Windows 8 on MSI Windpad 110W has little to no free memory after waking from sleep

I have an MSI WindPad 110W that I bought new (not used) with 4 GB of memory installed and about 256 MB reserved for video. I did a clean install of Windows 8 on it and have since been using it.

After going to sleep (either automatically or manually) and being woken up I notice the memory (shown in Task Manager) is usually upwards of 80 or 90 % used. Usually there is one Metro/Windows Store app running, the Reader app that comes preinstalled with Windows and sometimes Firefox. Looking in Task Manager I do not see anything taking up the several gigabytes of memory Windows claims is in use. Is there something I should look further at or into to see what the cause is?

UPDATE:

Here is Task Manager showing the problem. Note that 92% is about 3 GB and the highest process use is 37 MB by Explorer.

A second image, this one of the Performance tab: Screenshot of the Performance tab in Task Manager

Finally, someone suggested Performance Monitor. This is what it shows:

Resource Monitor showing memory usage

Again, if anyone can help me correct this problem, or even help me confirm it is an actual bug in some software or Windows itself so I can stop using it/file a bug report, I'll be happy.

K.A.Monica

Posted 2013-01-01T04:48:01.927

Reputation: 5 887

Could be a driver bug... Make sure to get all the updated drivers from th manufacturer's website. Additionally, get Process Explorer and enable the Virtual Size column, that will give you a better idea of what the culprit might be. – Bigbio2002 – 2013-01-07T03:41:55.320

OK, I've downloaded and configured it. I will report back when this happens again. – K.A.Monica – 2013-01-07T03:47:38.420

Right-click the column category bar, then you can select whichever metrics you want. – Bigbio2002 – 2013-01-07T06:12:01.430

Answers

You have a non page memory leak. This is a driver issue. To resolve it, do the following:

install the WDK
open the command prompt with admin rights in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\Tools\x64
run the tool poolmon.exe, press B to sort per Bytes.
find the raw with the highest Bytes

enter image description here

(Image source: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ntdebugging)

look at the "Tag" Column and remember those 4 characters.
open the command prompt in C:\Windows\System32\drivers and run this command

findstr /s those_4_characters *.sys
look which drivers are shown, look at the file versions and make sure they are all update to date. if not, update them.

magicandre1981

Posted 2013-01-01T04:48:01.927

Reputation: 86 560

The file that that turns up is spaceport.sys, which appears to be a part of Windows 8. Should I post a new thread about how to "fix" this, or refactor my question? – K.A.Monica – 2013-01-19T23:13:32.690

spaceport.sys is the new Storage Spaces‎ feature. Do you use it? – magicandre1981 – 2013-01-20T06:47:48.683

No. This machine has 1 HD and no others. – K.A.Monica – 2013-01-20T14:04:29.563

Contact the MS support about the isue. This looks like a bug in Windows 8. – magicandre1981 – 2013-01-20T20:38:27.493

Resource monitor would be of help there - you can access this through a link in task manager

enter image description here

This will give you a breakdown of memory usage per app, and how memory is being used.

Some things to note - with memory on resource monitor, the green part is what you really need to worry about. 'standby memory' is basicallly stuff cached for faster use.

Journeyman Geek

Posted 2013-01-01T04:48:01.927

Reputation: 119 122

I will do this when I experience the problem again. – K.A.Monica – 2013-01-06T19:19:14.507

OK, I've reproduced the problem and have posted the screenshots. – K.A.Monica – 2013-01-07T03:13:50.590