This definitely shouldn't be happening. Use OneDrive to back up your personal files and settings and then reinstall windows.

 

Windows has ridiculous memory leaks with a ton of different programs, especially browsers. There's no effective built-in mechanism to clear out cached memory.
This has always plagued people who don't restart their computers after extended periods of time (e.g. days to weeks).

Just upgrade to 64 GB of RAM instead. Save yourself the headache.

 

This is not good advice. The issue described here is not common at all, and windows will restart itself to do updates from time to time anyway.

This is clearly a corrupt OS issue and the OS needs to be reinstalled. Buying more ram than your computer uses to fix a software issue would not help anything.

 

OP can just disable stand by, and if you are also having this exact same issue, you should do the same.

That would seem to be common sense for anyone who need to leave their PC on for long periods of time, it should go without saying.

Games are not really designed to be open when the PC goes into stand by, but a browser certainly is.

 

You can manually empty standby ram with RAMMap (run as admin, choose the Empty menu, and select Empty Standby List). RAMMap is a windows utility built by Microsoft. If the problem is caused by ram usage, emptying the standby ram may allow you to run another game at the same time.

Your problem is likely a memory leak, it would be good to use a utility such as RAMMap to help identify what is leaking. You will need to address the leak for any long term solution. If you identify the leak, we may be able to help.

I don't think the answers of "buy more ram", or just "reformat", are good solutions. They may ultimately be less headache, but if one of your programs has a memory leak, reinstalling the same programs will net the same results. More ram just means it takes longer until it starts to happen.

 

The standby list using up all available physical memory shouldn't be a problem because the standby list can be used as free memory by any other process that needs it and memory address shouldn't be put on the standby list if actually still required.

As 1Kaz mentions this is probably a memory leak, likely with the program/game in question, and there may not be much that can be done about this other than restarting the application at regular intervals. Emptying the standby list manually may or may not help anything. Adding more memory, or increase total available virtual memory by increasing page file size, might delay the inevitable, but is not a real solution either.

On a side note, it's almost never wise to disable the Windows page file because that cripples Windows memory management's ability to map contiguous chunks of virtual memory to physical memory, even if nothing is ever paged out, which can result in out of memory errors with plenty of free physical memory, due to memory fragmentation.

Also, Windows (at least anything NT based) itself, assuming it's properly configured and isn't running overtly buggy drivers, should be cable of years of uptime, without problems.

 

@UltraMega i have just recently reinstalled, windows 10 is a mess and i have to reinstall every 3-6 months or so because of all the issues it has. also i am talking about standby memory not standby power saving mode, that i always disable.

@Ichirou i do agree with you it is microsofts fault and they cant be bothered to actually fix a lot of problems they put out they just expect users to live with what ever happens, i also leave my machines up for days if not weeks, it really started to be a bad thingafter windows 10 era updates on everything, older versions just dont have these problems. unfortunately i cannot afford more ram though, i have fixed it before but cant remember all the changes i had to make to do it.

@1Kaz thank you for the suggestions, i have already tried RAMmap, it helps to clear it but windows just starts rebuilding it instantly and i dont want it to do it in the first place and it ends up causing problems anyways

@Blameless you're 100% correct it shouldn't be happening and windows shouldn't be prioritizing standby ram over running applications, closing them to preserve it.

it seems to be an issue in windows somewhere likely with a tweak or setting i used to disable updates, spying and other things that cause so many problems that now other things referencing those aspects are not running correctly or something, but there has to be a way to fix it by disabling more unneeded aspects, windows is full of bugs and useless "features" haha

i also never disable page file because of those problems i have had a lot of issues just because windows is made to use it even if it doesnt need it parts of applications just wont load unless it can be referenced somehow, i keep 4-8GB on a second m.2 4gb/s drive, currently 8GB, so i have 32GB Ram+8GB pagefile.

i keep thinking about switching over to linux, if so many of the things i use everyday worked on it i would have already. haha, but for the time being i would have to run windows in a KVM and either use it or remote desktop access to run programs out of it or wine or something which some things do not work well with either so i am kind of stuck with the junk software which is what microsoft relies on to stay in business at this point i think. lol

 

Another vote for "that ain't normal".

I still have a haswell system with 8GB RAM running semi-modern games hitting the physical mem limit with no issues. It was far more common for the application to close itself from memory issues versus the OS interfering

it seems to be an issue in windows somewhere likely with a tweak or setting i used

I would stop doing that for now outside of what's available in UI settings. Test on a stock install, with certainty that everything is stable (cpu, mem ssd). Set pagefile to automatically managed, only change this if it's really not working when it should be.

e.g. I have 32GB installed, 5GB used in idle, 3.4GB standby, 23GB free, 4GB auto pagefile and 8/36GB committed.

The give away is that there is still standby memory available, this along with accompanying 'out of memory' pop ups usually point to something wrong with paging or memory allocation. You can use RAMMAP from sysinternals to call the windows function to clear it but it's just a workaround.

 

Games are not designed to be left open for weeks on end. I think a lot of games would have memory issues with that. What you are trying to do is just beyond what is expected behavior for windows.

 

You can automatically clear standby memory with parameters specified by you with software called ISLC (Intelligent standby list cleaner)

Intelligent standby list cleaner (ISLC) v1.0.3.4 Released - Wagnardsoft Forum

This software works really good.

 

@UltraMega i leave the computers on for weeks, which i have always done, i have gone 3-4 months without a reboot on workstations never had a problem before the windows 10 era came around. haha

the games themselves are fairly well optimized and old, i have left them going until the servers had maintenance before and i use to play it on windows xp with an AMD sempron single core cpu that had 512mb ram, so my hex core laptop with 32GB should be able to handle it without closing it.

@Trys0meM0re thank you for that suggestion i had just found that tool last night but hadn't tried it yet i will give it a try, i also really just didn't want it generating the standby list at all as it seems like pointless entropy to keep loading files off the drive just to clear them again it would make more sense to just stop loading files into memory that are not needed.

@SpartanVXL it really seems like the OS on this one as i have never had this issue prior to windows 10, i've played this game off and on since XP and it has never really happened before windows 10.

personally i will not allow windows 10 to even connect to the internet before applying tweaks as i am not comfortable with all the telemetry data sent out to Microsoft, so fresh install with zero elements disabled would be a deal breaker for me.

something does appear to be wrong with this install yet again, i am considering just installing a server build next time i reformat, probably 2012 r2 or something and just dealing with trial resets, etc. windows 10 is a bug ridden nightmare haha.

 

OP - due yourself a big favor and just reinstall the OS. You can go into the SAFE mode and select the option to retain files and folders and Windows will straighten itself out, or simply elect to do a full reinstall.

 

Since you’ve mentioned already re-installing and still encountering the issue there is something wrong with either your install source, the tweaks that you make, or your hardware causing unaccountable errors.

To be perfectly clear a brand new install with no other software or modifications does not exhibit this issue. It’s easy to blame MS, but if this really was a problem you would be seeing a lot more reports about it.

You’re going to need to detail exactly what you’re doing if you want to figure out whats wrong. If it is something you’re configuring and it is part of your ‘dealbreaker’ issues then I suggest dropping Windows as it no longer fits your required purpose.

If the game is old enough theres a good chance you can run it via wine/proton on your preferred distro. 2012 r2 is about to eol in 6 months, older windows may work out if you don’t intend to do anything modern but the risk is still there if going online with it.

(anecdote time: I have three personal and a bunch of workstations in use running 10, none exhibit this issue despite running high memory workloads. The last time I encountered this was in XP/7 days with improper pagefile settings. If it’s the same cause an old windows won’t change much, it’s still very much the same system underneath.)

 

there absolutely is something wrong with the install source, it came from Microsoft. lol

while it is easy to blame me, everyone loves blaming the user for problems, you can search standby list issues and windows closing applications automatically and see post after post of people reporting similar issues. so windows DOES in fact have these problems out of the box, with a fresh install for many users.

me disabling telemetry doesn't effect memory management so me giving more information to microsoft will not magically fix this problem.

i also detailed i disabled the setting in policies because there is a literal policy setting for windows to close applications upon low ram to ensure stability.

i am not here to debate whether or not its my fault. i am here asking if anyone had the same problem and found a solution to the problem they had, none of this so far has been a solution to the problem. i am perfectly aware of how to reinstall at the first sign of an issue but in the end this doesn't fix problems, especially if the problem is a problem with the software itself, you can reinstall a million times and it is still going to be the same software that was installed the first time.

i will likely be going with 2012 r2 next reinstall, i don't like the windows 10 based operating systems, every single one is riddled with bugs and has a horrible process of production. which microsoft has admitted to users are now the beta testers, they release bad updates and software all the time and do not really care what most end users have to say about it they just fix what they decide to at their own pace and it is cheaper for them not to pay programmers to test for bugs when users can do it and they can just collect telemetry data on the problems users are facing.

my only issue with linux while i love it so, is the fact many applications simply will not run on it so i am stuck with windows, as there are software i have to run on my laptop that cannot function on linux.

okay now solution time, for anyone else facing this issue.

download powerrun open powershell and CMD as trusted installer

disable memory compression in power sell

Disable-MMAgent -mc

delete registry keys related to the system triggering low ram events/notifications in CMD


reg delete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\WDI\DiagnosticModules\{5EE64AFB-398D-4edb-AF71-3B830219ABF7}" /f

reg delete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\WDI\DiagnosticModules\{45DE1EA9-10BC-4f96-9B21-4B6B83DBF476}" /f

reg delete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\WDI\DiagnosticModules\{C0F51D84-11B9-4e74-B083-99F11BA2DB0A}" /f

this will cause no warnings and applications to have errors and crash in the event of completely running out of memory, but it also causes the OS not to try to remedy these situations with its own "fix" such as closing an active application.

don't forget to disable superfetch and prefetch along with the sysmain service.

i have also begun using process losso's smart trim feature just to keep an eye on it and make sure it does not grow when i am not watching it.

between everything, no more standby memory growing uncontrollably, no more closing applications, no more running out of memory somehow with only less than half used, etc.

just to test it i have opened 13 windows of the same game and ran the other game i was trying to play and nothing, it is no longer closing the other game windows when i open the second game even with 13 of them running.

so far so good.

 

I can think of two possibilities

1st is that you have Hybrid Sleep Enabled in the settings - allows sleep but also ensures the Hibernate File is created for power outages or after some time that MS decides is good.

2nd is upgrade to 64gb of memory as someone else has already posted. When I built my R5 1600, I went with 64GB of memory and never encountered the problem with it being on all the time and yes, I have several apps that were in use all the time. It wouldn't even auto reboot for updates once I figured out how to block that since I also have a battery backup so Hybrid Sleep has never been an issue.

 

@fastturtle thank you for your suggestions but i think i have the issue solved now, also i am not talking about standby sleep modes as i clarified before. i am talking about standby memory.

 

I made a program for a security company that requires the remote PC be on all the time. I have a real problem with Microsoft updating the PC when they want. Had to dismantle the updates, remove all non-essential programs yet still connected to the Internet/intranet. The LAN connection is essential to talk to the local server that I made too. The only workaround was to let the computer reboot (minimum apps) quickly and start the problem on startup. Meanwhile, card key access is offline.
the best workaround would be to re-make the program for Unix and run Unix servers and remotes and get rid of Microsoft crap all together.

 

@inlandchris that sounds rough, i totally understand though, windows lately just does what it wants and is filled with bugs, microsofts take is basically just "you'll take what we make and like it and even though we didnt test it, it's probably just your fault its not working right" 😂now too every article online is just "here are microsofts basic troubleshooting guides" telling you restart, update, check disk for errors, etc. the quality of software and really the internet as a whole is garbage now. they are using AI too much and cutting costs in all the wrong areas. since about 2018 we've just been totally stuck in an AI sandbox full of nonsense and most people haven't noticed because facebook and twitter work. 🤣

i will likely end up doing just what you are talking about, i solved this issue but after another reboot it is doing it again sometimes. windows 10 is a mess.

 

From more recent posts on other forums on the matter, it may be due to excessive data being cached for scanning by Defender or other, hence the non-release of what would otherwise be accessible memory. This is prevalent on systems that are freshly installed but have drives attached with older data that Defender or other heuristic software don't recognise. Likely compounded by pre/superfetch, so yes still a MS issue. No idea if it's the actual cause, but it apparently goes away given time(?)

Then again good that you got a solution already. I'd say to keep memory compression on, but with >32GB it's not really something to worry about.