Huge Memory Leak!!!

goldeneye_bill · Post by **goldeneye_bill** » Sun Apr 27, 2003 10:59 pm

OK folks I know this isn't the place for it but I know I'll get good help here, I have a huge memory leak somewhere on my system, I'll be running WinMX all night downloading things (not porn) and then I wake up the next morning and my mouse is very slow and constipated in it's movement, nothing wants to open, it's very bad. I don't understand why it's doing this, it never did it before on this computer. Any suggestions fellas? I'm on Windows 98SE, 128 Megs of RAM, that should be enough, I mean back when I only had 64 it never did this, and for about 3 months after I put the rest of the RAM in it didn't do this, it just started here lately. I haven't changed anything, I cleared out some viruses with Norton the other day, but that's about it.

mccoffee · Post by **mccoffee** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 12:28 am

Ok bill try taking the one stick either one out let it run if it still acts up it's windows being windows. Or go out by a stick of 256 or whatever it's cheap right now. Also make sure you have the latest verison of winmx my old system did simmialar things with that program.

goldeneye_bill · Post by **goldeneye_bill** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 12:31 am

Well see, I put the new stick of 64 in there....making a total of 128.....about 3 months ago and it has worked fine up til this week....and just now it has started this.....

ghettoside · Post by **ghettoside** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 2:03 am

what version of winmx are you running?

Raos · Post by **Raos** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 2:04 am

ever thought that your hard drive might be a little full?

ghettoside · Post by **ghettoside** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 2:11 am

when was the last time you ran defrag? how many drives do you have? how much free disk space? I have 2 drives and several logical drives on 2nd HD, one is dedicated to music (I use winmx a lot) and one is for swap file. if you don't have enough room for swap will cause problem. old version of winmx can cause problem too.
I think mccoffee's point is to rule out one stick may be going bad, so take one out, see what happens, then try other one. Are you having any other problems with the system? I've had a bad ram stick cause system hang at shutdown and at restart, yet everything else worked fine.
unless you're disk is almost full, in which case likely related to swap insufficient or heavy fragmentation. I've done 8-9 hours on winmx, found some trouble with playback, then after defrag music is fine (and that's using a dedicated logical drive)

goldeneye_bill · Post by **goldeneye_bill** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 2:30 am

I'm on WinMX 3.31, I've got 3 Hard drives, one 2 or 3 gig, a 8 gig and a 20 gig. my swap file is on the 20 gig and it has 16 gigs worth of free space. Maybe I should have a partition on it dedicated to swap file?? I defrag almost every other day, I use Norton Speed Disk so it's quick and painless....and I run it on all drives....I got rid of those viruses and so far tonight since I got that program that Lobo was pushing on here, I have not had the same problems as I have been describing. And once these downloads finish, I'm going to do ALL of Steele's tweaks that he posted and wanted results from.

ghettoside · Post by **ghettoside** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 3:05 am

if the swap is on the same disk as your OS, move it. my system runs better with the swap on a logical drive on HD2, and I have disabled windows management of the swap, I have it set for 512 min and 512 max. I run several mem hogs and never have any trouble. the swap should be on fastest drive. by moving off the OS disk, it works faster because the arm can only be in one place at one time (HD). also enabling DMA relieves the processor of some intensive tasks. if you need help with DMA post. some motherboards have a slight problem with enabling DMA, but it can be done. you may have to edit disk driver config file, uninstall HDs from control panel>system>device manager, restart, and then point add hardware to modified disk driver files. also need to back up those files and user.dat, sys.dat files before doing this.

goldeneye_bill · Post by **goldeneye_bill** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 3:10 am

my swap is already off the HD with the OS on it......the swap is on the 20 gig HD and the OS is on the 3 gig

ghettoside · Post by **ghettoside** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 3:10 am

I also have a logical drive dedicated to temporary internet files folder

ghettoside · Post by **ghettoside** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 3:13 am

you might find a logical drive at beginning of 20 gig HD with set swap size may give better performance. what about DMA?

ghettoside · Post by **ghettoside** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 3:15 am

honestly, i tried some ram optimizers, and I think they are crap. the changes I've made (listed in post ram optimizer) made a real difference.
will post reg edits ASAP.
I'd have the OS on the 3 gig like you've done.

joshjerm89 · Post by **joshjerm89** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 4:26 pm

is it spyware? get ad-aware, spyblaster and spybot, ( searhc the sites on google)

Ken · Post by **Ken** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 9:31 pm

98 does not manage memory very well. You probably either have some spyware in there or some TSR's...

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/chtsr.htm

I am sending you to software
Ken

PS- a reboot is a temporary solution for the next time it happens...

goldeneye_bill · Post by **goldeneye_bill** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 1:26 am

I use spybot to search for Spyware, and Norton to search for viruses. Neither of which show up anything, and I have no suspicous TSR's running, I don't know what is sapping my memory.

ghettoside · Post by **ghettoside** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 2:11 am

spywareblaster will prevent spyware from ever installing on your computer, doesn't run in tray. runs excellent with spybot. I never find any spyware with those 2 apps installed, have installed on numerous comps.
download at:
http://wilderssecurity.net/spywareblaster.html
you might need to install a couple vb6 runtime files, read info at bottom of download page and it provides links for those files.

TonyT · Post by **TonyT** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 7:20 am

Don't bother doing anything w. RAM. Don't bother doing anything w/ the swap file either. Memory leaks have nothing really to do with either or those. Memory leaks are this:

An application or program is closed. but remains partially resident in memory. (RAM or SWAP file) The processes left behind in memory will continue to consume memory, reducing system resources. This is do mainly to poor coding or the app or program. MS is as guilty as others here. For instance, OE is a huge mem leaker.

Do you have NAV auto protect or script blocking enabled? If so, you will get memory drained after an all night run of downloading or uploading.

There is no way to shut down processes in win98 systems. Cntrl-Alt-Del can only shut down applications or programs, but not processes. To view the processes that are running, use System Info Utility. Then set certain programs from running at system start. (in NT versions, one can close any app, program or process selectively)

Realize, that just because a program or app that shows to be loaded and running does not mean that it is not 'suspicious'. NAV leaks memory. OE leaks memory. IE leaks memory. As do about 70% of all programs. The difference is that win98 cannot manage memory efficiently and so eventual crashes or lockups are to be expected. The only real solution would be to move to win2k or similar OS. (or reboot prior to going to bed)

WinMX is probably leaking the memory. An earlier version of WinMX may do better.

ghettoside · Post by **ghettoside** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 2:01 pm

I know what memory leak is. I use a vb script to defrag mem after exiting the leakers. also running a system resources meter that displays processor usage, and ram (including swap page files) usage, and another that displays amount of free ram, all riding in tray.
after I exit the mem leakers, I run the vb script and it does release the resources. after i run the vb script, my system runs like I just did a reboot. the resource meters drop down to almost nil after run the script, and ram reflects freed up amount.
do you agree this possible?
here's the script:

strMsg = vbCrLf & "Click OK to defrag memory."
MsgBox strMsg,,"Defrag Memory"
Dim strMSG
MyString = Space(50000000)

the amount next to space is the amount of ram i want freed up.

joshjerm89 · Post by **joshjerm89** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 3:34 pm

get ad-aware too becuase sometimes sybot doesnt get everything. Do u run kazaa?

joshjerm89 · Post by **joshjerm89** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 3:36 pm

get ad-aware too sometimes spybot dont get everything. u have kazaa?

cyberskye · Post by **cyberskye** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 4:43 pm

echo

echo

TonyT · Post by **TonyT** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 7:15 pm

do you agree this possible?

Yes, although I have never used an app or script to free up memory when I ran win98. (nor have I done it on win2k). I rebooted often in 98 so was never faced with the effects of leaks, unless I was doing som eheavy graphics stuff.

After you clean up the memory, run System Info and look at the Software Environment\Running Tasks as well as Loaded Modules. In thetre will be a clue as to what is actually bleeding off the memory.

cyberskye · Post by **cyberskye** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 7:24 pm

Yes, although I have never used an app or script to free up memory when I ran win98

Sounds an excellent recipe for system instability. As Tony pointed out, memory mgmt sux in (well, all MS OSs actually) - the handling of dynamic memory requests/allocation is the single greatest cause of system instability in windows.

ghettoside · Post by **ghettoside** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 11:14 pm

I ran photoshop 7, opened some photos, saved a couple for web; exited. started autocad 2000, made a new drawing and opened a few drawings, exited.
started up Frontpage, opened a web, looked at every page.
went to internet, exited IE.
resources were down to 64%, mem at 26MB free (forgot to check swap pages in use)
then ran the vb script. here's the running tasks after vbs:
Kernel32.dll; MSGSRV32.EXE; Mprexe.exe; mmtask.tsk; vsmon.exe; explorer.exe; systray.exe; Navapw32.exe; Taskmon.exe; Rampage.exe; Zapro.exe; Spywareguardcp.exe; Wmiexe.exe; Ddhelp.exe; Msinfo32.exe

resources at 86%, mem at 54MB free, swap free pages 436 (out of 500)
I think my system is stable. It doesn't crash, and runs pretty darn good.
on sys startup, sys resources are consistent 86%, ram at 52 Mb, don't know free swap, never thought to check that at startup.
I know it's freeing a little more than what's available at startup, but haven't had any problems so I haven't worried about it.