Serious memory problem on laptop.

I am not sure what is happening to my laptop lately. It all started about 2 weeks ago. I cannot track down what, if anything, happened at that time to cause this problem.

Anyhow, here is the problem in a nutshell. After 12 hours or so, or after returning from sleep, my laptop gives me a "low memory" message, and wants to close programs. Sometimes it reverts to 640x480 res automatically and just sits there waiting to be restarted. I have a on-screen memory viewer and at this time it says mem use is over 95%.

I have tracked the problem to the following: In Resource Monitor, under Physical Memory, when the problem occurs, the "Modified Memory", "Orange" bar, is well over 2.5GB. When I hover over this, it says Modified mem is "memory whose contents must be written to disk before it can be used". When the laptop is working fine, and on my other computers, Modified mem is never over 200MB, so this is definitely the problem. Why is it not writing this memory to disk? Why does it get to 2GB in the first place? I just don't get it.

What can I do? Please help.

Here are the specs: Dell Studio 17, dual core proc., 4GB memory, Windows 7 Ultimate 64.

Again, I ran this system for about 5 months the same way as now, and this problem just started showing up 2 weeks ago, and since then, it happens every day, and I have to restart (putting the laptop to sleep is no longer an option, neither is leaving it on for any length of time, and I hate that.)

Hi, try this first, type mem into the Start Search Box and at the Top of the Menu you will see.
Windows Memory Diagnostic, run it .

Are there any applications/processes still open and running when the machine enters the "sleep" mode?

salvinorum said:

I am not sure what is happening to my laptop lately. It all started about 2 weeks ago. I cannot track down what, if anything, happened at that time to cause this problem.

Anyhow, here is the problem in a nutshell. After 12 hours or so, or after returning from sleep, my laptop gives me a "low memory" message, and wants to close programs. Sometimes it reverts to 640x480 res automatically and just sits there waiting to be restarted. I have a on-screen memory viewer and at this time it says mem use is over 95%.

I have tracked the problem to the following: In Resource Monitor, under Physical Memory, when the problem occurs, the "Modified Memory", "Orange" bar, is well over 2.5GB. When I hover over this, it says Modified mem is "memory whose contents must be written to disk before it can be used". When the laptop is working fine, and on my other computers, Modified mem is never over 200MB, so this is definitely the problem. Why is it not writing this memory to disk? Why does it get to 2GB in the first place? I just don't get it.

What can I do? Please help.

Here are the specs: Dell Studio 17, dual core proc., 4GB memory, Windows 7 Ultimate 64.

Again, I ran this system for about 5 months the same way as now, and this problem just started showing up 2 weeks ago, and since then, it happens every day, and I have to restart (putting the laptop to sleep is no longer an option, neither is leaving it on for any length of time, and I hate that.)

could be a number of things. Memory leak in an app, small page file, etc

You can check in event viewer (type eventvwr in search) go to the windows log>application tab and look for critical errors that contain the low memory tag. If there are none there try the system tab for the same.

Let us know the results

Ken

A snip of your Task Manager performance tab would be helpful.

Hi guys, thanx for the help.. Sorry I'm late in responding, but for some reason I didn't get an email that there were any responses. I will try what you have said.

Actually, the problem got even worse, now after a few hours, the modified mem would go to over 2GB, and as I watch the Resource Monitor, every second it would increase by 1MB or so, and just keep on increasing, from 100MB right up to over 2GB until it cannot run anymore.

However, this morning I changed the paging file from system managed, to custom size, and put it minimum 4GB and max 12GB, and I've run the system since then (over 12 hours now), and I just checked the Resource Monitor, and it says the modified mem is at 64MB, and its hovering there, plus or minor 2MB every few seconds, but its not increasing. I may have solved it, but I'll check in the morning tomorrow after it sleeps to see again.

I also got some memory software (Memory Improve Master, and Ram Saver Pro), and if the above won't work, I'll try to install those.

I'll write an update tomorrow.

If the problem is there in the morn, I'll take a snapshot and show you exactly what is going on.

BTW, if I install Malwarbytes anti-malware software, do I run it in the background as well? What does that replace? Do I stop Windows Defender if I use that? How about the Avast anti-virus software I'm currently using?

Memory savers are junk, they free up chunks of memory block by block - go through the troubleshooting guide in my sig - it should pinpoint your issue. I'd start by adding memory counters to perfmon.msc.

+1:)

hubris said:

Memory savers are junk, they free up chunks of memory block by block - go through the troubleshooting guide in my sig - it should pinpoint your issue. I'd start by adding memory counters to perfmon.msc.

+1:)

+2
I would bet your problem is solved. It was a pagefile problem. And for your antivirus I highly recommend to use the free MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials). It is great and I think most people would agree.