Inadequate memory?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Terry Pinnell
  • Start date Start date
T

Terry Pinnell

First, apologies for length of this, but I want to provide as much
potentially useful information as possible in case it helps isolate
teh cause of my problem.

I'm getting frequent 'freezes' and other erratic behaviour. It's
consistent with my 512 MB. 1 GHz PC running low on memory. Yet I
haven't significantly changed the nature of the work I'm doing, or the
number of programs and folders I have open at once.

There's no *definite* pattern I've been able to pin down, although
programs like PaintShop Pro 7 and Agent 1.94 are quite often running
at the time the symptoms arise. And also the number of MSIE6 folders
open seems to be more critical than it used to be. Sometimes with
maybe a dozen open, plus a similar number of My Computer folders
(Windows XP) I get the problems.

Symptoms vary, but include one or more of these:
1. A newly-started program won't run (sometimes giving the
'Exclamation sound')
2. A right-click on a file/folder in Explorer/My Computer does nothing
3. Windows are incomplete, with missing menus
4. Can't get Task Manager to appear
5. Can't close an application
6. Can't open another Explorer/My Computer folder
7. Occasionally 'low memory' or 'no memory' message.

Usually I end up having to restart my PC, but it's sometimes only a
few hours before problems re-occur.

Yet under the Performance tag of Task Manager I see no obvious
evidence of a memory shortage. For example, typically (even when te
problems are occurring) I see figures like Commit Charge: 203M /
1249M, which I understand mean I have lots of capacity left.

Up until recently I had my Virtual Memory customised, but recently
changed it to let the system manage it, although that's made no
apparent difference to the problems. Only 1 of my 4 partitions has
page file settings. FWIW, here are some figures:
Total paging file size for all drives: 767 MB
Minimum allowed: 2 MB
Recommended: 766 MB
Currently allocated: 767 MB

Any and all advice/suggestions would be much appreciated please.
 
Terry

Please post copies of any Error Reports in Event Viewer.



Make an exact note of the precise text of any error message. Minor
discrepancies can
make it harder to search for information about the error message.

You can access Event Viewer by selecting Start, Administrative Tools, Event
Viewer.
When researching the meaning of the error, information regarding Event ID,
Source
and Description are important.

HOW TO: View and Manage Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308427&Product=winxp

Part of the Description of the error will include a link, which you should
double click
for further information and you can copy using copy and paste.
http://go.microsoft.com/fw.link/events.asp
(Please note the hyperlink above is for illustration purposes only)

A tip for posting copies of Error Reports! Run Event Viewer and double click
on the
error you want to copy. In the window, which appears is a button resembling
two
pages. Double click the button and close Event Viewer. Now start your
message
(email) and do a paste into the body of the message. This will paste the
info from the
Event Viewer Error Report complete with links into the message. Make sure
this is
the first paste after exiting from Event Viewer.


~~~~~~


Hope this helps.

Gerry
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FCA

Stourport, Worcs, England
Enquire, plan and execute.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please tell the newsgroup how any
suggested solution worked for you.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Dear sir
I have read ur problem and found that ur pc has good ram
and also speed is also not a problem u have mentioned all
stuff but u have not mentioned whether u have installed
srevice pack2 if u use windows xp and also please let
system manage the pc option should be selected which u
have done also please select the following options and in
performance in processor scheduling select the option of
progarmmes and alsoi memory usuage select the option of
progarammes this will help you to gain speed in pc speed

secondly please clear all temp file and cookies and also
history remove any third party progarmme and also update
ur xp with service pack 2

one more thing I would like to advise you please have ur
ram checked as in some case we never check hardware
problems please remove the ram from there slot and clean
and reinstall them this may also help the speed aspects
problem and sometimes when ram becomes hot it start mal
functioning so please also check the ram

I hope this much advice would be enough to carry on the
required task and then revert back in case u still have
problem

regards
navendukumar
microsoft uk
 
Thanks for those 3 replies so far, much appreciated.

Gerry: OK, I will monitor Event Viewer and come back here with
results, after next occurrence of symptoms.

Ted/navendukuma: No, I have not yet undertaken the SP2 upgrade. I
suppose I'm just too apprehensive!

navendukuma: I'll make my first step to get covers off and
remove/replace the RAM, although even that makes me a tad nervous <g>
 
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