RAM consumption spikes significantly when switching from Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Education version.
RAM consumption spikes significantly when switching from Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Education version.
The problem lies in the fact that I upgraded Windows about a month ago, giving it ample time to process changes. Noticing your low RAM consumption makes me reconsider—perhaps something is wrong with my laptop (likely a Windows issue). Currently, I’m using my 2-in-1 with 32GB RAM and Teams, two edge tabs, OneNote, two OneDrive instances, and WhatsApp. I’m running about 32% or 10.4GB. My gaming laptop uses the same amount, even after turning off SysMain to disable Superfetch. In Task Manager during class, my 32GB system uses only ~2% with OneDrive, while on my gaming machine with half the RAM it uses triple that amount. The same applies to the Antimalware Service executable—1.3% here versus around 5-6% on my gaming laptop for most of the time. Edited November 22, 2022 by DreamCat04
Currently three tabs are active in Chrome—one YouTube and two Discord—using 33% of your 10.5GB RAM. If you’re not satisfied, simply restart the system after a backup; your memory usage should remain similar.
What's the reason for reinstalling when it doesn't solve the issue? I'm okay with it, even though things seem to consume significantly more memory than my other devices. Perhaps when I return home, I'll compare the actual RAM usage of each program. It seems strange that OneDrive uses three times the relative RAM compared to a laptop with double the capacity, meaning it's actually using 1.5 times more in absolute terms. I'm beginning to suspect the upgrade wasn't the cause and it might have been different before. The system Mark Kayne demonstrated appears to be a clean, unmodified setup. It could mean my system has many additional services running that are using memory.
Additionally, I observed memory compression disabled. Once it was enabled, performance improved slightly. However, it seems like some resource is still limiting available RAM. For instance, if I assign 8GB to Minecraft, the system uses that amount even though the game typically requires only 2.5GB or less. Also, after launching my editing program, Task Manager displayed 50% usage, but after closing it, utilization dropped to 70% while other programs increased. It appears RAM allocation is being restricted. I’m unsure how to resolve this and will have to accept near-full memory conditions. Edit: I adjusted the settings so CoreTemp shows RAM usage in the taskbar. During a recent cleanup, one program needed a restart to free space. After logging in, I noticed usage gradually increased from 42% to around 47% as other apps launched, then spiked to 72%. This suggests RAM is being constrained. How can I determine if any process is hogging memory? I’ll search online for solutions at Solado. Edit 2: Restarted again; after logging in, opened Task Manager and pressed F5 repeatedly to refresh rapidly. After about 20 seconds, usage settled near 70% from ~50%. This confirms a memory leak. Could it be related to WSL? I need it to run Docker, even though it uses WSL2, but disabling WSL prevents it. Edit 3: I’m less sure now. After turning off WSL and trying again, the usage started at 65% with no sudden jump after 20 seconds. Memory compression was also disabled, which I had set recently. Now there are roughly 6GB of standby RAM available. I might consider spending around $100 on a larger kit to avoid this issue. Edited November 22, 2022 by DreamCat04
I discovered the issue: after launching the Hyper-V Manager to investigate, I noticed a VM I had set up with Multipass was configured to restart automatically when the PC powered on. Disabling that change brought my RAM, which had several applications running, down to 50%. Your advice was invaluable—I’m relieved now and can rest easy knowing the cause and solution. Thanks!