Vista Unable to Right Click, Open New Windows, etc. when Memory usage near 1200 MB

[kongja]

So as the subject title describes, Once my machine reaches a certain
memory usage (after a few hours) I try to right click files and either
the right click menu fails to appear, or there are items missing from
the context menu.

I also find I can't open new windows (i.e. double-clicking on my
computer fails to open the explorer window), and I cannot open tabs

I've run memtest86+ on my machine, it's stable for well over 2 hours.
I've also run a windows based memory testing program for 12 hours with
no issue.

What is going on here? I really would like an answer to this issue.

Thanks all

 

[Bill Yanaire]

You need to see what is in memory and see what is taking up your resources.
Start the task manager and look at the proccesses running and see what is
hogging your memory. Check CPU Time, Mem Usage and add two columns, "I/O
Reads" and "I/O Writes". This should give you an idea of what is taking up
all your RAM.

 

[kongja]

Thanks for the reply

I'm not sure if it's a matter of what is eating my resources. I have 2
gb of ram and the system is quick to respond, so it doesn't seem like
it's lagging or anything like that, it's just new windows and right
click menus don't appear.

Basically the system has no issues when using less than 1200mb of ram,
but once it reaches that point after a few hours of usage, it starts
to act weird. Closing some applications and decreasing the memory
usage seems to fix things, but once the memory usage returns to about
1200 mb, the problem shows up again.

anyone have any ideas?

 

[Bill Yanaire]

You might have a memory leak from an application. There is some reason why
you are eating 1200 MB of Ram. With Vista running without any applications,
your usage should be well below this mark. You said that closing some
applications decreases the memory usage, but once the memory returns, there
are problems. Sounds like an application once it is running is leaking into
memory even after you close the application.

There could be another problem. Viruses. Make sure your antivirus is
current.

Hope that helps

 

[kongja]

I guess I forgot to mention that I am knowingly using lots of memory.
I have firefox with 40 tabs open, along with opera with another 30
tabs, IE7 with 10 tabs. Along with a ton of sidebar gadgets, etc. etc.
etc.

I am not so much concerned with the amount of memory being used but
more why windows seems to act all unusual on me once i reach that
memory size... I'll take another look at antivirus but I dont think
it's much of an issue

thanks for your patience

 

[Ezmerelda LaToya]

Isn't that alot of tabs open? Why on earth would you need so much stuff
open? That is why your system slows down, trying to swap processes between
everything that's open. Especially all the other gadgets, etc...

 

[kongja]

My system doesn't slow down, in fact it's still extremely fast

The biggest thing is i double click on my computer and nothing shows
up. It's not that it takes a long time, nothing shows up. same with
rightclicking on things.

As well as trying to open new tabs in IE7, they never complete loading
the page.

 

[cooldude79]

GUEST wrote
So as the subject title describes, Once my machine reaches certai
memory usage (after a few hours) I try to right click files an eithe
the right click menu fails to appear, or there are items missin fro
the context menu

I also find I can't open new windows (i.e. double-clicking on m
computer fails to open the explorer window), and I cannot open tab

I've run memtest86+ on my machine, it's stable for well over hours
I've also run a windows based memory testing program for 12 hour wit
no issue

What is going on here? I really would like an answer to this issue

Thanks al

Are u running Norton Internet Security o
something similar. If so, in IE, go to tools->manage addons an
remove everything connected with norton...

 

[kongja]

I don't have norton internet security running... What's the rationale
behind that fix?

 

[Bill Yanaire]

I don't have norton internet security running... What's the rationale
behind that fix?

I think his rationale is that Norton is a memory hog, but you didn't say
anything about Norton. By the way Mcafee is a memory hog also. I don't
think if you were running Norton that it would cause a slowdown like you
described.

 

[kongja]

I gotta stress again, I AM NOT EXPERIENCING A SLOW DOWN. My system
runs all the open programs at full speed, it's that windows suddeny
will not open new windows, right clicking doesnt pop up the menu AT
ALL.

The computer's running fast, trust me

 

[Michael Solomon]

I gotta stress again, I AM NOT EXPERIENCING A SLOW DOWN. My system
runs all the open programs at full speed, it's that windows suddeny
will not open new windows, right clicking doesnt pop up the menu AT
ALL.

The computer's running fast, trust me

Does your graphics card share memory with main system memory? If yes, it's
possible your system is running up against a wall because of memory
allocated to the graphics card.

 

[Bill Yanaire]

Oops. Sorry about that. I was all caught up in the max memory thing.
Maybe you are just at the practical limits of the program and no more
windows are allowed. It could be that the system only allows a certain
number of windows open, no matter what you are doing, and what you are
trying to open.

Anyway, this is getting above my "pay grade" for now. All I can suggest is
to close some existing windows.

 

[kongja]

No, my video card has dedicated memory. I'm really scratching my head
still about this.

 

[kongja]

Oops. Sorry about that. I was all caught up in the max memory thing.
Maybe you are just at the practical limits of the program and no more
windows are allowed. It could be that the system only allows a certain
number of windows open, no matter what you are doing, and what you are
trying to open.

Anyway, this is getting above my "pay grade" for now. All I can suggest is
to close some existing windows.








- Show quoted text -

Don't worry bill, I really appreciate you reading this thread.

 

[Michael Solomon]

No, my video card has dedicated memory. I'm really scratching my head
still about this.

Is this a laptop? If yes, have you checked the power settings? Your OP
stated that this happens after a couple of hours, perhaps, your system is
going into power saver mode? Of course, that would usually slow things down
as well and you did say that wasn't happening. Still, it's something for
you to check even if you are running a laptop off of AC.

In fact, many desktops also have such a feature so you might check to see if
its using such a mode even if you have a desktop.

You might also want to check the free space on the hard drive, especially
when this occurs. Depending upon the applications you are using, you might
be a case of the swap file not having enough room to expand. Even with 2GB
of memory, Windows still uses the swap file and it might be the source of
the issue.

 

[Lang Murphy]

I gotta stress again, I AM NOT EXPERIENCING A SLOW DOWN. My system
runs all the open programs at full speed, it's that windows suddeny
will not open new windows, right clicking doesnt pop up the menu AT
ALL.

The computer's running fast, trust me

Sounds like maybe you've hit the wall on resources. According to one of your
upstream posts in this thread, you've got 80 browser tabs, in three
different browsers, open when this problem rears it's ugly head. Have you
tried closing browser tabs until whatever it is that won't open, will?

Lang

 

[Guest]

I have the EXACT same problem. It is not a rescources issue, I am only using
50% of avaiable RAM, and the system is perfectly snappy. But like he said,
it just refuses to open new windows. No new windows, no new tabs in IE7,
nothing if you double click an icon, and nothing if you right click. Once
you close a few windows it starts working again. Plus, I have nothing like
the number of tabs he has, it usually starts breaking for me with five to ten
tabs open in IE, a couple Remote desktop sessions, and outlook.

Any common software? This is on a HP desktop, McAfee antivirus, IE7, Vista
Business, 32bit, Skype, WebEx, Logitech webcam software.....

 

[Guest]

Try this:
http://blogs.msdn.com/tonyschr/archive/2005/05/25/421923.aspx

 

[drgka55]

I have this same problem on Windows XP and Windows Vista Home
Premium... I will try the solution posted by Mark.

First it is ridiculous that Vista use sooooo much memory for nothing.
Second it is ridiculous they limit the memory usage and everything
breaks down at the high memory usage. I do not get it.