Memory usage increases slowly and receive high memory usage warning on Windows 8.1.

Hi Aditya,

1. Doe the issue occur while performing any specific task or accessing any particular program?
2. What is the memory usage warning you are receiving?
3. Do you remember making any changes to the computer prior to the issue?

The issue could be related to the computer RAM or due to any third party hardware or software conflicts.

Let’s try the following steps and check.

You may check the Event viewer to see the recent event logs relating to the issue.

a. Press Windows Key + X on the desktop screen and select Event Viewer.

b. This will bring up the Event Viewer box. Click to open the event viewer.

c. In the left pane, expand out Windows Logs.

d. Click on Application log. Highlight the first event in the log and use your arrow keys to scroll down. Most of your event will be Information. You may see Yellow Warnings or Red Errors. If you see a red error, you can double click on it to bring it up and copy the contents to a document.

Method 1:

You may refer to the computer manufacturer website and try installing the Windows 8.1 version of chipset, graphic card and other device drivers and check.

You may also try running the Windows Updates and install all the available updates including the optional driver and firmware updates. Also check for the game updates.

Windows Update: Frequently Asked Questions

Method 2:

You may try to run “System Maintenance” troubleshooter to diagnose and fix the issue.

Follow these steps to run the troubleshooter.

a. Press “Windows key + W” from the keyboard.

b. Type “Troubleshooting” without quotes in the search box and hit Enter.

c. Select “View all” option from the left panel.

d. Select “System Maintenance” from the list and follow On-screen instructions.

Method 3:

You need to increase this virtual memory. Make it equivalent to your RAM size for the initial size and twice of the initial size in maximum size and make sure you have the same amount of free space in your hard drive in each drive.

a. Press Windows + Rkey from the keyboard.

b. Select the option Control Panel and All control panel items then System.

c. Click on Advanced system settings.

d. Under performance, click on settings.

e. Go to Advanced tab, Under Virtual memory, click on Change.

f. UN-check "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives" check box.

g. Select your windows drive (where OS is installed).

h. Click on Custom size radio button.

i. Set Initial size equivalent to your RAM size in MB.

j. Set Maximum size to twice of your RAM size in MB.

k. Click on Set.

l. Click on OK thrice.

m. Restart your system.    

Hope the information helps. Let us know if you need further assistance with Windows related issues. We will be happy to help.

Hi Aditya,

Good to know that you were able to get a fix for the issue and thank you for sharing the information.

Let us know if you need further assistance with Windows related issues. We will be happy to help.

Hi Praseetha,

The issue persisted and I tried resetting my PC. This solves the issue.

Thanks for your Support.

-Aditya

Hi Aditya,

Thank you for the updates.

Since the issue persists, let’s try to restart the computer in Safe mode and check.

Step 1:

Perform these steps to boot in Safe mode**.**a. **** Right click at the bottom left of the desktop and select Run.

b. **** Type msconfig and hit Enter.

c. **** Now click the boot tab.

d. **** Place a check mark on the Safe boot option.

e. Click apply and then ok. Restart the computer**.**

Note: You need to uncheck the safe mode option by performing the above steps to boot in normal startup.

For further information, refer to the article:

Windows Startup Settings (including safe mode)

Step 2:

If you are not facing the issue in Safe mode, then you may perform a clean boot and check.

A clean boot helps to verify if any third party application services or startup item is causing this issue.

How to perform a clean boot in Windows

Note: After you have finished the troubleshooting, refer to the section “How to reset the computer to start as usual after clean boot troubleshooting” to boot the system in normal start up.

Hope the information helps. Let us know if you need further assistance with Windows related issues. We will be happy to help.

Hi Praseetha,

Thanks for your responce.

1. No, the issue occurs every time regardless of what I'm doing.
2. I receive high memory usage alert. As there is no memory left to keep my current application running.
3. Yes. I uninstalled some programs I no longer use. May be I uninstalled something important unintentionally.

I remember installing Bluestacks app player which I didn't like and uninstalled soon. Later I observed in Task Manager that its process is still running. So I manually deleted its files from C drive. I suspect it's not completely removed and causing the problem.

In Event Viewer application logs, there are some errors.

I tried all the three methods you mentioned one by one by unfortunately the issue is still there.

Also, I want to tell you that the laptop takes longer than usual to restart and shutdown. When I shut it down, the screen turns off but the processor keeps running for 5-7 mins. But it boots up normally.

If nothing works shall I consider refreshing or resetting my PC?

-Aditya