Examkin

Question

Difficulty: HardTroubleshooting Windows Performance and Application Crashes

A Windows 11 workstation administrator is troubleshooting an issue where a specialized CAD rendering application crashes every afternoon during heavy data processing. System Event Viewer reveals Event ID 1000 logged under the Application log referencing `render_engine.dll`. During live observation in Resource Monitor, the technician notes that the `Commit (KB)` value for the process increases continuously over several hours until system committed memory reaches 99%99\% of the page file limit, triggering severe disk thrashing (>200 hard faults/sec>200\text{ hard faults/sec}) and culminating in process crash. Which of the following represents the underlying cause of this performance degradation and crash, and what is the best long-term resolution?

  1. The application is suffering from a memory leak; patch or update the CAD rendering software to correct memory management.Answer
  2. B
    The system file storage is corrupted; execute `chkdsk /f` from an elevated command prompt to repair hard drive sectors hosting the page file.
  3. C
    Windows system DLL files are missing; run `sfc /scannow` immediately to repair core operating system binaries.
  4. D
    User Account Control settings are restricting page file growth; lower the UAC notification slider in Control Panel to 'Never Notify'.

Answer

The application is suffering from a memory leak; patch or update the CAD rendering software to correct memory management.
The combination of continuously rising process `Commit (KB)` values, eventual page file exhaustion (99%99\%), excessive hard fault rates, and Event ID 1000 application crashes points directly to a software memory leak. When a program allocates RAM but fails to release it after execution cycles, committed memory steadily rises until the system runs out of virtual address space, causing disk thrashing and process crashes. Updating or patching the software is the correct resolution.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze Resource Monitor and Event Viewer performance indicators
Identified Event ID 1000 (Application Crash) and continuously rising `Commit (KB)` alongside high hard fault rates (>200 hard faults/sec>200\text{ hard faults/sec}).
Committed memory reflects total RAM and page file space reserved by processes. A steady upward trend without stabilization indicates memory allocations are not being released back to the operating system.
2
Differentiate software defect symptoms from system environment errors
Confirmed that memory exhaustion is localized to the specific rendering process rather than global OS file corruption or drive failure.
Because memory allocation growth originates from `render_engine.dll` inside the third-party application, the issue is an application-level memory leak.
3
Determine the appropriate remediation path
Selected software update/patching to resolve the underlying code defect.
Developer-supplied patches address unreleased memory references in code, offering a permanent fix for memory leaks.

Key Concept

Identifying Application Memory Leaks and Virtual Memory Exhaustion
Rate this question

Topics

Troubleshooting Windows Performance and Application Crashes

More questions from this topic