I've a client with a Lenovo A540 All-in-one, 8GB RAM, 1TB SSD drive, Win 8.1. She is occasionally getting a Windows low memory error pop-up:  "Close programs to prevent information loss. Your computer is low on memory."

The computer is relatively new, has had an active BitDefender subscription installed from day 1 and AFAIK, has the latest drivers installed. Memory is managed by Windows (no changes made to paging file settings).

I've run diagnostics when the error is occurring.

System shows Commit Charge at over 95%, which I suspect is related to the low memory error.

Sysinternal Process Explorer memory results look wacky too.

Any insights about how to identify the culprit here? I'm offsite in another city and troubleshooting via remote, so must be careful about disabling startup services.

Thanks.

Screenshots:

Commit Charge: https://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/771x516q90/661/5lnRkf.png

Process Explorer: https://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/951x950q90/633/yM4e69.png

• Edited by Veni-Vidi-Vici Tuesday, July 07, 2015 7:55 PM

Hi MeipoXu. The issue doesn't occur when the machine is started/restarted, and it only occurs perhaps every 10 days to 2 weeks when the user receives a Windows warning about a low memory condition. Yesterday, when this occurred, the only foreground applications the user had open were Microsoft Outlook and Firefox and very few windows in each of these applications. This is not a power user running numerous concurrent applications.

I access this computer, which is 3000 miles from me, via remote sessions, and I lose access even when I choose the Safe Mode w/Networking startup option, so modifying startup parameters is off the table. But clean boots probably won't reveal anything since the problem only occurs maybe a week after the computer has been running.

Running a RAM health diagnostics is probably a good idea. I will see what the options are with that. However, I ran BIOS-based hardware diagnostics when I set up the machine 2 or 3 months ago and all passed. 

I saw nothing obvious in the Event Viewer correlated with the Windows low memory pop-up warning. But next time it occurs, I will post a screenshot of that as well.

• Edited by Veni-Vidi-Vici 15 hours 10 minutes ago

As a work around a weekly reboot might reduce/eliminate the issue.  One way of pin pointing the problem (if the client has the ability) would be to run a windows performance trace when they are experiencing the issue.

In order to diagnose your problem we need to run Windows performance toolkit the instructions for which can be found in this wiki
If you have any questions feel free to ask
Please run the trace when you are experiencing the problem

Hi MeipoXu. The issue doesn't occur when the machine is started/restarted, and it only occurs perhaps every 10 days to 2 weeks when the user receives a Windows warning about a low memory condition. Yesterday, when this occurred, the only foreground applications the user had open were Microsoft Outlook and Firefox and very few windows in each of these applications. This is not a power user running numerous concurrent applications.

I access this computer, which is 3000 miles from me, via remote sessions, and I lose access even when I choose the Safe Mode w/Networking startup option, so modifying startup parameters is off the table. But clean boots probably won't reveal anything since the problem only occurs maybe a week after the computer has been running.

Running a RAM health diagnostics is probably a good idea. I will see what the options are with that. However, I ran BIOS-based hardware diagnostics when I set up the machine 2 or 3 months ago and all passed. 

I saw nothing obvious in the Event Viewer correlated with the Windows low memory pop-up warning. But next time it occurs, I will post a screenshot of that as well.

• Edited by Veni-Vidi-Vici Wednesday, July 08, 2015 4:14 PM