A workstation experiences severe slowdowns whenever a graphic design workspace is active. Diagnostic metrics reveal that physical RAM utilization is holding at 98%, accompanied by a sustained spike in memory hard faults per second. Which of the following is the primary cause of this system performance degradation?
- Insufficient physical memory causing heavy reliance on the virtual memory page fileAnswer
- BCorrupted Windows Component Store system files requiring immediate operating system reinstallation
- CIncorrect command-line flags applied during the background system file check process
- DIncompatible application installation permissions restricting execution to 32-bit mode
Answer
Insufficient physical memory causing heavy reliance on the virtual memory page file
The correct answer identifies that RAM utilization near capacity forces Windows to move data blocks to and from disk (paging file), recorded as hard faults per second. Disk access speeds are significantly slower than RAM, resulting in severe performance slowdowns.
Step-by-Step Solution
Key Concept
Memory Paging and Hard Fault Performance Impact
Estimated Time:50s