Solved Paged Memory used by Kernel getting insanely high

[andreacc]

Hi,

I'm having this problem where Kernel memory usage increases at very fast rates (even without me doing nothing on the computer). You can see in image below on task manager, where it gets to almost 7GB:




As a result I can't let the computer ON for more than about 48 hours, as it takes that time for the system to be consuming ~90% of the memory already.

I used poolmon.exe to try to see what is consuming so much memory. The result is pic related.




FMfn seems to be some system process, not a third-party driver, so I don't know what to do with that information.

What I already tried to do:

- I runned sfc /scannow. First time it corrected some errors. Second time it says there are no files corrupted anymore, although it prints lots of stuff in View attachment 400786 attached.
- I runned System Update Readiness tool / checksur. The log list lots of .manifest files as "Unavailable repair files". I don't know if that is the problem. View attachment 400787 attached.

The system is:
Windows 7 x64
AMD A10-6800K
16GB Kingston DDR3 memory
Sandisk Ultra Plus SSD 256GB

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[andreacc]

Sorry, the correct CBS.log is this: View attachment 400790

 

[Ranger4]

Hi andreacc, welcome to the Forum.

As you have an SSD installed & 16 Gb of RAM you could reduce the size of the Page File if you wished. I also have 16 Gb of RAM & an SSD & I have the Page File set to a max of 1 Gb or 1000 Mb as Windows uses Mb size for the page file settings.

As far as I know Windows loads certain frequently used files into the Page File, so that there is very fast access should they be needed. This also reduces hard drive accessing as well. So unless you are actually getting problems with your computer it would probably be best to ignore it.

Computers do need to be shut down from time to time.

 

[andreacc]

Hi, Ranger4.

This memory that shows on task manager is not on the pagefile actually. It is memory that can be put on pagefile, but is actually on RAM.

I put pagefile at 1GB, restarted and the "kernel paged memory" usage is already at 1,2GB and increasing.

 

[Megahertz07]

I always set (fix) page file the double of physical memory. In your case I would use 32G.
I also have a 128G SSD and a 1T HDD so I disabled page file on C: and set it on D:.
To set a custom page file, set MAX and min as 32000 and press Set (Definir).

 

[andreacc]

Hi Megahertz,

unfortunately messing with pagefile size does not seem to improve the situation. After 24-48 hours the windows kernel is already using most of my RAM.

 

[Megahertz07]

On your task manager I see that CPU usage is high. What you have running on the background?

 

[Ranger4]

@ andreacc. Could you click on the Processes tab in Task Manager & provide a screen shot of it. This should shows what processes are running & how much CPU is being used & Memory allocation as well.

If you click on View in the top menu & select columns you can add columns, that might show more info as well.

 

[andreacc]

Hi, these are the process that are using more memory now.

It still is at 62% memory usage (almost 10GB) as you can see.

The problem is probably not with some process, but with some driver that is being loaded by the kernel.

 

[Ranger4]

As you can see Firefox is using a lot of memory. There are a huge number of processes running on your computer & there are still more not shown on that page, which can be seen by the length of the scroll bar on the side. Do you have a need to have so many running at the same time, which is probably the reason you losing RAM all the time.

Windows Firewall Control is showing, which is does not on my computer & I use Windows Firewall. According to your System Specs you are using ESET NOD32 as your AV. Doesn't it have it's own Firewall?, if it does you might need to disable Windows Firewall.

The next thing we need to look at is System Configuration. To do that type msconfig in the Start search box, when it opens select the Startup tab & supply a screen shot of it. Then select the Services tab, tick the Hide all Microsoft Services box at the bottom & supply a screen shot of it as well.

 

[LMiller7]

The Paged pool is huge and it seems likely that it is the cause of the high memory usage.

The term "Paged pool" is somewhat misleading in that it implies that it is paged out, generally to the pagefile. That isn't the case at all. This is memory that can be copied to the pagefile at the memory managers discretion. Some of this value will be in RAM, some in the pagefile, and some in both. Task manager can tell us nothing of that. But in this case it seems likely that most of it is in RAM.

The size of the pagefile won't significantly effect this value. Even if it were zero the value would be pretty much the same. Although without a pagefile the high Paged pool would impair performance sooner.

Generally the biggest users of the Paged pool are the kernel level OS components and device drivers. Processes generally use very little. Firefox memory usage may seem high but it is quite small compared to the 16 GB present. If anything process memory usage seems low, probably because it is crowded out by the paged pool.

Sorry I can't be of further help.

 

[andreacc]

Hi,

Managed to fix it somehow.

Uninstalled some drivers/software that were recently (past 14 days) installed.

The list of what I uninstalled: Realtek Audio Drivers, VyprVPN, HolaVPN, BitX, Wise Folder Hider, Samsung Driver Manager, Droid Manager Free, Microsoft Mouse and Keyboard Center, and some MSI motherboard software. Also uninstalled and reinstalled Dropbox.

I don't know exactly what of those was causing the problem, but now Windows has been running for almost 30 hours straight with Kernel memory usage stable around 900MB-1GB, and FMfn on poolmon is not increasing like crazy anymore, but keeping at decent size.

You can close the thread if you want.

 

[Ranger4]

Thanks for getting back with the update & glad to hear it seems fixed.

Could you please click the Green Solved button in your Thread which will put a Green tick to let others know the problem has been solved.