Is Windows being Windows, or is there a bigger problem with my ram?

[wolfmcbeard]

I figured I'd seek some help with some weirdness that's been plaguing my HP Z240 since I got it last year, it's a very intermittent problem that I can't seem to force to happen.
I've had instances where my pc will slow down, crash, and then reboot.
Recently, it did this again, but instead of crashing and rebooting, explorer and video drivers crashed and recovered enough for me to get into task manager to discover all 32gb of ram is being consumed by the app "News and interests".
Now this is a very rare issue for me and I can't seem to replicate it, but happens often enough I'm always worried when this thing will lose it's mind and eat dirt.
The system has worked fine otherwise.

OS: Windows 10 Professional 64bit
system specs: HP Z240 oem motherboard and oem 400 watt psu - i5 6600 @ 3.30ghz - 32 gb BTO branded ddr4 - BTO branded m.2 ssd - Gigabyte GTX 1050 Gaming 2gb
BIOS version: Don't know, I did update it around the time of purchase and there was seemingly no change.

[Eigenvektor]

31 minutes ago, wolfmcbeard said:

…to discover all 32gb of ram is being consumed by the app "News and interests".

I've seen others post about this before. Apparently that process has a memory leak, which will lead it to never free memory, if you keep your PC running long enough. The easiest solution would be to disable it (right click task bar —> News and Interests —> turn off)

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/w29wsx/what_caused_news_and_interests_to_suddenly_take/

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/feed-took-up-99-of-my-ram-usage-and-made-me-lose/30a9251b-172d-4bb9-947f-e51375e2cf5f

[PineyCreek]

Dang it @Eigenvektor you beat me to it.

 

Hide News and Interests in Windows 10 - Microsoft Community

 

Yeah, try turning it off and see if it still happens.  Maybe manually kill the process/app in task manager if it sticks around after you turn it off.

 

Normally when there's problems with a window you'd want to blame it on the installers (improper sealant, installation, etc.) but really with the software, it's like the Hulk/Bruce Banner "I'm always broken."

[wolfmcbeard]

19 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

I've seen others post about this before. Apparently that process has a memory leak, which will lead it to never free memory, if you keep your PC running long enough. The easiest solution would be to disable it (right click task bar —> News and Interests —> turn off)

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/w29wsx/what_caused_news_and_interests_to_suddenly_take/

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/feed-took-up-99-of-my-ram-usage-and-made-me-lose/30a9251b-172d-4bb9-947f-e51375e2cf5f

Thanks for the info on that, I've always left it open on my task bar so I can keep an eye on the weather, I was worried something was off about the admittedly and probably bootleg ram since this was a day one issue ever since I got this thing.