Windows Memory Annihilation.

TemplarTemplar You first.
edited July 2003 in Science & Tech
A friend of mine is having troubles with his.. cough*dell*cough.

After a few minutes upon Windows loading, all of his physical memory is sucked away. Nothing is opened from his end except the Task Manager monitor. He has all but one startup programs disabled, and I've gone through and increased his page file and disabled any features which might affect performance. I deleted the contents of the cookie and history folders, ran ad-ware, virus scanner, and disk check without error. We have no idea WTF is going on..

Before all this started, he had C:\ shared while connected to the internet. It's been said by many that this is practically dropping your pants to the internet, so something might have happened there. I'm totally lost, and could only recommend a format. Any ideas? He's got 512mb, and I run more background things than he does and I have only 256mb. WinXP Home for both of us (no choice on my end..) and he has a 2.2ghz and I've a 1.4ghz.

Comments

  • a2jfreaka2jfreak Houston, TX Member
    edited July 2003
    You said you increased the page file size, but did not say to how large and whether min and max were the same.

    You will achieve greater performance with a page file that does not grow, so setting the min and max values to the same is best for performance. If he has 512MB of physical memory, a page file of 768MB should be fine.

    Also, how many physical HDs does he have? If he has more than 1, it's best to have them on separate headers. (I'm talking about EIDE . . . he does have a *gag*dell*gag*.)

    If he has 1 HD, make sure his other devices, if possible, are plugged into the second IDE header, as this will free up bandwidth for the HD. This many not help, but it won't hurt.

    You say he has no startup items? Is this from the startup folder in the start menu? or have you tried MSCONFIG?

    Check to see if his computer is optimized for foreground or background applications and make sure it is set for foreground.

    That's a start. Hope it helps.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited July 2003
    a2jfreak gave you plenty of good tips. I would try those things first. I would also make sure you scan that drive for viruses - make sure you have the latest definitions. A seperate trojan scan would not hurt, either.

    You might also try disabling the swap file, defrag the drive, then re-enable it. That way you'll be starting out with a clean swap file.

    Running docmem to test his memory would be a good idea, too.

    Let us know what you find, and Good Luck!:)


    Prof
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