Whats eating my RAM?

[sparky2k]

Hi,

Hope someone can help with this,

My computer is having a lot of memory problems, and with 2 Gb ram I thought I would not be affected too much but after it has been running for a short time, and after normal use like surfing web pages, I notice that the some drop down menus don't work in explorer and other apps, my "right click" option stop working and I have to close some programs down to be able to continue, and finally I need to re boot.

There are never more than 4 or 5 applications running at one time including small stuff like wordpad, MSN and YM messengers and IE. (Microsoft)

I also use the tabbed pages in explorer which will use memory but I thought that my ram could handle all that.

It only started happening recently after installing some new programs such as music sequencers including Steinberg Cubase SX, and a few more. I have deleted some but it does not make much difference. I still end up having to reboot.

I am wondering somehow got a virus thats affecting this. I am running Macafee Security Center which is supossedly keeping an eye on that stuff.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Dave:confused: :bang head

[sparky2k]

I forgot to add to the above that I changed the virtual memory handling to "system managed" which didn't help much and now I have it set to the recommended Initial size 2047 Mb and Maximum size 3070 Mb for Drive C. Still no better.

Dave

[larrymoencurly]

I'd first suspect Windows or a driver or application, and some stuff doesn't completely uninstall so you have to run a program to get rid of every remnant or delete the program and clean up the registry manually.

It wouldn't hurt to turn off any overclocking and run MemTest86 AND MemTest+ AND Gold Memory 5.07 for at least 6-8 hours each. You may want to start with GM 5.07 (not 6.xx) because it tends to find errors more quickly, although with one memory module it took about an hour while MemTest86 3.3 found errors in less than a minute.

I don't have experience with Macafee software, but malware can get past fulltime protection (at least it has with Norton and AVG 7), so you should do a full scan. When I had two problems a few months ago, less than half of the security programs I tried, both resident and online, were able to detect them, and only one, Bit Defender, managed to fix one problem permanently. For the other virus I still had to use some specialty programs, like SmithFraudFix, which I learned about from a security forum where the experts kept asking people to post their Hijack This! logs.

[gimpster123]

press ctrl-alt-delete and bring up the task manager- switch over to processes- see what programs are hogging the memory.

[Jayws]

Just a note on the page file, it sometimes helps (speed wise) to have it on a different drive than the one that the operating system is installed on. With 2gb of ram in XP I would manually set the PF size to 2047 min and 2047 max. This keeps it from fragmenting your HD.

As for the ram hogging, see what's doing it in task manager like gimpster said.

[freeagent]

my p5k-d ate d9gmh for breakfast... it was very annoying. sometimes they would last anywhere from a month or two, to a day.. d9gct, and the new single sided stuff worked very well for me tho. ive had 8 gigs of d9gmh leave this world by my board. so hopefully you dont have that..

[glock19owner]

start - run - msconfig

Go to start up and see whats all running at start up...then go to services and disable any service that you do not need and look for any "unknown" types...espceially any that you do not know what they are..

If you have any doubts about what to disable...please post back on here...

[Jayws]

start - run - msconfig

Go to start up and see whats all running at start up...then go to services and disable any service that you do not need and look for any "unknown" types...espceially any that you do not know what they are..

If you have any doubts about what to disable...please post back on here...

In services I would check the "Hide Microsoft Services" or whatever it is and then go from there, removing things that you don't know or don't need when your computer boots. It's a bit harder to tell which Microsoft services you do or don't need depending on how familiar you are with the OS so I would just avoid them. It's not as critical to remove them as it is in Vista.

You can also go a tab over from services and disable and programs/registry keys that you don't need/want to be running in the background every time you boot.

[sparky2k]

Hey guys thanks to all for your input here with this problem. It seems to be almost sorted now but still under test....

I used a suggestion from "larrymoencurly" (thanks) what I did was to run a program called "R-Wipe&Clean" and I used the option to clear the mess that other programs can leave behind during installation and Un-Installation. My computer is certainly happier and therefore so am I :)

Maybe there was just too much crap loading and hogging the memory. Will be back if I encounter more prob.

Thanks again guys.:D

Dave

[Krypto]

Run HiJackThis and post the results

http://www.trendsecure.com/portal/en-US/tools/security_tools/hijackthis

[sparky2k]

Hijackthis results attached....

Thanks...

[EchoTheDolphin]

Just gonna throw this out there. Macaffee is complete garbage, I'd replace it with something like Kaspersky, Trend Micro, or Spysweeper with AV.

[sparky2k]

yeah you are probably right about Macafee, but I received a free 1 year subscription with my broadband package, I will replace it later when it ends.

Just gonna throw this out there. Macaffee is complete garbage, I'd replace it with something like Kaspersky, Trend Micro, or Spysweeper with AV.

[Omsion]

Hijackthis results attached....

Thanks...:eek: That is a lot of processes running. 83. For comparison...I'm running 32 - fewer (aka 26) if I turn off some services related to virtual machines.

Anyway, alot of that stuff, even though they are legit - do not need to be running at all. Example block:

C:\Program Files\ASUS\GamerOSD\GamerOSD.exe
C:\Program Files\HP\HP Software Update\HPWuSchd.exe
C:\Program Files\HP\hpcoretech\hpcmpmgr.exe
C:\Program Files\AGEIA Technologies\TrayIcon.exe
C:\Program Files\ASUS\AI Suite\AiNap\AiNap.exe
C:\Program Files\Common Files\LogiShrd\LComMgr\Communications_Helper.exe


These are likely starting up with your computer. Run msconfig, go over to the Startup tab, and turn off evreything until you figure out exactly what you want running when you turn your comp on.