Need help increasing resources

[Paul Randall]

Hi,
Due to the early onset of Alzheimer's disease or whatever, I find it very
helpful to have many windows open (my substitute for poor short term
memory). I seldom shut my computer down and after a period of a few weeks I
typically have a total of around 45 windows open. Its a mix, like 20 to 30
windows explorer, a few HTAs, 10 or more internet explorer, a couple
Firefox, some notepads, hex editor, script editors, etc. Anyhow, at some
point the system becomes unstable and new windows won't open. Or, if I
close some windows, then I can open new ones, but within a couple of weeks
the system will typically crash when I try to open something.

I've got a 1.7GHz Celeron with 1GB Ram (none shared with video) with WXP SP2
but few or no updates.

I'm hoping someone will share info on how to view the resources that may be
in short supply and how to increase them, so that I can make changes, see
that the system is using those changes, and then test that I can open more
windows without problems.

 

[R. McCarty]

There are physical limitations within Windows that you may be running
up against. I know that especially web browsers have limitations on the
number of instances ( not TABS ) open at the same time. You're likely
getting close to limits on File Handles and Virtual Addressing Space.
It's not really so much a CPU/Memory capability/capacity as it is with
the Operating System itself.

I can't offer any specific advice other than you may want to look into
trimming back Windows services that your hardware/software may not
require. A 1.7 Ghz Celeron isn't bad, but has limitations with it's onboard
L2 Cache memory size. You would probably benefit from a Dual-Core
CPU which can share/distribute the processing load.

Process Explorer from SysInternals is a good tool to analyze the load
on a PC.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/ProcessesAndThreads/ProcessExplorer.mspx

Startup and Watchdog applets are another area where the machine
may be using more resources than are necessary.

 

[Paul Randall]

Thanks for the info. I will try process explorer and try to understand what
is happening. My biggest problem is not knowing what limitations there may
be, how close I am to reaching those limitations and how to change those
limitations. If I know what limitations there may be, perhaps I could find
a scripting way to log this info and perhaps pop up a message box before the
limits are reached.

I've closed a few windows. Only about 39 open now. The performance tab
of Windows Task Manager shows
Totals:
Handles 19235
Threads 770
Processes 46
Physical Memory (K)
Total 1048048
Available 440636
System Cache 534520
Commit Charge (K)
Total 979408
Limit 2523732
Peak 1338536
Kernel Memory (K)
Total 219584
Paged 71124
NonPaged 148468

-Paul Randall

 

[Zilbandy]

I've closed a few windows. Only about 39 open now. The performance tab
of Windows Task Manager shows

Sorry I can't help with your problem, but if you have 39 or more
windows open, I don't see how you can keep track of what's open or not
open. Wouldn't it just be more simple to reboot every few days and
start from scratch? If you can keep track of 39+ open windows, surely
you can reopen a window if you need it. Just my 2 cents worth....

 

[cmcanulty]

If you can use firefox download the addon session manager. The you can
save all your current session and set it to reopen to that session.
You'll have all your open tabs but by shutting down daily will regain
some RAM

 

[Paul Randall]

Thanks for the replies. I will try the suggestions.

-Paul Randall