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resources leaking

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by techrep 1 view

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A client has a W98 computer that freezes several times a day. I put system resource meter in the startup group and she has been able to very easily notice that resources diminish as time goes on *even if she isn't doing anything*. About the time her resources are down to around 9%, her computer freezes. We have checked for virus using latest update files and changed memory chips. It's a PII with 100MHZ memory. She runs WordPerfect 8, Schedule+ 7, Outlook 2000, and Outlook Express all at once. This just started happening one day and hasn't stopped since. any ideas?

11 replies

by tbradley

Have you checked what else is loading?

At the start menu, command line, type in MSCONFIG, and look at the far right tab,
startup. A lot of programs start, and never give indications they run, but they can be found... the pesky little things...in msconfig. Uncheck anything you don't know for sure should be running.

Strip msconfig down to bare bones, and monitor for a day, and see if the memory leak remains. I found one user who had 3 different versions of the same virus scan program running in the background. Somehow, she had managed to install each in a unique directory, and you talk about a "slooooowww" system.

Anyway, this might be a good place to start.

Another thing to look at is the network. Novell Clients with certain services have a problem with locking in resources. 3.02 was particularly bad about not releasing memory.

hope this helps. If it is a novell issue, email me at tbradley@pascagoula.k12.ms.us and I'll be glad to share some of the horror stories... :_)

by jething

You also might try a little program I found called "Regmon". It will monitor the registry and any activity on it. Especially if you have Novell Client running. It will list everything accessed. Amazing what you find going on.

by fred_e944

This sounds like a memory leak. If you can find a utility telling how much memory each process has it will be easy to identify the culprit. It's the program whose memory use keeps increasing. (Win95 machines can use memtop.exe, from KernalToys, but it is for 95 only) Otherwise try keeping various programs from being loaded (or preloaded) and used 1 at a time. Start with non-Microsoft programs as MS's own stuff is generally better behaved when returning unneeded allocated storage.

by baziite

Something similar happened to my Win98 PC and turned out to be macro virus ( only loads when the file is opened ) inside a word ( .DOC ) file . when ever I opened the file system resources started to dimminish and within no time the C: drive would run out of space . The virus was unendingly extending the windows managed swap file on drive c: . Look for something similar happening by monitoring the size of the swap file in system monitor . Try to associate a file with the swapfile size increase . Once you recognize the file try not using it for a while and see if you have the same problem appearing . Keep doing this with other suspected files until you find the file , then make sure you don't use those files again . You can also try disabling Macros in Word perfect 8 if it is possible .

Much Luck !!!

by kgosnell

Assuming you have disabled 3rd party software in startup such as memory managers, you can bandaide it by using a free memory manager that refreshes the memory at preset levels of usage(ZD Net has a slew of 'em), but I would suspect one of the programs you are letting stay resident, or if you are using Norton to view the system resourses, it can ,under certain circumstances ,write the readings and forget to erase them, filling memory and cache.

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