Windows 8 Extremely High Memory Usage ~8GB!!!!!

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paul7799

paul7799

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May 13, 2012
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I have so far only noticed this while playing Battlefield 3, but I'm sure it will happen with all my games, I'll probably try playing Mass Effect 3 for a little while later this afternoon, but so far after playing for about 15 minutes to half an hour the game becomes VERY unresponsive, it's ALMOST like it freezes, but it's still "playable" as I have control still, but I'm getting basically like 0.015FPS. So I'm forced to CTRL + ALT + DEL to open task manager and end the process. I have noticed that when this happens, my memory usage is insane (I'll post some links to screenshots at the end of this post) so I imagine this is probably what's causing the issue. Interestingly enough, with BF3 open (not visible in screenshots) it only is using about 150MB of RAM when it crashes - perhaps I'll check the memory usage while it's actually playable and edit this post if it's any different.

I am currently running Windows 8 RTM 64-bit.

Is this perhaps just a bug? I've noticed people have had similar issues in the past on Vista and W7 (I searched for a good while) but they usually just disabled the Windows Search Service (I have done this as well, but am still having the issue) or they had far too many open services and only like 2GB of RAM.

Also worth noting is that I didn't have this issue initially (I was able to play BF3 for 2 hours straight without issues) but I have no idea what changed between then and now (I think the only thing I did was install the Witcher 2 on steam) and I'm not sure when it was last playable (although I always run Raptr while playing so maybe I can check when my last long game session of BF3 was) so I haven't tried Windows Restore yet.

Here's the screenshots:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/805/windows8highmemoryusage.png/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/99/windows8highmemoryusage.png/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/196/windows8highmemoryusage.png/

EDIT: Also, as you can probably imagine, a simple reboot restores my memory usage back to normal, but then I run into the same problem again when playing BF3.
 
Solution
pfleger
Yes, AMD graphics seem to be related to the problem. I'm currently trying to reproduce the problem without starting BF3 - maybe I was running a desktop application that uses the graphics card. I'm looking into this.
I'm using the latest 12.8 Radeon driver. Obviously AMD are distributing unified Drivers for Win V/7/8 anyways.

edit: thanks for removing trolly troll
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gr8fuldead

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Dec 22, 2012
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Im having similar memory leaks and I run a NVidia video card so I don't think its a amd thing. I get the memory leaks that bring me up to 99.5% memory in use. But when I goto task manager, it says my biggest memory usage is only like 200 mbs, and I have 6 gigs of ram! So not only do I have a memory leak that's maxing my memory usage out, but my task manager wont even tell me what program is pulling this memory! I get the problem while playing many games, medal of honour warfighter, even games like warcraft 3. It will go to 99% memory usage for the weirdest things. Unraring an .mkv file is like a 50% chance to clog my memory. The only thing that unclogs it is a restart. Sometimes, using WinRAR again to unrar a different file, will cause the memory to stabilize back at 20-30% Weird. Wish could just go back to windows 7. Really wish I could just have XP back as half my old games wont even work with windows 7 or 8. I dont care about sync, windows really messed it up this time, I think I might try apple, just cause working with windows is continually making my butt hurt, I don't like being screwed. These silly versions of windows are majorly harshing my mellow
 
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gr8fuldead

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Dec 22, 2012
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I am having similar problems. However I have Nvidia graphics drivers so I don't believe its the amd. Quite oftenly (6+ times per day) I am looking at my task manager, and it says im using 99% of my ram, but it wont specify what program is draining my ram. It only shows 1 or so gigs of my 6 gigs of ram being used. I am using windows 8. You mentioned ps3 media player, which I am also running ( maybe the media player sync connections are messing up?) But I will have the problem sometimes when ps3 media player isn't running, I will unrar an .mkv file, and when its done, ill be at 99% ram usage, and it wont ever stop being 99% ram usage until I restart my computer. Sometimes, unraring ANOTHER file, will stabilize me back to 30% ram usage. WTF?? Theres clearly some leakage going on where windows 8 just keeps using all my ram. I wish I could downgrade to windows 7 I friggan hate 8. Actually wish I could go all the way back to xp, so much more simple for a computer newb that actually tries to do stuff.

I don't know why this post says solved when it is clearly NOT SOLVED

Acer Aspire V3-771g-6851
i5-3210m 2.5 ghz
NVidia GeForce GT 640m
6gb ddr3 memory
750 gb 5200 rpmhdd
 
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gomerpile

gomerpile

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I dont have any issues in bf3,
memy.png
I'll play for a few hours but I can tell ya I dont have that problem with memory usage.

see ya in the battlefield.moon or atf pic your knife
 
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gomerpile

gomerpile

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ok so been playing for a hour and half and I do not get high memory use or lag. So I'm thinking maybe in desktop blue you have live active titles running. Maybe updating. I have disable all active live titles updating.
 
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gomerpile

gomerpile

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Did you update windows from windows update, there was an issue with this and a fix was developed couple of weeks ago. When working with large files and playing games the OS would be unresponsive
 
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dogmeat

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Jan 22, 2013
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I confirm this issue is not only affecting AMD systems: I own a Samsung P550P5C T01 laptop (i7 3630QM, 6GB of RAM, GT630, etc) and I'm experiencing the same issue.
It's true: allowing the O.S. to mange the Virtual Memory, it improves things a bit, but definitely Microsoft folks should look at this soon...
Cheers
 
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tristech

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Jan 27, 2013
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add me to the list of folks experiencing this problem:

windows 8 pro
lenovo yoga
cloned ssd
upgraded to 8gb ram
happens without running a game

already had memory leak from audio controller that I fixed, this one's new. typically stays around 60% usage (even though only using 1-2gB/8) but sometimes goes all the way until bluescreen
 
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Kempas

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Hi there,

I've been struggling with this also. I've just updated to the latest AMD beta drivers (currently 13.2), and it seems to have resolved things (fingers crossed). :)
 
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jimbo8098

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I'm having the same problem right now. I have just built a new system the other day and have been noticing lag and now high RAM usage even though I've upgraded from a Core 2 Quad to an i5 and from 4G RAM to 16G RAM with a brand new motherboard!

I am running Windows 8 64bit and an ATI Radeon HD 5670 1G RAM.

I had been playing Battlefield 3 previously , on my old system , with absolutely no problems since I got the game.

WTF?

EDIT: OK , as expected rebooting resolved the issue with RAM usage but I think that , going forward , we need to bring together a list of our configurations so we can link this thread to whoever is responsible and get it fixed. So far as I can see , Battlefield 3 , Windows 8 and AMD GPUs are the recurring themes here , with a few people experiencing the issue on Nvidia cards on Windows 8 systems. So I'll start off by listing my configuration and you guys do the same. This should let us piece together exactly what is happening.

OS: Windows 8 64Bit
CPU: Intel Core i5
RAM: 16GB
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 5670
GPU Driver Version: CCC 13.1
When do you experience the problem: Playing battlefield 3

Here is a template for you guys. If we have the specs all in the same form . it will be easier to quickly scan them and see where the issue lies. Let's get this sorted!

OS:
CPU:
RAM:
GPU:
GPU Driver Version:
When do you experience the problem:
 
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jimbo8098

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tristech's Specs:

OS: Windows 8 64Bit
CPU:
RAM: 8GB
GPU:
GPU Driver:
When do you experience the problem: Not running a game

Can you fill in the rest?
 
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Vaya

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Mar 20, 2013
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OS: Windows 8 64Bit
CPU: Intel Core i7
RAM: 6GB
GPU: Intel(R) HD Graphics 3000
GPU Driver: 9.17.10.2963
When do you experience the problem: Not running a game, after boot, then periodically. Was no problem with win 7.

The problem seems to have gone. Half a day without overloads, hope it stays that way. I've been struggling with problem A LOT. Read a lot of forums, and no solution been found so far. People suggested switching power plan to balanced, running registry clean, disabling all autostart applications. Nothing helped. The only thing that worked - was manually updating all the drivers. The problem is that manufactures don't rush to make new drivers for old machines. I have Asus N53SV and the manufacturer replied that they are not going to issue a new bios for now. Which seems to refer to volume and brightness buttons which are not working now. But still there is way. So here is what I've done:
1. There is no way to update the driver if it is not there, so you have to wait for it to be issued.
I had to download drivers from different manufactures, for example Dell uses same chipsets as Asus.
2. Go to any universal driver scanner software, you don't need to buy it as before the purchase some of them show you a chart with your drivers that can be updated.
3. Then try to find this drivers either on the manufacturers web site, or on PC manufacturer's web site, it may take a while.
4. Go to device manager and manually update each driver that is suggested by the scanner program, unfortunately there is no search so you'll have to look for it manually.
5. Run the scanner again check if everything is ok.
I don't know which driver was causing the problem as I was installing them in packs.

Drivers which I have updated are:
Intel(R) Management Engine Interface
Intel 28F320C3 Flash Update Device Driver v6.4
Intel(R) Mobile Express Chipset SATA AHCI Controller
Intel(R) HM65 Express Chipset Family LPC Interface Controller - 1C49
Intel(R) 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller - 1C26
Intel(R) 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller - 1C2D
Intel(R) 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio - 1C20
Intel(R) 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller - 1C22
Intel(R) 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 - 1C10
Intel(R) 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 2 - 1C12
Intel(R) 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 6 - 1C1A
Intel(R) 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 4 - 1C16
Xeon E3-1200/2nd Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) Processor Family PCI Express Root Port - 0101
2nd Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) Processor Family DRAM Controller – 0104
Realtek High Definition Audio
Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller
USB2.0 UVC 2M WebCam
Qualcomm Atheros AR9002WB-1NG Wireless Network Adapter

P.S.
I used http://driveragent.com
Be careful as the program might replace your driver with wrong driver, in other words don’t do it if you don’t know what a heck you are doing :) In may case the program suggested to replace my Elan touchpad driver with Cypress TrackPad. I did that and it stopped the touchpad, so I had to revert the driver.
Good luck.
 
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jam_jar08

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OS: Windows 8 64Bit
CPU: I7 2.4ghz
RAM: 8GB
GPU: GTX660m
When do you experience the problem: As soon as I startup

Hey guys,
I'm experiencing a similar problem. I have 8gb of ram and when I start up my RAM never drops below 36% of usage and it of course goes up when i open firefox or other things...I play skyrim on my laptop and it goes up to about 50% used RAM but I haven't gone up to 99% like some of the other guys above have experienced. Note: I haven't played but maybe 1hr-2hrs at one session. Any help would be greatly appreciated as I am perplexed by this issue, also I checked in my control panel and there was nothing using more than 150mbs at a time total was 1.3gb so it should be alot less than 40-50%.

thanks in advance :)
 
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notworking

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Apr 7, 2013
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notworking

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paul7799

paul7799

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To be honest, one of the Windows 8 updates fixed it, so just do all the updates, and remember (it's frustrating, but probably necessary for changes to properly take effect) when you reboot after installing some updates, more updates may become available, so keep checking until you're all up to date.
 
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notworking

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@jam_jar08 i hv been using windows 8 in my laptop ( 8 gb RAM core i7....blaa blaa blaa ..)and facing the same problems as you are , i opened up my task manager which came up with over 75% of RAM usage so i kept on experimenting with the non system processes i ended a process - ' intellimem.exe ' and put my laptop to sleep mode and then opened it again and all the excess ram usage was gone,my ram usage came to 17%....
 
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indokenty

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Apr 12, 2013
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Yes, it works! As soon as I closed intellimem.exe memory freed up to 12%... Now i just disable this service and restart. After rebooting RAM is free up to 85% ;)
 
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rbf2

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Apr 28, 2013
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Dubegbert

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Swizzmaster

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OS: Windows 8 Pro
CPU: 4770k
RAM: 8gb
GPU: gtx 770
GPU Driver Version: 326.8
When do you experience the problem: My problem starts whenever i start the computer. my ram slowly increases to 8gb of use over several hours after bootup. i noticed it started happening right after i installed battlefield 3. maybe something is wrong with it and windows 8
 
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astu

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Hi everyone,

"
When do you experience the problem: My problem starts whenever i start the computer. my ram slowly increases to 8gb of use over several hours after bootup. i noticed it started happening right after i installed battlefield 3. maybe something is wrong with it and windows 8
"

I had the same problem.

on my case, the problem was from "Killer Network Manager" (it's a driver needed for the internet connexion).
an option was enable related to the "bandwidth control" or "application control" (it depend of the version you get of the driver) . I just disabled it. and now my RAM is OK : )

Just hope this could help you.
 
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oxyalive

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Aug 25, 2013
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Well i sorted it out after 4h of searching... for SAMSUNG laptop.

disabling the Samsung service "IntelliMemory" service:
Run services.msc
Locate "IntelliMemory"
Right Click -> Properties
Startup Type -> Disabled
Click "Stop"
Click "OK"
Reboot


Can work but not always. I deinstalled the program rebooted and it was sorted. :)
 
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