Windows 10: Desktop Window Manager using 30GB commit size on a system with 12GB RAM and the committed...

Hi,

For the last few days, I'm facing a very slow system performance. After checking resources, I foundDesktop Window Manager or DWM.EXE is using an immensely huge memory. It starts from using from few GB of committed memory and it keeps on increasing until I restart the system. The maximum committed memory I saw was36.5/37.7 GB committed memory, 28GB being used by DWM.EXE.

Apart from DWM, the system uses 100% Disk and sometimes 100% CPU for a longer time...

And DWM when start, it keeps using most of the RAM and page file.


System Specification: Intel core i5 8250U 1.6GHz-3.4GHz , 12GB RAM 4 soldered+8 GB SODIMM, Radeon 530 4GB dedicated graphics card.

Display: 1080p, No external Display.

One USB hub is used continuously as there are only 2 USB ports and I need to connect an external mouse and cooling pad.



What can cause this and how can I get rid of this? Is there any possibility of game mode or game bar being the culprit for using DWM using so much high ram? Or Google Meet, anyhow?

But DWM keeps using immensely high RAM or committed memory even when the system is idle for a long time.

This has never happened in the last two years, I think it started all of a sudden after updating windows 10, I'm not sure.

The screenshots are attached below.

Any help will be appreciated.

Thank you.



Screenshot 1: 73.7% Memory Used.




Screenshot 2: 36.5/37.7 GB Committed Memory being used.




Screenshot 3: 29GB Committed Size in Details tab, Task Manager.



:)

 

16GB of committed memory on a 8GB RAM system

You do not have 16 GB of committed memory. Your task manager screen snap shows that you have 2.2 GB of committed memory, aka "commit charge", with a commit limit of 16 GB.

Committed memory is virtual address space, specifically process-private virtual address space, and it is pageable. So n GB of commit charge is not necessarily using n GB of RAM. And on the other hand, there are other uses of RAM besides committed memory.

See the numbers on your first Task Manager screen snapshot under "Committed"? The first shows how much is currently committed (the "commit charge") and the second shows the commit limit. (Running into the commit limit brings you the "Windows is low on memory" pop-up.)

The graph on the memory page shows physical (RAM) memory usage and it shows only 30% of RAM in use. So disabling your page file will not address your performance problems.

Committed memory is created when processes allocate it. You don't really have a problem with your commit charge, but for reference, I'll add: Each process's contribution to this is shown in TM's "Details" tab, "Commit size" column (which is not displayed by default; you'll likely have to add it). The paged and nonpaged pool also are part of the system-wide commit charge.

You mention that another view of Task Manager (which we can't see) seems to show that your disk 0 is busy a high percentage of the time. Try using the Disk tab in Resource Monitor to see what's accessing the disk so much.

btw, an often-overlooked cause of slow disk activity is disk errors, which result in retries. Check the event log for this.

 

Windows Commit memory leaks away at about 8GB/Hour

System is 32GBRam, from reboot I show commit memory of approx 6GB commted over the following 30 mins this ramps up to say 13.3/65.8 Gb

after a number of hours and the end of the days the system becomes unstable as commit memory hits maximum, and I have to reboot

I have ensured all updates are applied and monitored commit memory by process (in resource monitor) this shows no change in committed memory by process so the no suspect process is in the list.

What steps of diagnosis would anyone recommend....

 

Committed Memory full but RAM has empty space?

Surely if the total committed memory is 16GB with no paging file and I have 16GB RAM, then all the committed memory is RAM? And that memory works the same on all machines running Windows? I don't understand how the committed memory can be full but RAM is not.
I will the performance toolkit next time I try run the game, but I'm not sure when to run it, while the game is loading and RAM usage is increasing or at a different time?