Windows 7: lsass.exe process very high ram usage

iv experiencing slowdowns in my machine, im noticing that the lsass.exe process is taking alot of memory all of a sudden - up to 2GB !

Here:




(Win7x64,Vertex2,Gtx460,i7-2600,8gb ram)

I wonder what can that be, suggestions plz
tnx.

Hi!

I found this which might answer your question.

"lsass.exe" is the Local Security Authentication Server. It verifies the validity of user logons to your PC or server. Lsass generates the process responsible for authenticating users for the Winlogon service. This is performed by using authentication packages such as the default, Msgina.dll. If authentication is successful, Lsass generates the user's access token, which is used to launch the initial shell. Other processes that the user initiates then inherit this token.
Note: The lsass.exe file is located in the folder C:\Windows\System32. In other cases, lsass.exe is a virus, spyware, trojan or worm!

Hope this helps!

although i knew it, tnx for the info

Do you also know that it would be a fine time to run security scans. My lsass.exe is only 25k. If you already know this please pay no attention to this post.

I just noticed the same problem except mine is using 3GB of Virtual memory and 2GB working set! That's idiotic. MS says they fixed this way back in W2K, I don't think so!

Hello - sorry i didnt updated the thread until i see your post in the mail. iv solved this prob long ago - i uninstalled RSAT tools that i had - so if you have any administrative tools of some kind or remote control tools try to uninstall them completely with prog like Revo or alike and reboot 2 or 3 times

Um, Virtual Memory and Working set do not translate to Physical memory.

From here: "The working set is the set of memory pages that were touched recently by the threads in the process. If free memory in the computer is above a threshold, pages are left in the working set of a process, even if they are not in use. When free memory falls below a threshold, pages are trimmed from working sets. "

Since with 4GB total physical memory, and using at the moment 3.5-3.6GB (no doubt above the threshold), my 2GB of working set size for this damn leaky process is huge. It's now up to over 8GB of virtual size and is thrashing like mad.

Thnks for the tip but i don't have the RSAT tools and the process is leaking memory like crazy.

You should check first if the process is legitimate and not malware, also do a clean boot to determine further
How to perform a clean boot to troubleshoot a problem in Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8