Dell Latitude issues

Posted by Noznorb@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 73 comments

Good afternoon, first time poster here.

Recently we've been having issues with some of our Dell Latitude's where RAM seems to be running around 90% or more consistently even with nothing running on the system. We've confirmed there's no pending updates and the numbers don't make sense for it to be running that high. Have even resorted to reaching out to Dell themselves and were told to contact our local IT team (so helpful).

Anyone else running into similar issues or have any thoughts on what may be causing it?

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TiltSoloMid@reddit

Check for Dell bloatware memory leaks.

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simask234@reddit

Is that 56GB?

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TiltSoloMid@reddit

Yes

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demzor@reddit

Windows 11 uses what you give it

We have 16gb default in our machines and it’s always 80%+ utilized.

Never feels slow though.

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topher358@reddit

8gb of RAM is no longer adequate to run Windows endpoints smoothly.

Even 16gb feels tight pretty often.

32gb is the new 16gb

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Typical80sKid@reddit

Just got a new 32gb Dell PRo Max or WTF they are calling it. Been bitching about the lack of headroom for years. Open it up, install my stuff get to work, after a couple days I look at resources, it’s using 29/32 🤣. HOW?!?!

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MightBeDownstairs@reddit

We have tons of these deployed and that’s not true

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Bogus1989@reddit

same, we have hundreds of them deployed with 16gb ram and all the new ones with 32gbs.

maybe they are using the stock image.

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Typical80sKid@reddit

Maybe you mean my circumstance is not common?

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MightBeDownstairs@reddit

I mean out of 100 we have deployed non of them ram spike like that regularly.

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Typical80sKid@reddit

And what I mean is don’t say something isn’t true just because it’s not your experience.

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St0nywall@reddit

You may have an SQL instance running. SQL will reserve at least 90% of the free memory even if it isn't using it. It will release it back to Windows when a program requests it from Windows for use.

Just guessing here, usually this is the case in my experience.

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Typical80sKid@reddit

I do not. Typically a bunch of chrome tabs (main offender), Teams (runner up), Outlook, and VS Code.

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gta721@reddit

Open the Teams website in Chrome (the Teams "desktop app" is a second copy of Chromium) then make sure prefetching and the ad privacy bloat is turned off.

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Typical80sKid@reddit

I’ll keep that in mind if I start having issues. So far it’s running like a top.

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St0nywall@reddit

I looked at my chrome tabs just after reading this... 94GB in use. OMG I have too much open! LOL

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BlockBannington@reddit

You have 32 gig. Do you not want to USE that 32 gig?

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Typical80sKid@reddit

For sure. It was just interesting.

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Stonewalled9999@reddit

you have Edge and Team don't you?

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Typical80sKid@reddit

Chrome, but yeah

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topher358@reddit

Welcome to the age where everything runs in an inefficient web browser!

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Vexser@reddit

Funny how that's not a problem in Linux (which is not adware/bloatware/crapware laden). Most routine business operations can be done in Linux. Why aren't more companies looking to migrate as much as they can.

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topher358@reddit

I think one of the reasons is the prevalence of Microsoft Office in the business world.

Another reason is modern device management management tooling Linux support is not great, likely because there just isn’t much demand for it.

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Vexser@reddit

Libre Office does a fine job of most of the functionality. The device management argument is a bit harder to address.

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gta721@reddit

If you can't upgrade it then try turning off the Sysmain/Superfetch service then disable the telemetry and uninstall the AI bloat.

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cdoublejj@reddit

talk about bloated. wonder if LTSC runs any better. Linux boxes at home doing fine on 16gb still with lots of tabs and steam games at least.

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DestinyForNone@reddit

Honestly? I have some older Latitude 5500's running perfectly fine on Win11 LTSC.

Buttery smooth

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98723589734239857@reddit

it's weird. I've had plenty of 3540s and 3550s with issues, but those 5500s just keep running. users who still have them are starting to compain that they're getting pretty slow, which i understand, can't keep using them forever. just such a shame given how much more stable they seem to be than the newer models. they have served well.

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DestinyForNone@reddit

I feel like the problems started with the 5520's

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cdoublejj@reddit

No i want you to lie please

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DestinyForNone@reddit

The IRS are waiving your taxes for the year

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cdoublejj@reddit

you're the best man!!!!

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repooc21@reddit

This right here. I upgraded all my users to 32GB and a select few are going to get 64 on the next go round if it won't bankrupt us.

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SquizzOC@reddit

96GB or no deal.

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i7xxxxx@reddit

i don’t manage laptops by i had two latitudes through my org and with all the stuff the company has on it just after boot i’m sitting at 16gb usage minimum. also these have horrible cooling. it could be something causing an issue in the background like others have mentioned but even if that is solved 8gb is just far too low for these. even my 8gb macbook pro from a couple years ago needs a reboot periodically because they start to slowdown a lot with such little ram.

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jcwrks@reddit

I always chuckle when I see someone claim that there's "nothing running on the system." Nix startup items and non-MS services. Turn off visual effects, animations, and transparency.

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UninvestedCuriosity@reddit

/r/techsupport

Have you taken a clone and reimaged the machine?

If memory usage isn't showing in task manager it's usually something much more worrying.

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BigSnackStove@reddit

W11 gonna W11

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Awkward-Candle-4977@reddit

Use 1+ year old version that is still supported such as 24h2. You can defer feature upgrade for a year using group policy

If you have enterprise license, 23h2 is still supported too

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whatsforsupa@reddit

Try uninstalling Support Assist and monitor to see if it helps. Awhile back, SA kept trying to do something (update itself and failing? I forget it’s been awhile), but it was essentially causing a memory leak that would eventually bring a system to its knees.

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Embarrassed-Gur7301@reddit

Avg amount of RAM installed? I've noticed a good amount my Lenovos with 16GB are about the same. Starting to think Win 11 is just happy with that amount anymore.

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Noznorb@reddit (OP)

We're running 8 on most of the ones that are having issues, the way we were solving it was upgrading their RAM to 16.

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MightBeDownstairs@reddit

Bro what? 8 GB of ram? Is this 2010?

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Valdaraak@reddit

8 GB RAM in 2026? Oof.

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PDQ_Brockstar@reddit

Yeah, 16 GB ram is the new 8 GB unfortunately. It's a good thing upgrading RAM is cheap these days, right guys?

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Impossible_IT@reddit

Cheap? Cheap? We don’t need no stinking cheap RAM! /s

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Ferman@reddit

I have more end users reporting "slowness" we are all at 16GB of ram but the silver latitudes have been having a lot of problems recently. Motherboard swaps because of USBC failure, overheating, etc.

Even after a clean intune wipe, RAM sits around 70%.

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CPAtech@reddit

Is Dell optimizer or any other Dell bloatware installed?

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Noznorb@reddit (OP)

Usually only keep Dell Command or Support Assist installed. We've been pretty good about uninstalling the rest.

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Intelligent_Title_90@reddit

I had cases where Dell support assist would consume RAM as if there was no tomorrow.

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NDAbsoluteZero@reddit

I've had the same experience with SupportAssist, and ended up just removing it from the affected machine, reboot, and they're working a lot better. Frigging PoS software.

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CPAtech@reddit

"usually"

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Noznorb@reddit (OP)

Its one of the first things we checked when troubleshooting as we've had issues with optimizer in the past.

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thisguy_right_here@reddit

Had an issue on a legacy custom build. After boot memory in task manager (graph) would be near maximum of 32gb.

Processes showed about 14gb used.

Turned out the asustek apps were the cause of the issue.

Not sure if there is an app with a memory leak causing your issue.

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CpN__@reddit

Type in google: latitude (model) driver pack windows 11. Install the driver pack and thank me later

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CpN__@reddit

Make sure you run device manager as admin and add the driver from the files you extracted

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Jonny_Boy_808@reddit

Thread is over OP, 8GB of RAM is not enough. Thats your answer.

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Personal_Wall4280@reddit

If you open resource monitor and click on RAM what do you see taking it up? Task manager is good, but resource monitor might give you a better view of things.

But yeah 8gb of RAM is no longer workable.

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Stonewalled9999@reddit

Do you have a spare? I would say take one wipe it to the bare 25H2 ISO you get from MS and let it simmer a day or two and se what the RAM load is. Are they PCs 8 GB ? 16? 32?

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Noznorb@reddit (OP)

I do, we already swapped the user out with a new system and held onto their old one to try and finally figure out what was causing the issue. All systems that we've had the issue with are 8GB

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SVSDuke@reddit

Windows eats 8 gigs for lunch.

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Impossible_IT@reddit

And if they’re using Chrome?!!! Oofta!

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Stonewalled9999@reddit

I know you don't want to hear this (I didn't either). Bare W1125H2 will chew 6GB just on desktop. Yes you can strip it way down and remove stuff but generally that is for a hobby not an enterprise. We had a dude rip "Windows client" out and then wonder why he couldn't domain join a PC.

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Own-Slide-3171@reddit

8 gig isn't enough for windows 11

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GeekgirlOtt@reddit

SupportAssist and its new remediation function is prime suspect for recent issues here. It's doing some kind of reverse incremental backup and consuming ungodly wads of disk space.

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cdoublejj@reddit

LTT talked about a similar issue on the WAN show they didn't say if there was pending update but the update service was eating resources. honestly there should be built in tools for tracing resource usage down, if Resource mon is still built in to windows these days.

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BisonST@reddit

Check for memory leaks. Dell Display and Peripheral Manager caused this recently.

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nostradx@reddit

Which model? Latitude 9xxx series? Try disabling audio in BIOS, uninstalling audio software, and disabling Microsoft and third party audio related Windows services.

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EyeDontSeeAnything@reddit

Crowdstrike is our main culprit

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Purple-Path-7842@reddit

We've had this issue and the same issue with cpu and hdd stuck at around 100%. This was the case for about 4 years straight, nothing helped and Dell wouldn't help because their warranty is trash now and they say everything is the software department which you have to pay for. We've stopped buying Dell, as our vendors told us to stop buying because of this issue with all their clients. Buying Lenovo now and no issues. I just thought it was a random Windows 11 bug but nope. Hasn't happened since.

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