RAM

[mbalensiefer]

Hi!

 Just by leaving my computer on, my notebook will slowly sap all 4 gigs of memory from my RAM. Basically, at Task Manager, I am left with zero (0) "Free" MB's of physical memory. I call this "RAM creep". I call it something else as well, but my wife says it's better not to.

Any hints?
Michael

[mahleu]

Use task manager to see what's eating the ram. Also run a good anti-spyware and antivirus program.

[giles]

Hi!

 Just by leaving my computer on, my notebook will slowly sap all 4 gigs of memory from my RAM. Basically, at Task Manager, I am left with zero (0) "Free" MB's of physical memory. I call this "RAM creep". I call it something else as well, but my wife says it's better not to.

Any hints?
Michael

What operating system are you using?  Is it up to date with fixes/service packs?  What odd/unusual/3rd party software do you have installed especially with kernel components?  Are all those bits up to date?

At work I have a Dell machine which will absolutely not run Windows XP, but it's happy enough with Vista.  (Neither Microsoft nor Dell were interested in troubleshooting.)

Windows XP is not the only operating system I've experienced memory leaks with this year, but you're probably not running the server operating systems I deal with professionally.

Bottom line is if the problem is too expensive or difficult to troubleshoot, you'll have to reboot more often.  Yeah, that's professional advice.  Operating systems should stay running without leaks for years at a time, but few do.

Giles

[Plekto]

http://www.analogx.com/CONTENTS/download/system/maxmem.htm

Install this.  It's a good memory manager that specifically is made to combat system heap and memory leak issues like this.

[mbalensiefer]

Thanks!!

[KeithR]

http://www.analogx.com/CONTENTS/download/system/maxmem.htm

Install this.  It's a good memory manager that specifically is made to combat system heap and memory leak issues like this.

Since this was last updated almost 7 years ago, how relevant is this app with today's operating systems?

[martinreed22]

Since this was last updated almost 7 years ago, how relevant is this app with today's operating systems?

Zero. This is snake oil for anything approaching a modern kernel (ie NT/Windows 2000/XP/Vista).

Look in Task Manager under Processes. If a particular program is consistently using more and more under the "Mem Usage" column then consider it suspect. You can click on Mem Usage to order by that column (click twice to get largest at the top). It may be worth restarting just that culprit.

Modern operating systems (should) try to use all RAM as a cache, so actually having free memory is actually not a goal. What such snake oil programs tend to do is grab a large chunk of memory (forcing potentially useful info out of RAM) and then release it. This gives the illusion of lots of free memory, and indeed may make the next program you launch arrive snappily on your desktop. However, try timing a normal launch vs running the snake oil *plus* launching your program.

Short article with more info picked at random: http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php

cheers, martin

[Plekto]

Actually, that program runs just fine under XP and older systems for its one purpose - to take care of runaway memory leaks.(95% of the time it just sits there on my system)

FreeRAM XP Pro is also a more modern take on this same idea - what both do is they grab unused chunks of memory and toss them into the virtual pool (swap file) where they sit in case they are needed.

It's free, of course.  But there are very good ones out there that cost a bit of money.

I have yet to find one, though, that cleans up the swap file's crud.  I've had many instances of applications happily running along with over a gig of temp memory.  Bittorrent clients are notorious for this as are most firewall and AV programs if left running for more than about a day between reboots.