Constant low on memory warnings and crashes with Google chrome

Can anyone point me in the right direction on how to solve the issue of constant out of memory warnings. Despite having 73.7GB of free space on my C drive and 8GB of ram I can only go 10 min. without a 'low on memory' warning that results in a crash and having to reboot or close out of Chrome or Firefox.

Previously (last month) I was able to browse with up to 20 tabs open and multiple programs (Photoshop, Maya, Zbrush) running and not so much as a blip from the system. But all of a sudden it's crash galore.

Where should I begin looking for the problem(s)?

next time you start up, open task manager - processes tab, watch the memory values, hopefully it wont be a svchost.exe, we'll go from there

torchwood said:

next time you start up, open task manager - processes tab, watch the memory values, hopefully it wont be a svchost.exe, we'll go from there

Ok will do. I'll screen shot the processes.

- - - Updated - - -

Here are the screenshots just after start up from a crash.

1) screenshot of processes from task manager:
Flickr

2) screenshot of processes from Process Hacker app
Alex Cantelou has shared 1 photo with you! | Flickr

hi,
those values dont look extremely high, how long was google open for 8/9 mins would be ideal time so its just before freeze/crash, it does have 14 running exes, i use waterfox only got 4

other comments,
see you have skype/dropbox and ccleaner running, i tend NOT to have them run on start up
Avast and MSE are both running not a good idea -
(if you do not use the extras in avast turn them off)
IntelProset is not required bloatware in my opinion
dell pcdoc, as your not going to get anymore updates from them - change to manual or remove

It is important to understand what low memory warnings actually mean. It isn't what most people think. It means the commit charge is approaching the commit limit. It has nothing to do with RAM usage and Windows doesn't even have a warning for that. The Commit charge is what you need to look at.

When investigating memory issues usually Performance tab is more useful than the processes. The problem may not be a process at all.

torchwood said:

i use waterfox only got 4

- I've installed Waterfox now, I'll see how it goes.

torchwood said:

you have skype/dropbox

- removed them from startup items.

torchwood said:

ccleaner running

Did you mean Catalyst Control Center? I've since disabled it... apparently bloatware.

torchwood said:

Avast and MSE are both running not a good idea

- removed MSE kept Avast running but turned off most of the extras.

torchwood said:

IntelProset is not required bloatware in my opinion

- removed

torchwood said:

dell pcdoc

-removed

I'll take some screen shots and post up. Thanks. Much appreciated!

- - - Updated - - -

LMiller7 said:

It is important to understand what low memory warnings actually mean. It isn't what most people think. It means the commit charge is approaching the commit limit. It has nothing to do with RAM usage and Windows doesn't even have a warning for that. The Commit charge is what you need to look at.
When investigating memory issues usually Performance tab is more useful than the processes. The problem may not be a process at all.

Yes, I was a bit unsure of what to be looking for. I'll have a look and take a screenshot. Thanks!

A small point, since you've got 8GB RAM and the last screenshot shows you have a commit charge of 8796 / 9383, that leaves about 1GB of spare space to run your programs. A possible way out is to increase your pagefile allocation, as it can supplement your existing RAM if you've got some spare disk space..

In addition to that, it seems you have quite a few tabs with heavy websites opened at once, which seems too much for your system (no idea if it's a reasonable assumption or just a too hungry browser). Try closing some tabs.

As stated before, using two antiviruses is always a bad idea (only one is bad enough). Uninstall at least one of them and see if it lowers your RAM usage.

Alejandro85 said:

A possible way out is to increase your pagefile allocation, as it can supplement your existing RAM if you've got some spare disk space..

When I checked it was manually set to that amount. I've reset it to the default of letting Windows manage the page file allocation for all drives - in this case I only have a C drive. Let's see if that works better. After setting it to the default of allowing the system to manage it I looked in the performance monitor and it shows:

Commit (MB) 4493/9383

That seems an improvement in how that ratio is supposed to work. I think.

Alejandro85 said:

Try closing some tabs.

Yes, I'll try to be more tab economic.

Alejandro85 said:

As stated before, using two antiviruses is always a bad idea (only one is bad enough). Uninstall at least one of them and see if it lowers your RAM usage.

I don't seem to be able to stop the Windows Antimalware from running. Despite several attempts it seems to always appear in the processes. I'll see if I can find a tutorial on turning it off entirely.