You have half your RAM allocated for hardware, excluding the iGPU.
You have half your RAM allocated for hardware, excluding the iGPU.
Technically available, but I aimed to avoid unnecessary effort.
I disabled delivery optimization and activated the metered connection one after the other. I haven’t adjusted it again since.
From the web searches I've reviewed, many users are experiencing increased RAM consumption after Windows updates. This isn't an isolated problem.
The problem seems to stem from the app being blocked from accessing the system, rather than excessive memory consumption. In the task manager, you’d see a clear indication of how much storage is being used, such as 15 out of 16 GB. If the system could have used all available space, usage would still appear high but more accurately reflect the actual consumption.
Different systems have different hardware, which makes it more likely that a Windows update caused problems. One machine was affected while another wasn’t, both involving RAM issues. It might be due to excessive RAM usage or some users not fully utilizing the available memory.
Have you checked each stick individually in DIMM A2 to verify booting? Consider repositioning the CPU and inspecting for bent pins, then reinserting the RAM. Also, follow the manual instruction: "Insert memory modules into the DIMMA2 slot first."
I didn't say to set up another operating system. If it didn't take half the budget for Linux, it seems more software-focused. If the RAM chip is bad, Memtest will spot it in about five minutes, which I should have noted. Also, my list isn't sorted by any order—I should have used bullet points instead of numbers.
The term "faulty" means unusable or contains errors. The first type can be verified quickly with a basic stick test; the second requires more time. Software issues won’t appear as hardware problems.
For future use you should always disable this feature and fastboot as well, since they consume the most resources (though I’m not sure what fastboot actually does, but it definitely harms performance). Rebooting isn’t possible for quick fixes—you must power it off and on. Metered connections are fine for now, but based on my experience, Windows doesn’t stick around that long because it’s built to look for updates. The only real solution is to turn them off using different methods.
The unusual part is that I faced this problem years back and I’m still struggling to recall the solution. Even though I searched online, it didn’t help much! It might have been related to using the incorrect slots on my graphics card, since I haven’t really updated my setup despite swapping out motherboards several times. I also suspect there could have been a strange configuration error that I can’t remember.