driver Uninstaller A major issue on many systems is the presence of multiple graphics card drivers or drivers that have been incompletely uninstalled followed by the installation of...

forums.tomshardware.com

uninstall the internet download manager.

 

[ekno]

i would run ddu in safe mode and remove any AMD drivers. They not really helping there. Leave Nvidia alone.

How To - How to perform a CLEAN install of your video card drivers.

Updated 9-19-19 How to do a CLEAN install of your graphics card drivers using the Wagnard tools Display Driver Uninstaller A major issue on many systems is the presence of multiple graphics card drivers or drivers that have been incompletely uninstalled followed by the installation of...

forums.tomshardware.com

uninstall the internet download manager.

Done. I have uninstalled it.

 

[Colif]

we wait and see if it grows again. And if it does, we screenshot the poolmon screen and see if we can spot any differences.

 

[johnbl]

fyi : here is a list of known pooltags:
https://github.com/zodiacon/PoolMonX/blob/master/res/pooltag.txt

-you can turn off virtual memory so the pagefile.sys gets deleted, then turn it back on to create another copy. This is useful for some cases where the pagefile.sys is corrupted by malware or drive firmware bugs (trim problems with older solid state drives)

-windows is a paging operations system. if you turn off virtual memory windows will boot and create an internal pagefile using your RAM so it can function.

 

[Colif]

fyi : here is a list of known pooltags:
https://github.com/zodiacon/PoolMonX/blob/master/res/pooltag.txt

thanks, i already had that and put it in the post about poolmon

 

[johnbl]

old system last bios update in 2013.

clean up drive, turn off virtual memory, boot into bios and let the system be powered on for a few hours so the drive can run its trim commands for cleanup. (starts 5 mins after idle)

then reboot and run crystaldisinfo.exe and check for ssd health
and drive firmware version. Then google for drive name and firmware updates

when I first got SSD drives and lots of ram I used to run without a drive pagefile.sys but now I just let windows deal with it. After major updates windows would have a pagefile.sys again and I did not turn it off.

 

[Colif]

if you get bsod and don't have a page file, it can't create dumps. So its always wise to have one. Even if you never use it. I have 32gb of ram, windows never uses page file, its only 5gb now. Buy a bigger ssd if the page file size is a problem to you. I wouldn't notice if mine grew.

I noticed you didn't tell them to turn page file on again after the few hours in bios?

 

[ekno]

if you get bsod and don't have a page file, it can't create dumps. So its always wise to have one. Even if you never use it. I have 32gb of ram, windows never uses page file, its only 5gb now. Buy a bigger ssd if the page file size is a problem to you. I wouldn't notice if mine grew.

I noticed you didn't tell them to turn page file on again after the few hours in bios?

Well exactly what just happened to me, I'm taking everyone's advice so please bear with me. I turned off paging file, now I get blue screen with error, inaccessible boot device

 

[USAFRet]

Well exactly what just happened to me, I'm taking everyone's advice so please bear with me. I turned off paging file, now I get blue screen with error, inaccessible boot device

You turned it off completely, then problems happened?

Well.....


You seem to be chasing two different issues.

1. Pagefile or no
2. Some recalcitrant software, causing a memory leak.

Fix #2.

 

[ekno]

You turned it off completely, then problems happened?

Well.....


You seem to be chasing two different issues.

1. Pagefile or no
2. Some recalcitrant software, causing a memory leak.

Fix #2.

Well I turned pagefile off, and tried to restart the machine and I got bsod and then it went to automatic repair, and it has been in that loop now since.

 

[USAFRet]

Well I turned pagefile off, and tried to restart the machine and I got bsod and then it went to automatic repair, and it has been in that loop now since.

While having no pagefile can cause issues, it should not prevent booting up.

Seems you have other issues.

 

[ekno]

While having no pagefile can cause issues, it should not prevent booting up.

Seems you have other issues.

Ooooh shoot

 

[Colif]

clean up drive, turn off virtual memory, boot into bios and let the system be powered on for a few hours so the drive can run its trim commands for cleanup. (starts 5 mins after idle)

I turned off paging file, now I get blue screen with error, inaccessible boot device

John said to boot into BIOS, not restart windows. (I did ask him in my next post when he suggested you turn page file back on again)

that shouldn't cause a inaccessible Disk error.
I can't see mention of what drives you have?

 

[ekno]

Yep, that was a mistake on my end. I tried to change the pagefile from CMD whiles on automatic repair, didn't work I guess. So I just ended up resetting, seems the pagefile growing without doing anything has been eliminated, cos I left the machine on for a while after the reset. I feel its all good now I guess. I'll be installing softwares one by one to know what was really causing it to grow so big. But thank you very much for the help!

 

[Colif]

reset probably replaced whatever driver was to blame.
Its the hard way (in that it takes time to rebuild) but it can work.

I normally try to figure out problems without doing it.

 

[alceryes]

Has the PC ever worked properly? If yes, what changed to make it unstable?