{"id":39220,"date":"2017-10-30T21:01:06","date_gmt":"2017-10-30T13:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hongkiat.com\/blog\/?p=39220"},"modified":"2020-03-05T22:51:29","modified_gmt":"2020-03-05T14:51:29","slug":"fix-windows-10-memory-leak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hongkiat.com\/blog\/fix-windows-10-memory-leak\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Fix Windows 10 Memory Leak Issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

After updating to Windows 10 Creators Update<\/a>, I noticed my RAM usage surging to up to 80%<\/strong> after hardly 30 minutes of use. I checked some online forums and realized that a lot of people are facing memory leak issues in Windows 10<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

After trying multiple solutions I finally managed to bring down my RAM usage to a sane level. So in the write-up below I will discuss all possible causes of memory leak and how to solve them<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s Memory Leak<\/h2>\n

Fundamentally, memory leak is a portion of the RAM<\/strong> that a program marks as \"in use<\/strong>\" but isn\u2019t actually using it.<\/p>\n

This happens when a program fails to inform Windows RAM manager that they have stopped using a RAM segment<\/strong> and it is free to use again. Thus, Windows won\u2019t use that portion of RAM even though it is free to use.<\/p>\n

This problem leads to higher RAM usage<\/strong> even though no program is actually using the RAM. Such problem can happen to any program, including Windows services, native apps, background processes, hardware drivers, and third-party apps.<\/p>\n

Tip:<\/strong> A quick fix to any memory leak issue is to restart the PC<\/strong>. As RAM is volatile memory, it will reset as soon as you restart your PC. Thus, any bad segments will also become available again. However, this will not help in the long run<\/strong> as the bad program will probably leak memory again.<\/p>\n

Identifying Memory Leak<\/h2>\n

Windows Task Manager shows all the currently running processes along with their resource usage. For most programs, the Task Manager should be able to find the culprit process<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Press Ctrl<\/span> + Shift<\/span> + Esc<\/span> to open the Task Manager and move to the Processes<\/strong> tab. Here you will see all the active processes with their CPU and Memory usage<\/strong> details.<\/p>\n

Click on the top of the Memory<\/strong> tab (where usage percentage is written) to arrange the processes in descending order with highest memory usage process on the top.<\/p>\n

\"check<\/figure>\n

You need to look for a process that is using more RAM<\/strong> than usual. You\u2019ll have to figure out yourself which process is using unusual RAM. Most probably the culprit will be using over 50% of the total RAM<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

However, do keep in mind that heavy programs<\/strong> like Photoshop or even your browser (with many websites open) can use multiple GBs of RAM<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Once you find the culprit, there are a couple of things you can do that I have listed below:<\/p>\n