I'm having a tough time with my laptop lately. It's running incredibly slow and constantly crashing, making it nearly unusable. Even trying to run just a couple of applications at once leads to crashes or delays. For example, with only 3-4 browser tabs open, my browser crashes altogether. On top of that, sometimes my desktop or explorer restarts by itself.
My RAM usage shoots up to over 95% after launching a couple of apps. For instance, Brave might show it's using 800 MB of RAM, but my total RAM usage is still around 85%. Just a few days ago, everything was running fine, and I could easily multitask with several applications and even do some light gaming. Now, my games struggle to launch, and Steam won't even open.
**Here's a bit about my setup:**
* **RAM:** 8 GB
* **Storage:** 512 GB NVMe SSD
* **Operating System:** Windows 11 Home
* **OS Build:** 26200.8039
* **Model:** Dell Latitude 7390
It feels like I'm using a much older setup with just 4 GB of RAM and a traditional HDD instead of this gear. Around the time these issues started, I downloaded Ollama and two lightweight models (which I've since deleted), changed the paging file to 16 GB – 24 GB (also reverted), downloaded Wireshark (deleted), and updated Windows multiple times. Despite reverting almost everything besides the Windows updates, my laptop is still barely functional. If anyone can suggest what I should check next, I would really appreciate it!
3 Answers
When checking RAM usage, are there any specific applications that stand out as consuming a lot? It might be worth looking at your CPU usage too. Another tip would be to let Windows handle the page file size automatically rather than setting it yourself, which can help with performance.
I noticed after just restarting my laptop and having no applications open that my RAM usage is still over 80%. It jumps to 95%+ after opening Brave! It seems crazy for just idle usage.
Just a heads-up: Before making any system changes, always verify that your data backups are in place. This way, you won’t lose anything important. If your RAM is spiking this high, look into cleaning up unnecessary startup programs and services, as they can really bog down your system.
Right now, Brave is using around 600 MB, Anti-Malware Executable is at 200 MB, and Search is at 110 MB. Those are the top three, but overall it still shows about 75-80% memory used. I switched back to letting Windows manage the page file too, thanks for the advice!