boosting available memory

HI everybody

I have been transferred to this forum by Kestrel and Chaslang who looked over my logs on the Malware removal forum - thanks Guys They have spotted that I don't have enough memory:

Total Physical Memory 512.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 76.40 MB

I am not sure if they got this info from the logs I posted or somewhere else but I would appreciate it if someone could advise me how to boost this. (The computer can be very slow especially with firefox). The computer hasn't always been this slow so I would imagine there is a way of recovering some of the memory usage?

Many thanks

Mastermiaow

 

Wow. you need to install some additional memory into that PC. Are you up for an upgrade?

 

What I don't understand is why I need to install more more memory when it was working fine before?. Is that because of the amount of data/software on the PC? It is a Thinkpad 1.5ghz with 504mb ram.
Is the only option to buy some more ram?

 

Hello friend!! There are ways you can free up memory. Reduce your start ups. If you don't know how , just ask and someone will help you. Reduce your running processes. You can buy more memory also. It's pretty cheep these days. I don't know about your rig. You will need to check with the manufacturer.
This might help???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To76JxgfEZk
You will get all the help you need here on MG. Just ask!!

 

Wow, your hard disk must be churning!:eek Follow the cleaning steps and add more memory. My first modern machine was a Celeron 1GHz with 256Mb of RAM and worked great! I would agree with plodr, FF can suck one dry of memory, especially the 'plugin -container' which on my machine is now at 176MB. It doesn't bother me in the least but not enough memory sucks. Have you thought of going to a different browser like Google's Chrome?

 

I find this link to be very helpful explaining RAM and a slow PC. It is well written and easy to understand. MG members have done a excellent job explaining this. They always do. I just wanted to add my 2 cents to their comments. I run XP3 on a Dell. I only have 3 programs in start up, all are security related. I have 33 processes running when I'm not doing any thing. I hope this helps

http://www.colby-sawyer.edu/information/technology/updates/slowcomputer.html



I would like to add one more thing to this thread.
When you exit a program, make sure that program releases RAM back to your operating system!! Programs with memory leaks can kill you:-D A restart will release RAM. Check to see if your PC is faster after a reboot. If it is, it's possible you have a program that is leaking memory. Also you can check your memory with the link that is provided in my other post!!
I hope this helps!!:wave

 

That Youtube video, if I'm interpreting it correctly, is showing you how to increase the paging system on your machine. The paging system writes things that would normally be in RAM to your hard drive in a temp folder. It wont increase your RAM. That video is a little confusing because the author just uses "memory" in a general term and doesn't specify RAM or paging system.

Knowing a bit more about your computer would help. Do you have a seperate video card? If not, then anything visual comes out of your ram. So that super snazzy background you just downloaded is now sucking up your RAM. Changing the background to a solid color uses a fraction of your RAM. Boring, but works. If you previously had a single image on your background but now it's a slideshow or the image changes frequently that's going to suck down some ram.

If you follow that video to the 1:11 mark you'll see that you can set the visual settings to high performance. i.e. uses less system resources. I use that setting, which turns all those check marks off, but I turn back on the Show thumbnails instead of icons since I like to see thumbnails of my images and not a generic jpg icon. Most of the rest of all that is just frill and fluff, turn it off.

Then there's Cleanmem. http://www.majorgeeks.com/CleanMem_d5993.html
I recommend this to everyone I know. I have mine set to clean the memory every 5 minutes.
Unplug any USB device you don't use. That printer sitting on your desk collecting dust, do you need the computer talking too it every time you start up? You can also uninstall any USB device you don't have anymore with this utility http://www.majorgeeks.com/USBDeview_d6115.html

As others have said, defrag your hard drive, clean it up if you can (your paging system may be getting taxed if your drive is cluttered). Disabling startups can also really help.

The last thing I have to ask you is are you sure it's a RAM problem and not a RAM problem that you've always had with now a CPU is getting used by a background app problem? Open task manager and see what's sucking down the life of your computer. In Firefox, if you have multiple tabs open that's going to eat your memory, try closing any tabs you're not using.

I ran a computer with Vista Home Basic on a computer with 512mb of RAM and no video card for close to a year. There's things you can do to optimize your system. I've mentioned the nondestructive things. If you're feeling rather adventurous you may look into some tweaking of your system (not for the faint of heart) http://majorgeeks.com/Black_Vipers_Registry_Tweaks_d5381.html This is for XP, but the link to the website will have directions for other OSs as well.

Good luck.

 

m.

Hello cabbinic! I totally agree with every thing you posted. I think that changing my page file helped my Hard Drive to stop thrashing, and seemed to make it run a little faster. That's just my opinion. Very nice information sir!!

I'm not a big fan of any memory cleaner. I have tried a few, but found that Windows does a good on it's own. I will give this a try, but to me it's just another App. that consumes RAM and it not really needed as Windows does a good job. I have XP3 with 1GB RAM and have no problems with my memory.

 

Greetings, mastermiaow.

To follow up: if you do decide to take the hardware route, try plugging in your specs at Crucial.com - should give you a good idea on your machine's max and prices.

 

Great advise sir. I went from 512GB to 1024GB and it made a difference like night and day. I used Crucial and they were right on the money. They are a great company. More RAM is really the way to go. It was worth every penny

 

That's the thing about cleanmem, it just interfaces the Windows memory management system and puts it on a schedule. Other memory cleaners just send your RAM to the paging system, which doesn't really do much. I'd say it works rather well, or rather it makes Windows work rather well.

 

In addition, certain processes can eat up any precious ram you have.

Try unchecking some items from your startup by using:

http://majorgeeks.com/Startup_CPL_d619.html

 

This is very true and the reason I'm not a fan of memory cleaners. I might give this one a try, but I'm not having any problems.

 

Some more info:

http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

 

Hello friend!! I don't want to step on you. I hope you don't mind me adding to this.
I have learned that you have to go into msconfig and check start normal. Then reboot your PC. Several startups will show up in your tray by the clock. Once your PC is done rebooting , you use this program to uncheck all the programs you don't want to start up and then reboot again. This is a great program and should help with RAM. I hope I have explained this. Not real good at these things!!:wave

 

Btw the original xp ran great on 256, but as service packs came down the memory requirements went up and up. That might be way lately its more slower then it was when new.

 

Ah, I remember those days. Since XP sp2 came out, and they added quite a bit. It did bump up the memory requirements. For XP, I'd recommend 1 Gig of ram.

 

@ oneeyejack,

Members of MG have been constantly warned not to use msconfig to control start up programs and most recently not to use ccleaner for the same thing.

 

Hello friend!! I'm well aware of MG warning!! All I'm trying to tell members is how to use msconfig to release all your start ups so you can use this program that the fool recommended to start controlling your start ups Help me out thefool!! I'm not recommending msconfig or CCleaner to manage start ups. I'm recommending the program recommended by thefool. You have to get the start up programs recognized before you can stop them If your not starting your PC in normal start up, then this program won't see them. Help me thefool.

 

One can use msconfig, but it is merely a troubleshooting process, not a permanent fix. Hence why I suggested startupcpl.

You can uncheck HKCU (as in the user logs in, and those are their startup items).
HKLM (every time the user logs in, no matter the user, these items always start up.)
Then startup, those items, either they are in all users/startup, or your own, they will start up.

Now, startupcpl, will control all that.

 

Here are some things that will help speed up Windows XP:

In Control Panel:
System (Properties) -> Advanced tab -> Performance frame -> Settings button

Performance Options -> Visual Effects tab -> Custom radio button ON

For Best Performance, my suggestions:
Check ONLY these 2 - ALL others should be empty / Not Checked

• Smooth edges of screen fonts - needed for ClearType
• Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop - prevents ugly background for icons

I also use these:

• Show shadows under menus
• Show shadows under mouse pointer - not needed but much less stark looking
• Show translucent selection triangle

Disable Indexing:

• open My Computer
• right click the C: drive
• select Properties
• uncheck Allow indexing service to index this disk for fast file searching
• click Apply and Wait for it to finish processing
• click OK

In Control Panel:
Use Add or Remove Programs -> Add / Remove Windows Components

Uncheck Indexing Service and Windows Messenger
click Accessories and Utilities and then the Details button

Then check the Details for Accessories and Games and Uncheck everything you Do Not need.
Then click OK and NEXT when you are finished.

You will find that Opera is much faster than Firefox.
I began using Opera on my previous computer which had a 133 Mhz Pentium with Windows 98 and very little RAM.

 

I'm very sorry I'm not being very clear. I'm only using msconfig to start my PC in normal start up. If Normal start up is selected, then all start ups will start up next reboot and appear in tray next to the clock. Then you use startupcpl to control them. That's the only way I know to see all start ups.

You have to be able to see all your start ups in startupcpl before you can control them. By starting your PC in normal start and rebooting, all start ups will now be seen here where you can control them.

 

Thanks everyone for your input
I have downladed and installed startup CPL. I deleted rather than disabled the programmes under HKLM/run which I didn't want running at startup. I hope that it is OK? Msconfig is set to normal start up.
I downloaded cleanmem and assume it will just do its own thing in the background (I have the minimonitor showing in the bar in bottom right of screen).
I have bought a 512 mb ram from crucial which will boost my memory to 768mb.
I have followed mjnc's various tips including disconnecting printer and scanner, I will also change to OPERA from FIREFOX although I assume there is no compromise over security?

Anyway many thanks for all your help

Mastermiaow

 

It is not necessary that you disconnect your Printer and Scanner.
That should not have any discernible affect on computer performance.

Here are a few helpful links for Opera Browser:

Tutorials: Introduction To Opera

Tutorials: Guide to Security and Privacy in Opera

Opera Desktop Browser Security

Review: Best Browser Security Solution

 

Hi Guys

A week later and I have installed an extra 256 mb of RAM taking me up to 768mb in total. Things seemed to be working more smoothly for an hour or so, however suddenly the things got slow again. I looked in Windows Task Manager and csrss.exe is taking up 90% + of CPU. This has been a problem before. I looked online and see that csrss.exe can be a virus if it is not in the windows/system 32 folder. There is an application named csrss in that folder but also 3 others listed in: C:/WINDOWS/$NTservicepackUninstall$
C:/WINDOWS/ServicePackFiles/i386
C:/WINDOWS/SoftwareDistribution/Download/e9500597....

Please advise what is going on!

Many thanks

Mastermiaow

 

Hi!! I find this program very helpful!!

 

NO I'm not - I'm the rookie that gets to collect the water from the bottom of the valley every day in buckets! My training might begin once I can punch holes through 2" planks with only 2" of fist movement and after I've regain enough dexterity so I can complete the application form without leaving blood all over it!

Your choice of software to investigate the problem is pretty good though.

ProcessExplorer > right-click, select Properties, in the popup click 'Verify", see if the "Client Server Runtime Process" in the top left corner now has (Verified) Microsoft Windows underneath it.

Then switch to the Threads tab and see what programs/instructions are causing the high %.

Malware or a hardware/driver problem might be at the root of this, report back with your findings please, mastermiaow.

I'll try to look in tomorrow to check up on progress.

I'm back to carrying water and making my knuckles bleed, Jack - don't write about me please, it triggers my noobie ninja alarms.

 

OK thanks for your help
csrss.exe comes and goes in terms of taking up system resources. I followed instructions and when I right clicked csrss,exe and then properties and then verify it had '(Verified) Microsoft Windows Component Publisher'. When I switch to threads I am not sure how I would know what to check for but at the moment csrss.exe is not taking up any CPU resources and just 512 k of ram from looking in Windows Task Manager.
Should I delete the other versions of csrss.exe found by search function? I went to the csrss.exe website and they recommend looking inside windows start up folder for it if it is a virus but how do I find Windows start up folder??:confused

Thanks again

Mastermiaow

 

Your csrss.exe is a vital Windows file, the other 3 you found are all older versions or copies of the current one from their given locations. Don't delete any of them.

I'm currently experiencing similar but lower levels of the signs and symptoms you described earlier, in my case, it's down to having to fall back on an old graphics card a few days ago and the drivers for it are from a previous version of Windows.

For XP and earlier, finding the root driver/hardware cause is trial and error, outlined here. For users lucky enough to have Vista/Windows 7, a useful tool is here.

EDIT: the website you mentioned was the one linked by oej? It looks like a front for scamware, selling snakeoil, to me - without visiting it. Don't go there, don't download their products, whatever they may claim. Once someone trusted by me has visited it and posted otherwise, I may visit and check.

 

Hi! Sorry about the link. I agree 100%. Don't download their products. I have no -script and didn't see the adds. I was just trying to help. I'm out of my league here, so I'll mind my own business. You need to listen to satrow!!:-o:-o


http://www.cybertechhelp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1078649&postcount=15

Hi!! Like I said in my previous posts. Your in good hands with satrow. I know I said I was not going to interfere. Sorry but I found this and it's backing up satrow's theory. Now I'm going to be a good little boy and just watch this thread. I wish you the best my friends!! Please notice the topic in upper right hand corner on the link. (csrss is eating up my cpu

 

@ Jack: You'd do better to make one well thought out post then waiting to study the OP's reply before deciding on what to offer for the next step, all these side-tracking posts do nothing but add to the time taken to filter the thread for the nuggets needed to troubleshoot.

No need to reply

 

Sorry for being human!! Like I stated there isn't a one fix for all PC problems. This problem the OP is having could involve several things. Malware, software, hardware. I tried to show that in my reply's. If I have caused any problems for the OP, I'm sorry. I hope the OP finds a solution soon.
I have read alot of threads that have several solutions offered by members for problems. The link I attached was a bad link, but I think the op had already read those things and it may not have been thought out well, but I'm only human and I don't walk on water. I won't post any more on this thread.:major.
oneeyejack!!

 

Just to say thanks for your help. At the moment things are working ok but when csrss.exe starts acting up I'll know how to investigate

 

Hi!! I'm very happy to hear this. Was wondering if you were still having a problem.:wave:major Can you share what you did to fix your problem??