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Since I upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10 on my Dell Inspiron laptop back in August 2015, the following cycle has been repeating itself. The System file starts off using a reasonable amount of memory (just a few MB), then over a period of a week it grows larger and larger (300+ MB) until it slows my system to a crawl (92%+ of memory in use, writing constantly to disk), and finally I get a blue screen or everything freezes and I have to force close my laptop. Then Windows downloads some update and upon restart the System file is back down to a few MB of memory. At first I thought it was a conflict with my McAfee antivirus app, so I removed it and now use only the Windows Defender. That only helped for a few days. I have done repeated malware scans and not found any malware. I had already read the post referred to by magicandre1981 about the System file using too much memory, and followed the only advice I could discern from that post, which was to disable the the Prefetch. I disabled the Prefetch, but that didn't help at all (so I re-enabled it). I've tried using the Windows Driver kit to identify and replace drivers, but that hasn't solved the problem either. Here is a link to the current image of the Task Manager:

Task Manager showing huge System file

As you can see, the System file is currently at more than 220 MB, driving my overall memory usage to around 73% of the 4.0 GB available. Only yesterday the System file was around 100 MB, and two days ago around 50 MB. By tomorrow it will be around 350 MB and overall memory usage up to 90%, then by the next day it will be up over 500 MB and all systems will be very slow because of constant exchange of memory with the hard drive. Then the next day it will be so huge that my laptop crashes.

Let me make the problem very clear: the memory usage and size of the System file keeps growing larger and Larger and LARGER until it crashes my laptop. It is NOT a matter of the System file simply being large, but that it grows like a cancer until it is so huge that it freezes my system and I get a blue screen, then Windows downloads some update and the System file is back down to a very small size, but gradually grows again, repeating the same cycle over and over.

I would appreciate a solution that actually works, other than buying a new laptop.

Michael McAssey
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  • What makes you think 200MB for a system process is high, it isn't, and unlikely has anything to do with your problems. Its not clear if your are being told your physical memory is low or if you are just getting low virtual memory warnings. You should clarify that point. There are dozens upon dozens of questions, about high memory usage, what other things have you done besides attempting to use the WDK. *Be as specific as possible.* There are better tools to perform an analysis of your memory usage then Task Manager you should use those. – Ramhound Dec 02 '15 at 17:29
  • Do you have a SQL or Oracle Database software running on it? Also have you changed the size of your PAGE FILE? is your Hard drive full as well? – JukEboX Dec 02 '15 at 17:32
  • The first step I would do. Is load your current user profile with as little drivers as possible. The only driver I personally would load is the display driver and perhaps the network adapter driver. You can use `Autoruns` to do this. This way you can determine if the problem is a driver with a memory leak or a process with a memory leak – Ramhound Dec 02 '15 at 17:34
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    Possible duplicate of [Windows 10, 'System' process taking massive amounts of RAM](http://superuser.com/questions/952141/windows-10-system-process-taking-massive-amounts-of-ram) – magicandre1981 Dec 02 '15 at 17:51
  • the higher memory usage is a feature of Windows 10. See my answer of the link I posted – magicandre1981 Dec 02 '15 at 17:52
  • Welcome to SuperUser, please consider editting your question, it is basically one huge paragraph, which is difficult to read. – Vlastimil Ovčáčík Dec 03 '15 at 12:44
  • @Ramhound: If it would stay stable at 200MB I would not mind. But, as I thought I had explained in my post, the System process keeps growing in size every day until it crashes my laptop. Earlier I tried adjusting the paging file size but that was pointless because no matter what size I used the System process would eventually exceed the limit and I would get low memory warnings. Now I have Virtual Memory set to System Managed Size, so that I don't get low memory warnings. It just keeps increasing the paging file size until it can't be increased any more. – Michael McAssey Dec 05 '15 at 12:44
  • @Ramhound: I have read as many of the relevant questions as I could find, but I haven't found any that are a match for my question. Regarding your suggestion: can you explain to me how to load my current user file with as little drivers as possible? Where do I find Autoruns? I have a PhD in statistics, but when it comes to IT I am a novice. – Michael McAssey Dec 05 '15 at 12:47
  • @JukEboX: I don't have a SQL or Oracle Database running on my laptop, at least as far as I know. I have tried increasing the size of the paging file, but that does no good because the System process just keeps growing in size until it exceeds the size of the paging file and I get low memory warnings. My hard drive has 322 GB free out of 451 GB. – Michael McAssey Dec 05 '15 at 12:50
  • @magicandre1981: I had read the post "Windows 10, 'System' process taking massive amounts of RAM" and your answer before I posted my question. As I believe I understood your answer, I disabled the Prefetch process. This didn't help. The System process continued to grow in size after I disabled the Prefetch process. After a day or so, I enabled it again. I don't think it is an intended feature of Windows 10 that the System process will grow larger and larger and larger until it takes over all the memory and crashes the laptop. – Michael McAssey Dec 05 '15 at 12:55
  • @Vlastimil Ovčáčík: I would be glad to edit my question, but I don't know where to make cuts. I feel that I need to provide sufficient information to make my problem understood. In spite of that, it seems that my problem is still not understood by those who have answered. – Michael McAssey Dec 05 '15 at 12:57
  • @MichaelMcAssey - Autoruns is easily located by doing a google search. How you boot in a minimal configuration is well documented. – Ramhound Dec 05 '15 at 14:40

1 Answers1

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RAM usage of 300 to 400 MB for the System process on Windows 10 is not unusual.

Also the default Task Manager is not very useful when something goes wrong, try running Process Explorer to see the details.

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Vlastimil Ovčáčík
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    no, this is NO leak, it is a new feature of Windows 10: http://superuser.com/a/952142/174557 – magicandre1981 Dec 03 '15 at 18:27
  • @magicandre1981 I understand you advocate your own answer, but I don't think we have enough information to jump to any conclusion yet. – Vlastimil Ovčáčík Dec 04 '15 at 08:36
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    we have. The system usage is 200MB. read my answer and watch the video to understand it. You currently don't understand this feature. – magicandre1981 Dec 04 '15 at 18:14
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    @Vlastimil Ovčáčík: If the System process was using only 300 to 400 MB, I would not be having a problem. My point was that its usage grows beyond the capacity of my laptop, causing a crash. I suspect it is indeed a driver memory leak. I had read the link that you provided and the answer, and tried to follow the steps, but I got as far as the poolmon screen before I ran into confusion. I will try it again. I can post a screenshot of my Performance tab, but it is just a flat line, so not very informative. I opened Process Explorer but have no idea what to do with what I see. I'm a novice. – Michael McAssey Dec 05 '15 at 13:21
  • @MichaelMcAssey I would still use the screenshots, despite it is a line and preferably while you experience the problem. Actually two screenshots of **a)** Task Manager - Performance tab - Memory section **b)** Resource monitor - Memory tab (you get it by `Win+R` and running `resmon.exe`). – Vlastimil Ovčáčík Dec 05 '15 at 14:59
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    @Vlastimil Ovčáčík: update: I have used poolmon to identify the top 5 drivers in terms of memory usage. All 5 of them are part of the Windows OS: acpi.sys, 1394ohci.sys, ntfs.sys, rdyboost.sys and exfat.sys. I had to use |more in the command line after findstr because otherwise I get 100s of lines of gibberish when I hit Enter. I can't figure out how to update these drivers. The Microsoft website is not helpful. – Michael McAssey Dec 05 '15 at 15:00
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    @Vlastimil Ovčáčík: I will add the two screenshots, but maybe I had better wait until the System process grows huge again. After the person I consulted finished dickering around with my laptop on Thursday he got the System process back down to a small size (~5 MB). But it is growing again. It is only at 140 MB now, but it was around 50 MB just 8 hours ago. Once it grows back to 300MB or so I will post the 2 screenshots you requested. It should only be another day or 2. – Michael McAssey Dec 05 '15 at 15:08
  • @magicandre1981 you better read the question carefully, insisting on your answer makes no sense to me. The questioner reported **continuously growing memory usage of System process until BSOD**. It is **irrelevant** if the memory is written to disk, compressed or both, he needs to identify the *leak*. Do you get it? – Vlastimil Ovčáčík Dec 05 '15 at 15:21
  • @VlastimilOvčáčík the Question starter should provide a STOP code/crash dump so that we can analyze it. The system usage is fine and by design, no matter if you downvote my valid answer *facepalm. He has a different issue. – magicandre1981 Dec 05 '15 at 18:34
  • @magicandre1981 now when you stopped the `no, this is NO leak, it is a new feature of Windows 10` nonsense, I can agree that `He has a different issue` than you thought. You have created some noise here, I would recommend you to create answer if you have something valuable to say. – Vlastimil Ovčáčík Dec 07 '15 at 07:25
  • @MichaelMcAssey share the dmp files from **C:\Windows\Minidump** so that we can analyze this. – magicandre1981 Dec 07 '15 at 16:56
  • @magicandre1981: That folder is empty – Michael McAssey Dec 08 '15 at 18:07
  • have you disable the pagefile? This would also explain the crashes when Windows is out of RAM. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/change-virtual-memory-size#1TC=windows-7 – magicandre1981 Dec 08 '15 at 18:11
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    @magicandre1981@VlastimilOvčáčík @Ramhound Thank you all for your assistance. I think the problem is solved, but I'm not sure what solved it. My System process is no longer growing, and remains generally around 50 MB. It might be due to disabling the driver for my touchpad. I have an external mouse, so I keep the touchpad turned off. But for some reason it was back on, so I was trying to turn it back off using the Fn+F3 keys, but it wasn't responding. So I disabled its driver in the Device Manager. Before that my System process was around 150 MB and growing toward the next BSOD. – Michael McAssey Dec 08 '15 at 18:17
  • But after that I rebooted and since then (3 days) the problem has not reappeared. I don't know how to mark the original post as answered, but I think it is answered. – Michael McAssey Dec 08 '15 at 18:17
  • ok, so the driver caused a memory leak, the new Win10 feature detect that, tried to compressed the not longer touched leak memory until Windows run out of memory. – magicandre1981 Dec 08 '15 at 18:23
  • @MichaelMcAssey I am glad you got it working. – Vlastimil Ovčáčík Dec 09 '15 at 06:31