[wannabe1]

Total Physical Memory 256.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 49.86 MB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 234.09 MB

That about says it all. After all we've been through, the numbers say this: Your paging file is fine...you need more RAM. Another 256MB stick or RAM and your problem will almost certainly go away.

That being said, through researching this problem for you, I have been able to help quite a few other users with information I found quite by accident...one of them "Oh, Yeah" moments several times over.

Try a stick of RAM...if you need assistance with what kind to get and such, just give me a shout (or more sensibly...post back and I'll be notified ) and I''ll be glad to lend a hand.

wannabe1

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Hey wannabe? Why would I be out of RAM? I have a lot of music I stored that I can move onto CDs...you think that would help free up enough space? I don't really want nor can I afford to spend the $$ right now. What do you think?

[NancyJane]

Hey wannabe? Why would I be out of RAM? I have a lot of music I stored that I can move onto CDs...you think that would help free up enough space? I don't really want nor can I afford to spend the $$ right now. What do you think?

[wannabe1]

Hi NancyJane...

Total Physical Memory 256.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 49.86 MB

The files you have stored on your machine have nothing to do with the RAM (Random Access Memory). RAM or Physical Memory is where your programs load to and run from. They are "sticks" that are physically installed in slots on the Motherboard and each stick contains a speicfied amount of memory they can handle. In the quote field above, you will notice that you have 256MB of RAM installed in your machine. Window XP alone will use a good portion of that and each program you have running on the machine will use more of what's left. At the time you posted the numbers for me, you had just less than 50MB still available for use. Open another program and the 50MB would have gone down again.

That being said, 256MB is what Microsoft recommends just to run XP. It will run on less, but there would be a lessening of performance. This is one of those cases where "more IS better". As well intentioned as the Paging File is, it just can't do the job that RAM does.

Does this help? I know it is kind of confusing with all these different "memory things" going on.

wannabe1

[NancyJane]

Hi wannabe... I'm working with someone else on my hijack issues...but I removed/uninstalled a lot of programs. Problem is, when I compare my numbers with the numbers from the other day, things are the same, except the Available Physical memory is WORSE!

The other day, these were my numbers, and they are the same except...


Total Physical Memory 256.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 49.86 MB -- IS NOW 27.02
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 234.09 MB

Does it make sense that just after a few days I went from 49.86 to 27.02?? I haven't installed anything new; and as I said, I uninstalled a lot of junk. What gives? How can I free up RAM? Is that possible, or is my only choice to get more RAM?

Thanks for your help!

[wannabe1]

A common misconception...If I uninstall the program, I'll recover the RAM it uses...This is only partially true. Any application will only use RAM if it is running. Just being on the hard drive uses no resource other than a little space on the drive. To gain RAM, the idea is to trim back on what is running at any given time.

I just snuck a peek at the malware topic and noticed you have Norton installed. Norton is a really big resource hog.

To find out where your RAM is going, right click on the Taskbar and choose "Task Manager". Click the "Processes" tab and look in the list for Firefox (if you use it...uses tons of RAM) and CCAPP.EXE (this is Norton and is memory resident...always runs in the RAM). Then look in the list for the other Symantec and Norton entries...add up all the numbers and you'll see how fast the memory gets used up.

Maybe uninstall the Norton and install something a little easier on resources such as Avast or AVG. See if that helps. We could also take a look at what you have running in the background and see if we can gain a little there.

wannabe1

Edited by wannabe1, 23 February 2006 - 09:48 PM.

[NancyJane]

Hmmm...I'm looking at the task manager, and all I have running/open right now is this window and the task manager. My Processes shows that iexplore.exe Mem Usage is 36828, svchost.exe is 11332, explorer.exe is 8912, then NMain.exe at 8652 then finally CCCAPP.EXE at 8484. After that, there are an additional 26 processes running, with mem Usage anywhere between 4,708 and 16k. Does 26 processes seem right to you with just those two windows open? I guess I'm confused why/how this happened. One day I was fine, the next day, I'm getting error messages. What did I do to make things go wrong, and how to I reverse it? You see, I don't use my computer for much, so I hate the fact that I need more RAM. Perhaps I'm being stubborn...I just don't know why this happened. As usual, your insight and help is much appreciated! - N

[wannabe1]

Let's try something, Nancy.

Do this while not connected to the internet. Open the Norton application and set it so it doesn't start with windows. The setting will probably be listed in "Options" under the "General" tab...select "Manual" (or similar). Reboot. See if that frees up enough RAM to eliminate the VM error.

You can set Yahoo Messenger to start manually, too. There are probably more applications that run on startup that can also be stopped from running all the time.