Throughout the last several years RAM amount available has increased on personal computers. Memory usage increases due to many factors, and laptops are commonly shipped with 8 GB RAM.<\/p>\n
The capabilities of your system are limited by how much RAM is being used. What should you do when experiencing low RAM or a memory leak?<\/p>\n
Random Access Memory or RAM, is a type of storage, which is different than a hard-drive. This storage is not maintained when systems are powered down. You likely have 2-8 GB RAM, depending on the age of your system.<\/p>\n
Some RAM is used for every application opened on a device, some using more than others. The performance of a system is limited by how much RAM is available and how much is in use.<\/p>\n
Task manager is one of the several programs allowing your to check what you RAM is being used on. Right-click on Taskbar and select\u00a0Task Manager.<\/b>\u00a0Click on\u00a0Processes.\u00a0<\/b>Here you will see each process using RAM, with the cumulative system usage shown at the bottom of the panel. Clicking on\u00a0the Performance tab<\/b>\u00a0shows a system overview, where you can see CPU Usage and Memory.<\/p>\n
If not happy with Task Manager, access\u00a0Resource Manager\u00a0<\/b>in the Performance Tab. Look under\u00a0the Memory tab<\/b>\u00a0for a look at active memory processes.<\/p>\nCommonly Seen RAM Issues<\/b><\/h3>\n
RAM can be fast and efficient, most times, but there are some issues that are commonly seen that have easy fixes.<\/p>\n
The reason could be resource heavy applications using all available RAM. If you see this issue often, it is recommended to purchase and install more RAM.<\/p>\n
This can have different meanings on different systems or software being used.<\/p>\n
An example would be in 2014, Mozilla Firefox browser had a memory leak issue. A memory leak is when RAM memory allocations are managed incorrectly by an application, causing unneeded memory to be retained by the application, store objects that are no longer able to be reached in the memory. Either way, system memory can be drained completely by the application. If you believe a memory leak is using all your RAM, give this a try. Open\u00a0Task Manager > Performance\u00a0<\/b>tab. Keep open Task Manager, and open most commonly used applications one at a time, monitoring it for about 1-2 hours. If you notice the blue line in Physical Memory Usage Graph rising continually when you are not using the system, there may be a memory leak. This is one of the RAM issues that can be found.<\/p>\n