[SOLVED] RAM problems after Windows 10 Anniversary Update

Hey

I have an Alienware 13 R2 laptop with Windows 10 64 bit OS. I have 8GBs of stock RAM available in the system with supposedly 7.90GB usable RAM. Unfortunately, after updating my windows 10 with the anniversary update, my full RAM is not being used up. For example this is what appears when I look at system info in CMD:

Total Physical Memory: 8,089 MB
Available Physical Memory: 5,161 MB
Virtual Memory: Max Size: 9,996 MB
Virtual Memory: Available: 6,985 MB
Virtual Memory: In Use: 3,011 MB

This is causing a lot of problems with games like Rainbow Six Siege completely crashing because my RAM fills up according to my task manager. When I go to system in control panel, I can clearly see 8.00 GB (7.90 usable) as my RAM so I'm confident its being detected. Just that its not being used.

I've also updated my BIOS to the latest version in order to try and solve the issue but I can't seem to fix it. I recently had a BSOD with an error message saying DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL while playing R6 Siege after updating my BIOS. Would be great to hear some solutions for this. Worse case worse, I'll call the Dell Pro guys but it'll be great if I could fix it cause they only open up on Monday :/

Thanks.

 

Open msconfig > Advanced Options, untick memory size checkbox and Hit Apply then reboot.

 

Not 100% sure what you are asking here.. But Total Physical Memory and Usable RAM are the same exact thing. 1 GB = about 1000 MB, so 8000 MB = 8 GB

With the new Win 10 updates; you are probably using more RAM for the operating system; hence the available memory only being 5GB. You may find new services activate on startup too.

Too free system up of some ram, Go into TASK MANAGER on the STARTUP tad, and dissable things like SKYPE, ITUNES/APPLE help, and pretty much anything non essential. Everything still will work; but it wont start till you start it yourself (Example: no reason to auto start skype as a background task when you can just start it by launching the application)

To be blunt 8GB RAM is barely enough for a Windows 10 gaming system. I would go on Newegg or Amazon and get 16 GB of ram (about $80)

 

I was playing totally fine before the anniversary update :/ Now it just keeps telling me my memory is full and then later crashing. In terms of startup programs, I never let any 3rd party program open as I start up my PC to speed up boot time.

In any case, I've read some posts that the anniversary update uses some more resources. I currently have 2 slots full of DDR3L RAM (2x4GB). Can I get DDR4 RAM or do I need to get the same type?

It's already unchecked Windows is just swallowing up 2.6GBs into oblivion and I don't know why.

 

You need the same type of ram.

 

Have you tried uninstalling Intel GPU driver using DDU and check if available RAM is back to normal? You could use RAMMap of SysInternals Suite to check RAM usage.

 

Can we get some screenshots of the performance tab? I'm also thinking it may be that the new update requires more RAM and keeps it "locked" for Windows use instead of just grabbing it when it's needed.

 

In my 15 years, this error message 95% of the time indicates failing RAM. I am betting money if you boot up on memtestx86 and leave it running for a few hours you will get errors.

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

 

Also reseating your RAM is worth a go. Stuff happens. I have seen it.

 

I'd also advise to check for Intel Rapid storage driver and intel smart response software updates. It happened to me as well, IRST was causing this BSOD after upgrading to w10.

 

I ended up buying new 16GB RAM. Currently I'm sitting at 11ish GBs with nothing else except steam and google chrome running. I find it very excessive and can't see any other program running that could be eating up the RAM except Windows 10. Unless its a driver issue. I uninstalled Windows 10 Anniversary Update and found that the RAM didn't really change so I assumed it was Windows and upgraded my RAM.

http://puu.sh/qAqUY/6fb3d67350.png - It doesn't seem to be a RAM issue as it seems to still be using the same amount of RAM it was using with my 8GB sticks before. The Anniversary Update seems to be more resource intensive but for what purpose? I don't know.

I've switched RAM and found the same amount of RAM being used by Windows 10 (around 4GBs). I'm assuming its a software problem but just to make sure, I'll try out memtestx86 with my old RAM and see whats up later this week.

Yeah, I tried it just before buying new sticks but it didn't work.

I haven't received a BSOD since that one time. I'm assuming the system simply just ran out of RAM.

 

Are you sure you didn't forcibly insert ddr3 RAM sticks into a ddr4 memory slots?
Are you using RAMdisks or some Samsung Magician sw to cache RAM to boost SSD RW speeds?
Just fire up your BIOS and check if all installed RAM sticks are recognised?

 

No, they are not DDR4 RAM slots. This is an alienware 13 r2 laptop and it came with DDR3L RAM. I bought 16GBs of DDR3L RAM and they work fine with this laptop. Just that some of the RAM is being eaten up into the unknown (which I suspect to be Windows 10).

I'm not using RAMdisks or anything like that. Didn't even know you could do that :/

Just checked now and both RAM sticks are recognized.

 

Did it fix the issue completely or not? I'd advise you reset the BIOS/EFI to its defaults and try booting a Ubuntu(or Linux based) LiveCD and check available RAM and postback your results. If the issue is solved, please mark it as solved so as to avoid confusion for others. It will really help people having similar problems.

 

The issue isn't really fixed but I guess its fine now because I added more RAM. I've just offset the issue by buying more RAM. On my 8GB RAM, this was troublesome because it meant I only had 4-5GBs of RAM to spare. Also good suggestion, I'll try the Ubuntu LiveCD thing later on this week.

 

That you only had 4 or 5 gb to spare is nothing strange to be honest.

 

Wow, I just cannot believe how much bad advice and misinformation has been posted to this thread. This is NOT due to failing memory, or any user settings unless they've been radically changed from the default. It is nothing to do with drivers or seating or type of memory. Buying extra memory won't actually fix the problem, but may make it more manageable unless you run your system continuously (as I do).

I had exactly the same problem with my AW17R3 after the Anniversary update: after relatively short periods of any kind of use, Windows would issue a warning about needing to close programs to free memory, or worse, would just freeze or reboot.

I posted about this over in the AW forums http://en.community.dell.com/owners-club/alienware/f/3746/t/19991262 but there was little interest - yet it seemed likely there were others affected in the same way. Have a look at the post over there, but bear in mind that some readers seem to be a little humour-impaired and the jokes went completely over their heads.

17R3, late 2015, 970m, 256SSD/1TBHDD i7-6700HQ, 16GB

Last weekend I spent some time sorting out a problem I've been experiencing for the past few weeks, which might possibly be related to the latest Windows 10 update, or not.

I've been getting increasingly frequent warnings that Windows was running low on memory, and programs (usually whatever I was using at the time) needed to be closed or information would be lost; I also experienced a few random freezes and restarts related to this. High memory use was not shown in Task Manager, or XTU; everything appeared normal. Diagnostics showed no problems, and benchmarks seemed normal.

To track this down, I enabled "Commit Size" as a column in Task Manager details tab, then looked for processes with high commit sizes, or things out of the ordinary.

Found that after a reboot, Service Host: Local System had high (commit) memory use; when I sighted it, about 400MB and steadily climbing. Since my uptimes are up to a week (if I'm lucky), this can grow to alarming sizes, almost unnoticed.

Windows event log showed events for Resource-Exhaustion-Detector, which indicated that it had detected high memory use by 3 processes; the highest of which was svchost.exe, which was using about 20GB of memory.

Since svchost launches about 15 or so services, I had to systematically look at each service, to see if it was necessary, and what happened if I stopped or disabled it. There's a few unnecessary services running by default; turns out that IPHelper was the service with the memory leak. It isn't essential, so I stopped and disabled it, had no problems since.

Now, that instance of svchost has private memory use of about 17MB, and commit memory use of about 30MB, and it seems very steady. System is smoother and more responsive.

I hope this helps anybody who has a similar problem,

(Jokes and other stuff omitted for brevity )

Screenshots over in the AW post, can't be bothered with the hassle of creating a media library to post here.

 

Thanks for the heads up.

 

I just had a similar experience. I made a USB with UBUNTU. On boot one option is memtest86. It found massive errors on BOTH sticks. I RMA'd them an get new back. All is well.

 

A wise move, BTW which model is yours?