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I have this laptop with decent specs:
CPU: Intel i5-8250u 4 cores (8 threads) @ 1.60GHz / Max Turbo @ 3.4GHz
GPU: Integrated Intel UHD 620 + discrete Radeon 520 GDDR5
RAM: 4GB DDR4 2400MHz
HDD: 1TB Toshiba mq01abd100 5400rpm
The only problem I have with this laptop is pagefile being actively working all the time making my applications load slower than they should. My RAM usage is always below 80%. What can I do to fix this?
This is normal.
At 70% memory usage I would expect there to be pagefile usage, and in fact much earlier than that. If the pagefile were not use the memory manager would have to resort to other ways to obtain memory and performance would suffer.
70% memory usage does not mean 30% is free and unused. Most of this is actually in use, it is just a different kind of usage. It is a kind of cache that isn't in active use but still contains potentially useful data. Experience over the years has shown that this memory is a major contributor to good performance. This memory is still immediately available to any application that needs it. If the memory gauge showed full memory usage it would show over 90% most of the time and would be neither useful not interesting, and thus useless.
The memory manager always tries to maintain a reasonable balance between in use and available memory. When memory pressure is low the memory manager will permit applications to use pretty much whatever they want. This is good. But when the demand for memory increases the memory manager will use more active measures to maintain available memory. Part of this is saving data that has not been recently accessed to the pagefile. Initially the data remains in memory but can be discarded if the memory is needed for other purposes. Saving data to the pagefile is near free in terms of performance. It requires very little CPU time and since other activities can occur at the same time there is no need to wait for the procedure to complete.
As memory demand rises the memory manager must become more aggressive in maintaining available memory. More data is written to the pagefile and read back as needed. Executable code from EXE and DLL files is dropped from memory and later read back in to memory. Nearing 100% usage the memory managers options are very limited. At this point even recently accessed memory must be reassigned to other purposes and performance becomes painfully slow. This is not a good situation but simply the memory manager making the best of a bad situation. It is doing what is necessary to keep the system running.
This is all very complex. It is the result of decades of research, development, and testing and for companies like Microsoft and Apple has cost a great deal of money. Trust the memory manager to do the right thing, even when you do not understand.
