Extreme memory consumption during startup and green screen effect
Extreme memory consumption during startup and green screen effect
Hello everyone, over the last few weeks my computer’s memory usage during startup has been extremely high right after launching several applications such as hwinfo, Epic Games Launcher, MSI Afterburner and Rocket League. I’m not talking about a 10GB range, it’s more like 30GB within just three minutes of turning on. After rebooting and opening Task Manager right away to monitor the increase, I noticed only Task Manager and the RAM usage section appeared, but once I switched to Rocket League the usage jumped to around 9.5Gb, and after about twenty minutes of gameplay it settled between 13-15GB—much more normal. The only change I made was opening Task Manager and checking the RAM stats as soon as I powered on. My concern is either a virus or an issue from not reinstalling Windows after upgrading from AM4 to AM5. I also disabled several programs that used more RAM before, but the problem still persisted (maybe slightly worse). I’m planning to take photos and update this post as soon as possible, but I can’t right now. Sorry for the delay—I tried launching Fortnite dx12 after entering performance mode and green-screened immediately. The issue seems linked to my GPU; I attempted undervolting and enabled fast memory timings before any game, but it crashed instantly and then reset itself, returning everything to factory settings. This was from a system built two months ago with identical storage drives, the same graphics card, and fans from my AM4 setup. Edited March 31, 2025 by filpo
It might be a memory leak issue. It’s tough to spot since memory allocations aren’t clearly linked to a specific process using Task Manager. However, other programs could be involved. Have you tried entering safe mode? You might do that even though you’re already dealing with problems. Also, check your video memory and put stress on your GPU.
I looked into hwinfo but it didn’t display RAM details. For checking VRAM, try FurMark or a dedicated GPU monitoring tool. These will help you see performance under different settings without the green screen issue.
I didn't mean to mention HwInfo. I assumed you were quite familiar with technology. Consider Poolmon and RAMMap. Clearly, pushing performance beyond its limits would likely cause crashes or unusual behavior. Unigine, MSI Kombuster, 3D Mark, OCCT are worth checking. For stress testing video memory specifically, OCCT and AIDA64 offer VRAM tests. You might also explore memtest_vulkan. I remember finding one program in the Microsoft Store once, but it’s fading from my mind. There are many other reliable stress-testing tools available.
GPU is also needed. PSU and case are fine, but they don’t really matter for the installation. Thanks for the reminder about hardware. The software part is pretty basic—just like a computer science degree that someone once had but now mostly forgets. Got it. Appreciate the heads up. I’ll set everything up and try to do it soon (I can only manage two days since I’m currently away from the PC).