partly why i like using my laptop is it forces me to do better optimizing through its limitations , anyway as you know page files are a kind of virtual memmory which windows start using usualy when your system runs low on memmory resources , and like you said something may be taking up your ram ,i think you should be able to confirm such activity with the resource monitor .

anyway sounds very suspicious to me , perhaps you have some spyware activity or something less obnoxious but needless .

i usualy start checking for threads currently running , sometimes acknex threads dont close and sometimes i quickly pick up on problematic thread activity by looking at how much cpu time they occupy , also usually a good start to find malware threads , before i start googling.