Have 16GB - Bogging down when 1.5gb used.

[MamaBear2017]

Asus with AMD FX-8310.

This is frustrating. I upgraded to 16gb over a year ago, and it's showing being used, in the System panel.

But it may have something to do with Chrome, or Malwarebytes operating simultaneously with Windows Defender ( they say that's ok ) but every once in awhile, the RAM use starts climbing, and when it gets to around 1.2gb to 1.7gb, the PC boggs down and gets very slow.

 

[Slavic]

Look in the Task Manager (with all processes shown), which programs and processes are the most memory-hungry. It's not a normal situation you described, of course. Maybe you have a memory leak which needs to be fixed, e.g. by uninstalling one component and replacing it with another. For example, right now I write this post in Chrome, my PC with 16 Gb uses about 9-10% of memory. I almost never saw that it's consumed up to 100% and PC became too slow. BTW I use SSD as a system drive, HDDs are only auxiliary.

 

[MamaBear2017]

What's weird is that it's using 1220MB and 52% of memory.

 

[Slavic]

As I see, you have some opened programs (maybe some of them work as background tasks, need to check start-up), but the most voracious is Windows Defender service. It's not normal, maybe you caught the moment of database update, but after that the used memory should be significantly less. For test, you can try to stop the real-time protection (only temporary!) and check the difference. I attached my tasklist as an example. You may see, Windows here is almost free of additional resident programs and third-party services. Of course, it's a result of some efforts.

 

[MamaBear2017]

Thanks Slavic.

When I shut down Defender's Real-Time for a second, it stops the crawl, but the memory usage is still around 44%. But my main concern is the slowdown, not so much the usage.

I hate to pinch programs when I have 16GB but don't want the slowdown either. But it seems to be being caused by Defender or/and Chrome windows?

 

[Slavic]

Apparently the situation with Windows Defender is better, but not the best. I can suppose why it may get out of control, there are two main reasons: it is in a permanent conflict with another anti-malware program or it continuously checks the state of one or more too active background processes. Sorry I cannot say anything about Malwarebytes because I don't use it; you may try to stop its service and see whether it helps. Otherwise, need to do some more tests. You should try to remove some background programs (secondary drivers, start-up components) and check which one is in conflict with Windows Defender. To do this, you may use msconfig or CCleaner (Tools, Startup, disable here all Windows startup components and all non-Windows services), then enable them one-by-one and see the difference.

I also saw a few situations when Windows Defender "goes rogue" after badly issued database update, continuously checking the system and eating CPU resources, but usually the developers are able to understand their mistake in a few hours and fix it in the next update.

About Chrome: you also need to make some tests to understand the root of the problem. First, clear all browser data for all time. There is a chance that cleanup may help. If not, Chrome built-in Task manager (Shift+Esc) may give you some insight. Then go to Extensions and disable either the suspect or all of them, restart Chrome and check the memory. If you see the effect, enable extensions similarly one-by-one. If even without any extension Chrome consumes too much memory, I can suggest to reinstall it completely, deleting all data and user profile at uninstallation. Don't forget to make a backup of your bookmarks, exporting them to *.html file. After removing all traces of Chrome in the system, install it anew, import the bookmarks from html file and slowly add the extensions.

 

[MamaBear2017]

Thanks Slavic. CCleaner used to be free and I used it for years, but then they started doing nags and I stopped. Will try the free version again.

I dread clearing browser data, but recently got some weird notice, allegedly from Google, saying that 270 of my passwords had been compromised. I have no idea if it's true, or some weird phishing attempt. No way to contact Google to verify this, so who knows? Has Google become the password police now?

I have to check out the rest of your suggestions, thanks!

 

[Slavic]

If you are concerned about (possible) password leaks and accounts compromising, I'd suggest to use these services:
Identity Leak Checker and have i been pwned. They helped me in the past and can be counted safe themselves.

 

[MamaBear2017]

I don't know whether to be concerned or not. It looks like Google now has a password checker for Chrome and it's saying that all these 270 passwords were compromised. I have no idea how. But many of them are junk sites that I've used years ago. Stuff like banking, I change regularly. I don't know what to believe from Google.

 

[MamaBear2017]

Oh, I think I just remembered this. It happened maybe a year ago. I think when Malwarebytes updates sometimes, then I start getting this RAM hogging problem. It was just up to 2GB. But I recalled that they told me, way back, to turn on the setting that tells Malwarebytes to register with Windows Security Center. I just did, and the RAM went down to 245MB, with 20 Chrome tabs open! I also made a doc file called Malwarebytes fix, for future reference!