Just thought I'd ask here in case anybody has had this happen before. My computer will just randomly use 98% RAM and lock up. Twice it happened watching YouTube videos and once playing rF2 so I know it's not software specific. I'm unable to really have a good look at Task Manager since the computer locks up with so much RAM being used. Does anybody have any ideas as to what this could be? I've done the malware and other security scans. Thanks.
You need to check which process is taking the most of your RAM. Sometimes there can be problem with svchost.exe process, bug in windows, memory leak. How are you unable to see Task Manager? Try download some other process manager and check. And what windows are you using?
open task manager before it locks up and keep it running. Try and have it in a position that you will be able to see the running processes and the amount of CPU time they use so that when it locks up you can still see it. This won't be an option when you are playing rF2, but for watching youtube it should stay on top.
If not the dust or malware or failing component. A minor possibility could be a bad sector on your hdd. Perhaps a bad sector in the virtual memory section, assuming you don't disable virtual memory. If you can't get to the bottom it in windows because it keeps locking up make a boot disk (cd usb dos or linux startdisk) do a hard disk and memcheck from there. If none of this helps, try removing the optical drive (just unplug it) if you have one, when optical drives begin to fail they can cause random issues. Sometimes it's just quicker to try to reinstall windows......
Thanks for the responses guys. I opened up the case last night and gave it some TLC with the vacuum cleaner. So far so good and thanks again for the responses and advice, it's much appreciated.
