I'm having an issue with my Lenovo Legion Slim 5 laptop running Windows 11. On startup, my RAM usage is around 47% with 16GB of RAM, and after a few hours, I notice a memory leak that can push it over 70% after a day, which makes it hard to run games smoothly without restarting. This has been happening since the first week I got the laptop. I've already disabled unnecessary startup apps like Discord, Medal, and Steam, but I really want to avoid a clean reinstall of Windows if possible. I'm not tech-savvy enough to diagnose the problem using tools like Rammap. Is there a way to fix this without wiping my data?
3 Answers
High RAM usage can happen for various reasons on Windows 11, unfortunately. Besides the suggestions above, consider setting specific sizes for your paging file, and after checking for updates, pause Windows Update for a while. This may help stabilize things a bit better for you.
It’s common to see high RAM usage at startup because of caching, but it sounds like you might have a memory leak since your idle usage goes so high. Try minimizing your startup programs, and check Task Manager for any apps that are using more RAM than expected. If you spot something, consider clearing its cache or reinstalling it. Also, some users find that adjusting CPU parking can help with RAM issues. If none of this helps, upgrading to 32GB of RAM could be a good solution, too.
You might be dealing with Windows Defender causing the high usage. It's a bit tricky disabling it without potentially exposing your system, so tread carefully if you decide to do that. You can also try restarting some of the services like Sysmain and Windows Search and see if that helps balance out your RAM usage.
But if it's hitting 70% idle usage, that's not normal! You might need to dig deeper into specific apps, especially since you're worried about running newer games. Have you tried running any memory diagnostics or checking your system's services?