[off-topic(ish)] Vanishing RAM Problem

[Atom]

OK, I need help. Something is eating my RAM. It's leaving me with only 77 mg out of 256mg, and that's without any applications running. E.g.



Anybody know what could be causing this problem? I mean, it has a serious effect on my multi-tasking and gaming. (My PC
struggles with Operation Flashpoint!)

Please Help.



Post Edited ( 11-09-04 17:32 )

[canadave]

1.  Do a Ctrl-Alt-Del to show your running processes.
2.  Screen capture it if possible and post it here; once we see what's running, we'll probably be able to pinpoint
something in particular.
3.  In lieu of that (or in addition to that), download and run Ad-Aware or Spybot Search and Destroy or both.  I can
almost guarantee you that it's some sort of adware/spyware.

[Atom]

Last week I did an AdAware search of the entire drive, then a Norton scan of the entire drive, then I defragged it. But that
didn't solve the problem.

Anyway here's a screenie of the applications bit in ctrl-alt-del (With MSN Messenger and Firefox running.) Anyone ever heard
of svchost?

[canadave]

Hmmmm.  Your Firefox's mem usage seems unusually high--I just started Firefox on my PC and it was only taking up
17MB.  Do you get the same slowdown/mem usage stats when not running Firefox?

As far as the svchost processes go, those are normal and are used by Windows.  Nothing unusual there.

[Atom]

Firefox starts pretty slow, but take in mind I had two tabs open.

Again, anyone know what 'svchost' does? There are several copies of it, including one that takes up an amazing amount of RAM
compared to the others.

[DanSteph]

Don't know your OS but if it's XP 256mo ram is ridiculous.
Even 512 isn't really good if you run somes big apps.

So it seem appart firefox nothing really heat your system appart
the OS itself

Dan

[DanSteph]

svchost it's a XP service for things executed by DLL
in brief it can do many things.

Look this very usefull page about XP service:
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm

This site contain also recomendation about what to do with each background task
some may be virus and some may be useless. A perfect tool to tune your XP.

svhost is here:
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist_s.htm

Dan



Post Edited ( 11-10-04 00:00 )

[Atom]

Thanks Dan, I found that out of the M$ site. But that's the only thing I could find.

I just took a look in the Sytem Information and apparently the  'Available Physical Memory' is down to 49mgs.

[Madman]

could be a faulty memory module,
heres a link to a memory tester  http://www.goldmemory.cz/download.php

[Atom]

I downloaded it but I can't find a floppy disk in the entire house. But I suspect that it's the same RAM as it was when we
bought the PC. Unless, it's broken itself or someone's been fiddling.

Yes Dan, 256 megs is a crap RAM, I know. It's even worse when your PC only uses one third of it. I am planning on trying to
use at least some money to upgrade it. But with all the crap my parents insist on putting on themselves by splitting up,
money may become quite hard to come by in the near future/now. Stupid bloody parents, losing money for nothing.

[DanSteph]

If the memory come down regulary some proggy you run have a memory leak.
Try to find wich one. (see mem before and after running it)

Else it can be one of the crappy "gadget" ("""utility""") that many peoples seem to find
comfortable laying in the traybar and doing useless things appart heating proc and memory.
(you know the litle things that give you temp, weather, launch this or that etc etc)

I only have my antivirus icon that stay in the traybar that's all. (he saved me several time already)
No others prog run else, only the basic XP service.
I tuned my XP with the site mentioned before and stopped all the useless service.

Do you have a pic of your taskbar ?

Dan

[freespace2dotcom]

I've got quite a few thingys running at a given time. but I had planned for having a lot of memory eating programs.

I bought 2 gigs, and I've actually had times when windows used up about 56% of that.

Of course, you have to understand that my computer is almost always running 24/7. I think that having something
like analogx's "Maxmem" will work wonders for you, since you have as much ram as my old computer, it will benefit
you quite a lot.

I still use it with my new 'puter, but only as a reference. I have no need to clean up my ram.

you can find it here. http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/system/maxmem.htm

[Atom]

Here's a pic of my task bar, I try to keep it clean.




Thanks for the link Freespace, I'm trying it out.

And it's not really the fact that my PC is slow that is getting to me. If that was the case I would just go and buy some RAM
(which I intend to do). But it's the fact that I swear it's got slower.

And thanks guys, you've been a real help. Way more than M$.

[canadave]

Atom,

It's got to be one of these things:

1.  Faulty physical RAM (a chip on one went bad)
2.  Ad-ware/spy-ware/virus running in the background
3.  Norton Antivirus
4.  Your system's 256MB RAM simply isn't enough to run everything as quickly as you'd like.

I'm betting your problem is either 1, 3, or 4.  Luckily all three are easily tested.  If you really want to fix your problem,
test each one in turn: 1) is tested by the memory tester program Madman posted earlier (a box of floppies is like $5,
if that much.); 3) is tested by shutting off Norton Antivirus once you've booted, and see what happens ; 4) is tested
by adding more RAM.  Once you do any two of those three things (leaving the third one as the sole culprit if the other two check out), you'll know for sure what the problem is.

Do yourself a favour and get rid of Norton.  I do computer maintenance and consulting for a living, and I can't tell you
how many clients I've had who have thanked me once I told them to ditch Norton in favour of a leaner, better
antivirus software.  Norton alone slows down people's PC's immeasurably.  I personally use NOD32; there are
several others out there that are a) better at detecting viruses/trojans than Norton, and b) are MUCH less of a
resource hog than Norton.



Post Edited ( 11-10-04 17:27 )

[DanSteph]

Norton is a crap often worse than virus themself to F... up your computer,
delete it and try AVG antivirus, it's free, it's neat, it's small. www.grisoft.com

if you click on the ">" button you should have more icons !??.

The nvidia icon is usually useless, messengers is know as a ressource heater
and that's all for now

Dan



Post Edited ( 11-10-04 17:31 )

[canadave]

Dan is absolutely correct on all counts (although I think he meant to say "messenger is known as a resource-EATER",
not "heater"  AVG isn't a bad anti-virus solution....NOD32 would be even better (although AVG has the advantage
of being free).

[Atom]

That is with the '<' button pressed.

Thanks again. I plan to get some RAM for christmas, if my dad doesn't force some other item on my christmas list.

[Atom]

I know about MSN Messenger being a resource hog. But Norton I didn't. I never realised that Norton was so damn descrete. It's
hard to find anything on it in ctrl-alt-del. It's even harder to shut down. Of course my mum might get grumpy if I get rid of
Norton. This isn't just my PC. (Anoying as it is). It's a "family PC". The PC that is mine (officially) is the old one. (16
megs RAM, Pentium 1 processor, 1.5 gig hard drive). But I tend to use this one for most things.

[canadave]

Ah...I see.  I hear you.  Well, if it's not your PC, don't play around with Norton.  But do be aware that Norton,
although one of the most popular antivirus programs out there (because it's "easy to use" and comes packaged with
every PC), is quite a resource hog, and not a particularly great program for detecting viruses either.

[Atom]

Guess what, it turns out that my mum broke the floppy drive. So that's 1 of Canadave's ideas gone. Unfortunatly I'm worried
that I'll get in trouble if I touch Norton, another idea gone. So that leaves me with Adware and spyware, which are gone and
finally that I don't have enough RAM which I can't fix until christmas (hopefully).

I wanna new puta. But that can't be done due to lack of money circulating in the family. I think I am stuck with what I have.
Thanks for the program Freespace, it works well.

[Atom]

Thanks for your help guys.