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Question

Windows 8 low memory problems

Jun 8, 2013 4:28AM PDT

About a month, I got a Samsung Series 5 touch screen Ultrabook with 4 GB memory, running Windows 8. Recently, I've been getting a lot of low memory notifications even with just Chrome browser up with a couple of tabs open and Spotify or Itunes. With my Windows 7 laptop (also with 4 GB memory), I have never received a low memory notification, and I've had 10 tabs open with a photo editor program, sometimes both spotify and itunes, and microsoft office.

In addition, Google Chrome crashes all the time. Luckily they save the tabs that were open but it gets pretty irritating if I'm in the middle of working on something.

Why is this happening on my new laptop? I'm not the most computer savvy, so when I go task manager and see that so much memory is being used, I'm not sure which programs are needed and which aren't.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
I'm guessing here.
Jun 8, 2013 4:32AM PDT

I have yet to see this BUT I did run into a laptop with some paltry small SSD and it did cough up errors like that. It was not "low memory" but low disk space and since the OS is a VM OS the message could be indeed low memory when it was truly low disk space.

You bring up a good point. If Microsoft hasn't got these messages correct for everyman today, will folk continue or will they flip to other things like pads?
Bob

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Answer
Have you checked Device Manager?
Jun 8, 2013 4:33AM PDT

It sounds like you could have some missing or problem prone device drivers. Have you checked Device Manager to see?

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I'm not sure what to check for
Jun 8, 2013 12:35PM PDT

I've never been to device manager but just found my way on it and I don't know what I should be checking for.

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Check for entries with ! or ? next to them
Jun 8, 2013 12:41PM PDT

Check for entries with ! or ? next to them. That will indicate the device has a missing or incorrect driver.

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Everything seems fine
Jun 8, 2013 1:00PM PDT

There are no drivers with ! or ? next to them. I appreciate your advice so much though! I had no idea where to look!

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maybe
Jun 18, 2013 8:44PM PDT

I could be that you got a lot of sfuff running in the back round go to task manager and see whats running and taking up your memory. in task manager you can see whats running and how much memory is using up

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Answer
maybe
Jun 18, 2013 8:56PM PDT

when you open task manager, look at whats running, next to whats running has numbers with % sighns on them. the one with high present sighns are the ones taking up a lot of memory. you also might have a lot of sfuff running in the back round like add ons go to internet exporer and click on settings the little circle with teeth on it on the top right hand side of the screen next to the star. then go to manage add ons there you will see whats running in the back round if its running, it will say enabled you can disable it by clicking on what ever I running, and then clicking on disable box on the bottom right side.

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Answer
You've checked the simple things?
Jun 21, 2013 11:07PM PDT

Warning - this is a guess - I don't have Windows 8 running - it wouldn't install on my test laptop, even though it happily runs Windows 7.

Have you checked that the system is recognising all the installed memory? Look in whatever is the Win8 version of System Information. It should show you how much Physical Memory (RAM) is installed and how much is available, together with how much Virtual Memory (Disk space) is defined and how much is available. This should show if your memory is actually constrained and whether it is RAM or as Bob suggests Virtual Memory (Disk space).

Then look at Task Manager (I assume it still has the Performance Tab) and display the memory usage. Running on the desktop, rather than the tiles, leave it on top, somewhere you can work around it and watch the graph as you are working. You may then be able to see what is gobbling up memory as you work.

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Same problem....brand new laptop
Aug 2, 2013 9:36PM PDT

Hi Zouch,
I've been looking over your replies as I've had a similar problem. I bought this laptop about a month ago and never had a problem. Suddenly, as of two or three days ago I just can't keep any windows open. Chrome and Firefox at the same time never lasts long. I've chcked the memory usage in the tak manager and of the 4Gb In use is only ever 1.7Gb. 0.5Gb generally available until the warning pops up and Windows closes one of my windows.
Below it says 2.0Gb is Cached. Could this be the problem?
I think the odd thing is that this problem has arisen seemingly all of a sudden from nowhere.

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Solved the problem
Aug 4, 2013 12:16AM PDT

Hi.
I've solved the problem however I'm not 100% sure how. I did the following:
1- Disabled my gmail offline, and uninstalled google chrome before reinstalling it.
2- Restarted the computer (note, not Shut down and turned back on)

I noticed that almost 2Gb of my 3.8Gb was this weird "Modified Memory" which even stranger I could find little about online. So somewhere, whether it be my offline email, or updates for Windows or other, all of this 2Gb was sitting in my memory and not saved to my disk!
Things are thankfully back to normal.