Remaining in a system for extended periods
Remaining in a system for extended periods
Hello, your PC has been running nonstop for 74 days now. It’s clear that performance will eventually decline, especially after two months. People often ask why it slows down over time and what you can do to improve things without completely shutting down the system.
Programs or system operations that fail to release resources correctly, leading to gradual resource accumulation. Alternative to the standard fix—consider checking the detailed view to pinpoint affected processes, which may require restarting them.
Looking at the handles indicates files are opening without being closed properly. Threads and handles appear roughly 30% higher than my system's capacity after it was last restarted 12 days ago. Generally, memory leaks, page files, and similar issues are to blame. The (BSD) servers I manage have uptime that can last years until the data center faces a power failure. In practice, most desktops can't sustain this level of reliability since many apps—especially those using CEF frameworks—leak memory, gradually draining RAM, then the page file, and eventually all disk space. Restarting usually fixes it. Apps with severe leaks tend to crash before they fully consume the page file. On Linux and BSD systems, you can often clear the page file by triggering a swapoff, letting the system purge it, or moving data back into RAM and then swapping again. Windows, however, needs a reboot if you change the pagefile size, making that method unavailable.
Partially I’m running programs that don’t need saving or closing. Things like Blender, Photoshop, Notepad work fine without heavy background use. I also dislike situations where Windows pushes updates on restart, since I prefer stability and familiarity. The idea that the system can force changes feels like losing control over my setup, which I find unpleasant. Plus, having everything in its original place gives me a pleasant sense of comfort.
I understand. Are you wondering how to end those threads and handles? You noticed they have four times as many handles and three times as many threads compared to after restarting and playing a game.
These threads and handles are managed by an unknown entity. Check the Task Manager details to see how many threads each process consumes. A steady rise over time for certain processes points to the source. If a resource issue like memory or file leaks is significant, it’s likely many users will spot it and report it. Developers will probably identify and resolve it then. However, subtle leaks—such as losing just 1 KB daily—can remain hidden for extended periods. Such issues often go unnoticed unless someone uses the system for long durations. Typically, closing offending apps should resolve the problem, though sometimes a restart is needed until the fix is applied. Remember that security updates usually address such bugs and enhance stability, even if they occasionally introduce new issues.
Consider logging out and back in. This should stop session-based programs and locks. If it doesn’t work, the issue is probably with the driver or AV software. Browsers are often the main suspect.
Maintaining system cleanliness by restarting helps. Many programs aren’t flawless, which can cause resources to stay locked, affecting Windows, Chrome, or even MacOS. For systems I oversee, unless there’s a strong need for constant operation, a weekly reboot after backups works well. When addressing slowdowns and crashes, results dropped nearly 75% in testing with about 400 devices. To ensure quick recovery, follow these steps: set boot mode to AC power in BIOS, schedule wake times around 3–4am daily, and create scheduled tasks that alert before reboots and install updates. While some data might be lost, regular backups are essential.
Review your memory consumption. Your handles are quite high too—355k. In Task Manager, open "Details" and check the "Handles" column to identify what’s using the most space; likely a process has trouble releasing handles. Probably just a background task. For example, Aura Sync can consume a lot of memory, and the Armour Crate Helper might use thousands of handles unnecessarily.
It's windows... Memory management CPU handling and other things are laughable it windows compared to other operating systems like Linux and other Unix based operating systems. Of course, it's not just windows, most windows programs also cause a lot of memory leaks. And page file usage (swap In Linux) can grind the system to a halt {a page file is a way of allocating a small portion of the disk to be extra ram, since most ram can transfer data a lot faster than most ssds or hdds, it can grind the system down. There is usually a way to turn this off and dump the page file back to ram, in Linux it's swapoff -a} I do not know the command in windows. Id your memory usage is about 500-1gb less than what you have, a lot of data is being swapped/paged