Page 1 of Help Please - Rapidly Dissappearing RAM...NOW CURED!!!

I`ve got an Advent 3306, P4, 1.8GHZ, 60Gb Hard Drive (of which there is about 28Gb free at the present time), 512 SDRAM (768 SDRAM at Moment), Win ME, recently it`s started to run slower and slower and "hanging" upon opening various applications and software or when trying to install programs from a CD. I noticed that when i go to Control Panel - Display - and select the tab for my Graphics Card NVidia GeForce2 MX/MX400 it displays the total Physical Memory as @ 786,000Kb (786MB) but the Actual Free Physical Memory starts at @ 590,000Kb (590 MB) this is with all applications except Systray, Dw, Explorer closed and all Scheduled tasks halted, ie: everything on the right hand side of the task bar is shut down. There are some icons on the Left Hand Side of the Task Bar all of which have been there for over a year. The problem is that everytime i run an application, software or even burn off a cd anything in fact, the Actual Free Physical Memory figure becomes less and less until the PC crashes and has to be restarted with a Ctrl Alt Delete or even worse by holding in the power button for 10 seconds. For example last night i burnt a 600MB cd off my hard drive containing my digital pictures and when i checked the "Free" figure it was down to just 72MB from 590MBs! So basically i had to restart the PC before attempting to do anything else this seems to happen when anything is used/opened. I`ve done the following long list in this order to try to solve the problem but all to no avail: Full Norton Anti Virus Scan (which was live updated 2 days previous and so was current) this didnt discover anything untoward, Standard Scan Disk, Defragmentation of HD, System Restore to 03/05, Deletd Temp Files (15,000files), Deleted unused Gaming Software, Removed Norton Anti Virus (which slightly improved performance but not much), Full Scan Disk, Further Defragmentation, Removed further unused Software, used (Start Menu - Run) `msconfig` to ensure only a few esential applications open at start up, Added 256 SDRam (to make new total of 768Ram), Swapped both old 256`s (RAM Chips) for two Newer 256`s incase either were faulty, Checked Bios to see if "Memory Hole" is set to Disabled (it was as it should be), System Restore to 02/04, System Restore to 27/05, Standard Scan Disk, Defragmentation, When i look at Control Panel - System Properties - Device Manager all of the devices in the list are ok and all drivers are current and there are no conflicts ie: no yellow exclamation marks or red crosses. Everytime i try to shut the PC down (even if i`ve only just started it up i get a message that says "Notification of Wnd for RNAdmin" and have to click on End Task to restart or Shut Down! If i leave my PC downloading from the Internet it will crash within 5-8hours whereas i could leave it on for days without problem just 6 weeks ago and certainly after the 02/04 restore that i did. That`s pretty much the story so far, so any advice or help would be much appreciated. PC World said that i`d done pretty much everthing that they would do except for a full diagnostic check which would cost £50 and may not find the problem let alone a remedy, not much help really more of a £50 bet i`d say!

M.

This item was edited on Tuesday, 3rd June 2003, 08:14

so basically your hardrive has 40gigs worth of info on it with 20 spare.

sounds more like you need more ram,have you got a freind who could lend you some out of his/her machine just to see if this is the problem.

i`d start there before shelling out 50 quid to pc world.

ram is so cheap at the moment,try another 512.

i`m only grabbing at straws at the moment, i think if i was in your position i`d save any work onto cd if poss and go for a clean re-boot.

sorry if i`m not much help

Hmmm...These ones are always tricky without actually seeing the PC.
Doubt very much if throwing RAM at the problem is going to fix it - you have plenty of RAM, it sounds more like a memory leak from an application and is therefore gobbling memory. Think you`ve exhausted most of the obvious stuff. Have you tried deleting the swap file altogether, rebooting it and setting it back up again ? - worth a try...

The error message on shutdown you give sounds familiar though - try looking at RealPlayer (or other "Real" stuff you might have installed) as a possible cause of this problem. You may find that by uninstalling this the situation improves.

Let us know how you get on.

Thanks denon, i actually had 512 SDRAM in the machine when the problem came to light, i`ve since added 256 SDRAM to make it upto 768 as i only have 3 slots and i have deleted around 6-8 Gbs from the Hard Drive so in effect i`m running more RAM and less HD usage than long before the problem appeared. Sadly all this does is prolong the gradual reduction in the Free Physical Ram Figure.

I`m desperate to avoid a complete system wipe due to the obvious hours involved in copying `must keep file/folders` and re-installing and updating etc etc so this really would be the final finale, although i could go for XP which would soften the blow i suppose? I`d rather find a fix/cure for now though.

Any other ideas from anyone will still be considered and appreciated though.

Big Ade cheers just seen your post, not quite sure what you mean by deleting the "swap" file etc could you elaborate a little for me?

M.

This item was edited on Thursday, 29th May 2003, 13:13

Well it`s only a suggestion... but before you try that, have a look at removing the Real Player stuff I mentioned - think that is most likely the cause of the error you get on shutdown - whether it`s the cause of the memory leak as well I`m not sure. I had a similar problem with a friend`s PC a little while ago and think this sorted it...

If you want to recreate the swap (paging) file can`t rightly remember on WinME... but go to control panel, then select `System`. Then you want advanced and performance options (again not sure exactly). Once you find wherever it is, choose to manually set the size of the paging file. Set this size to zero. Then reboot the PC - you may get warning messages (ignore). Then go back to the paging file settings and set Windows to manage it again. May not help, but worth trying.

Good luck.

you could try running system monitor (off in accessories->system tools)
then add items -> memory management and go for swap files , disk cache and such like to see whats eating the memory.
Didn`t you have problems when adding memory above 512MB on ME or are you aware of the mods to ini files or whatever you have to perform to prevent ME allocating huge amounts of diskcache (about 100 % of the memory I think) ?

Hmmm there is that problem which is a throwback to Win98, although I`ve always kept memory below 512 (including swap) so haven`t actually had the problem before.. Try running without a swap file and removing 256 of the memory and see what happens.

This space for sale





. <--- Except this bit, its mine.

you could try changing your virtual memory settings - untick the box that allows windows to set it and set a minimum and maximum of 250.

Thanks to everyone who has replied to my PC problem so far, I will give these suggestions a pop this weekend as the wife is comlaining that i`ve become a stranger over the last fortnight so i`ll have to leave the damn thing alone for a couple of days - gives my hair a chance to re-grow also.

Any more suggestions are welcome though, several people have suggested that it`s just one of the many problems associated with using winME and i`d do better using win98 (surely not) or XP any views on those OS would help also incase i have to do a complete re-install.

M.

I moved up from 98 to xp pro,takes a bit of getting used to but i would never go back to 98.
98 was a stable system and since i have been on xp i have found this system to be even more stable.

I would highly recommend a jump up to xp