Why is Explorer.exe leaking VRAM?

Renton577 · August 12

So I've noticed on my laptop that Explorer.exe leaks VRAM. I am on Windows 10 and using an Nvidia card. However the Nvidia card is a mobile Kepler Quadro so its using driver 426. I have tested running the system with hybrid graphics on and using the Intel graphics fixes the VRAM leak but I would rather not pipe everything through the integrated graphics. My question is, is there any way to fix the issue or is it just an issue with those Nvidia drivers and I'm going to have to use the Intel?

Mel0n. · August 12

What laptop model?
On my Precision M6700 (i7-3840QM, Quadro K4000, same driver release) I have turned on Nvidia Optimus in the BIOS and set explorer.exe (in C:\Windows) to use the iGPU in Nvidia control panel.

Renton577 · August 12

24 minutes ago, Mel0n. said:

What laptop model?
On my Precision M6700 (i7-3840QM, Quadro K4000, same driver release) I have turned on Nvidia Optimus in the BIOS and set explorer.exe (in C:\Windows) to use the iGPU in Nvidia control panel.

Its an HP Zbook, and yeah using the iGPU fixes the issue but I would rather keep the iGPU off, my system has a Mux switch which allows me to run the system just off the Nvidia chip which if I do that causes the memory leak.

Astyanax · October 5

I've been digging into this for some time, there is an object leak occuring in the desktop explorer.exe process on some machines that is antagonised by things like DPI changes, it is GPU driver agnostic but having the shell on a different gpu would mask the issue by preventing it from affecting game function.

I have already contacted Renton about it on reddit, but if anyone else is seeing the same thing can they list things such as their configuration on the desktop, shell extension and software used, whether or not it is an upgrade from 7 or 8, etc.

Theres a missing variable here as the issue still replicates on a diagnostic startup whilst not being present at all on a second machine.

Someone elses resolution involved changing the default image handler (which also changes the in use shell thumbnail provider), but i've had no luck there thus far. have also gone through and disabled all shell extensions too.