How to Solve Windows 11/10 High RAM Memory Usage Issue [10 Fixes]

Don't worry if your computer gets stuck and Windows Task Manager warns "High memory usage". On this page, we will guide you to easily fix high memory usage issue in Windows 11/10/8/7 with the following resolutions:

What is High Memory Usage?

High Memory Usage is a state that Windows computers' RAM, ROM, or Cache usage grows to an extremely high level. Windows 10 high memory usage error is related to RAM and virtual memory.

When the PC has a high memory usage error, it will freeze while running a program and pops up an error message, warning that "Your computer is low on memory".

Follow to check if you are having this error and what caused high memory usage.

Define High Memory Usage Windows 11/10 Error:

Try the following steps to define if your computer is with high memory usage, high CPU, or high disk usage error:

Step 1. Press Ctrl + Alt + Del keys and select "Task Manager".

Step 2. At the Process tab, check the usage state of CPU, Memory, and Disk.

If the Memory column displays 70%, 80%, 90%, or 99% used as the two figures shown below, it's a "High Memory Usage" issue.

High Memory Usage in Processes:

High Memory Usage in Performance:

Symptoms and Causes of High Memory Usage:

So what will happen when your computer is caught with a high memory usage issue? And what causes this error? Check it out.

10 Fixes for High (RAM) Memory Usage Issue in Windows 11/10

So how to fix "high memory usage" or "High RAM memory usage" issues? How do I reduce or fix the high memory usage in Windows 11/10?

Here is a list of all tested fixes, just follow to fix high memory usage Windows 11/10 issues immediately:

• 1. Close Unnecessary Running Programs/Applications
• 2. Disable Startup Programs
• 3. Defragment Hard Drive & Adjust Best Performance
• 4. Fix Disk File System Error
• 5. Increase Virtual Memory
• 6. Disable Superfetch service
• 7. Set Registry Hack
• 8. Increase Physical Memory
• 9. Disable NDU in Registry
• 10. Clean Up Virus

If you are having a similar problem in older Windows OS, like Windows XP, you can also give these fixes a try.

Method 1. Close Unnecessary Running Programs/Applications

When your computer is with high memory usage, you can try to close some unnecessary running programs and applications to fix this issue.

Step 1. Open Task Manager by right-clicking on the Windows icon and select "Task Manager".

Step 2.Go to the process tab, find the running programs that are taking high memory but you don't need it at all.

Step 3. Click the unnecessary programs and select "End Task".

Method 2. Disable Programs Running from Startup

Disabling programs running from Startup will effectively decrease the system load and saving quite a lot of CPU memory space.

Step 1.Press Ctrl + Alt + Del keys, select "Task Manager".

Step 2.Click on "Startup" in Task Manager, right-click the applications that you don't want to run from Startup, and select "Disable".

Method 3. Defragment Hard Drive & Adjust for Best Performance

It will also help to save quite a lot of memory space by defragmenting hard drives. You can also refer to a manual way to defrag and optimize the disk for its best performance.

Defragment hard drives:

Step 1. Press "Windows + R", type: dfrgui, click "Defragment and Optimize Drives" to open this app.

Step 2. Click on the hard drives (C: drive for example) you want to defragment and click "Optimize".

Wait for the process to finish the defragment process. Do remember to restart the computer when the process completes.

Adjust for the best performance:

Step 1. Right-click "This PC" and select "Properties".

Step 2. Click "Advanced system settings", click "Settings" under Performance.

Step 3. Check "Adjust for best performance", click "Apply" and "OK" to confirm.

Method 4. Fix Disk File System Error

File system error is a major reason that may cause high memory usage or high CPU usage on Windows 11/10/8/7 computers. Professional partition manager software - Qiling Partition Master can easily fix the error and get rid of it from your PC. It's easy for all levels of Windows users. 

Method 5. Increase Virtual Memory

Virtual memory makes use of part of disk space to serve as memory so as to release computer memory stress. Therefore, when your computer is with high memory usage issue, you can try the following steps to increase virtual memory:

Step 1. Right-click on This PC, select "Properties". 

Step 2.Click "Advanced system settings" in the pop-up window.

Step 3.Go to the Advanced tab, click "Settings..." under the Performance section.

Step 4.Navigate to the Advanced tab, click "Change" under the Virtual memory section.

Step 5.Uncheck "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives".

Step 6.Select C drive, check "No page file", and click "Set". 

Step 7. Click "Yes" to continue.

Step 8. Select a non-system partition, check "Custom size", and set the same value in Initial Size and Maximum Size. 

The value size is recommended to be twice big as the physical memory on your computer.

Step 9. Click "Set" and "OK" to save the changes.

Method 6. Disable Superfetch Service

Step 1.Press Windows + R, type services.mscinto the Run box and click "OK".

Step 2.Locate and right-click "Superfetch" > select "Properties" > click "Stop" on the pop-up windows.

Step 3. Click "Disabled" from the 'startup type' drop-down menu.

Method 7. Set Registry Hack

This method will release some virtual memory on your computer by deleting page files in the Registry. Here is how to do so:

Step 1. Press Windows + R keys, type regedit to open the Registry Editor.

Step 2. Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Session Manager/Memory Management.

Step 3. Find and right-click ClearPageFileAtShutDown, select to modify its value to "1" and click "OK".

Method 8. Increase Physical Memory

Logically, when your computer is with a high memory usage issue, you can add a new memory card to your computer so to extend the physical memory.

You need to first check out the memory type by referring to the parameters of memory on your computer. Here is how to increase a physical memory on your PC:

Step 1.Check the physical memory size: Right-click on This PC and select "Properties".

Step 2.Open Task Manager and go to the Performance tab, click "Memory".

Step 3. Check out the speed, size of the memory to decide which type you'll need.

Step 4. Then purchase a new memory card, add it to your PC.

After adding the new memory to your computer, restart the PC and it will automatically detect the new memory.

Method 9. Disable NDU in Registry

Note: Qiling technical support experts say this method may affect the usage of internet connection. 

If you would like to try, here are the steps:

Step 1.Type regedit in Windows Search and click Registry Editor to open it.

Step 2. Go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/ControlSet001/Services/Ndu.

Step 3.Right-click on the Start DWORD and select "Modify". 

Step 4.Change its value to 4, click "OK" to save the changes.

After this, restart your PC and the high memory usage issue should be resolved.

If your computer internet connection gets disabled, we suggest you repeat the steps and change the Start word value back to the previous number - 2. 

Method 10. Clean Up Virus

Sometimes, virus infection or malware may also take up high usage of memory on your PC. The best way out is to run antivirus software on you PC to clean up all existing virus, and malware immediately:

Step 1.Download and install anti-virus software on your computer.

Step 2.Run the anti-virus software and choose to scan your whole computer drive.

Step 3. Select to clean up all found virus or virus-infected files or devices.

Bonus Tips: How to Avoid High Memory Usage Issue on Windows 11/10

After you fixing Windows high memory usage on Windows 10/8/7, some of you may want to know how to prevent this issue from happening again.

Here, we'll offer tips to protect your Windows 10 computer from this issue. 

How to Avoid High Memory Usage in Windows 10 - Tips

Here are some tips that you can follow to avoid high memory usage issues in Windows 10/8/7. See how to set your computer with the best performance: 

• #1. Add a big enough memory card to the PC
• #2. Run virus cleaner regularly
• #4. Disable unnecessary programs from Startup
• #5. Release virtual memory from hard drive
• #6. Fix file system error and defrag hard drive regularly

You May Also Interest In:

Some of you may also want to know how to define High CPU or High Disk Usage errors. Here are the steps"

Step 1. Hold Ctrl+Alt+Del keys, click "Task Manager".

Step 2. On the Processes tab, check the Memory or the Disk usage state:

• The CPU column reaches up to 99% or even 100%, it's a "High CPU Usage" issue. Refer to Fix 99% or 100% High CPU Usage for help.

• The Disk column shows high usage or even displays 100%, it's a "High Disk Usage" issue. Follow 100% Disk Usage to fix this problem.

Take Action, Keep Your Computer from High Memory Usage Issue

On this page, we provide tips to help you define whether your computer has high memory issues. And we also collected 10 practical fixes to resolve high memory usage Windows 10 errors, and listed tips to help you avoid this issue.

Besides managing RAM and virtual high memory usage issues, we also suggest you apply Qiling disk management software to make your computer running smoothly again. Qiling Partition Master helps to manage partitions, make full use of disk space and optimize disk performance to the best state.

Now it's your turn. Take action and keep your computer from the high memory usage issue, making it running smoothly again. 

Related Articles

• How to Clone SD Card in Windows 11/10/8/7 (5 Minutes Tutorial)
• SSD Slow Boot Windows 11 | Boot Windows 11 from SSD
• M.2 VS SATA, What's The Differerence and How to Install [2022 Guide]
• How to Convert Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk in Windows 11