Losing my memory? NOT my mind, my computer!

Hi!
My machine has been running on the sluggish side lately,
and I was wondering if there is something that I can do to boost maybe my page files or something?
Do I have enough memory to run such a large HDD + the other drives? Any help is welcome!

OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name THEBEAST
System Manufacturer 761686
System Model AWRDACPI
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 4 Stepping 4 AuthenticAMD ~1401 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date Award Software International, Inc. 6.00 PG, 1/28/2002
SMBIOS Version 2.2
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158)"
User Name THEBEAST
Time Zone Eastern Daylight Time
Total Physical Memory 511.49 MB
Available Physical Memory 57.55 MB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 1.97 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys

This is under what I would call, a normal load.

 

Yes, I would recommend that you follow the instructions in the How To Speed Up Your PC thread.

Let us know how it works out for you!

 

You have integrated graphics right? That seriously slows a computer down especially when there are any visual things to be worked through your Ram. I suggest you set any visual effects to the lowest. Right click on my computer, hit properties, than advanced. Go to settings under performance, and click adjust for best performance. Also if you have any games set them all on low detail. And finally, if you could buy a video card it would boost performance and the integrated would stop stealing from your mobo ram =) If you do not have integrated graphics get back to me on this.

 

1st, thank you both for the quick answers.
I have not as yet, read the 'how to', that's coming after I type this out. I did NOT have my setting set for best performance.
I reset it and the fonts went to where I could not read them. I added back in, the smoothing and the clear type!
Also, I do a lot of image manipulation for the websites I design. I have a good graphics card, GeForce FX 5200 (up to date), and NO games.
Is the GForce integrated graphics? (I do NOT know hardware).
From what I posted, under a moderate load, did it look like there was something stealing my memory?
Is there a software program that will keep a running account of what software program is using how much memory?
Off to read the 'How To Speed Up Your Computer'.

Thanks again!
(Higara7: If you would like to take this off the board to PM that would be kewl with me)

 

Pressing Ctrl-Alt-Delete will bring up Windows Task manager. Click on Processes Tab.
Widen the display a bit, or maximise, will show "Mem Usage" for every process running.

Click on the heading "Mem Usage" and you can sort it to Minimum (ascending) sequence, or Maximum (descending) of all processes using RAM.

If you click on CPU (or any heading, for that matter), you can choose between ascending or descending sequence. Bazza

PS: I also use Process Explorer (free)

http://www.majorgeeks.com/Process_Explorer_d4566.html

for the same purpose. It gives even more info, like version numbers, etc., and allows you to add comments beside each item listed. Baz

===

 

Ok take the panel off the case. If your video card is integrated it will be directly on the motherboard. If it is NOT integrated it will be a card that is connected to a slot on the mobo. Usually integrated takes up more space than .51 Mb lol It takes around 8Mb. I have full 512MB registering so that's a little weird that .51 is gone?

 

I brought up the task mgr with ctrl-shift-esc, and saw what I see all the time
Firefox is a pig 62k +
explorer.exe is 33.5k +
vsmon.exe is 34.1k +
SpySweeper.exe is 22.1k +
svchost.exe is 21.6k +
MsMpEng.exe is 15.9k +

That is with these all proggies running in the bkgrnd. Everything else, NOT under a load is under 10.k

I just opened PSP 9 and loaded some images, PSP is at 198k up to over 200k!

The CPU Usage goes from 3% up to 100%. Sometimes my machine stops dead. That's when the CPU is stuck at 100%.

Does that "Process Explorer" have a 'paper trail' where I can see the data in a txt file, and compare to under load vs not?

Thanks!

 

Firefox is a hog apparently. Internet Explorer uses a lot less, but lots of folks here, don't like IE. That is all I use, though.

Explorer.exe grows, and shrinks, depending on what is running at the time.
Nothing you can do about it, unfortunately, except reboot.

vsmon.exe is part of Zone Alarm and you are, also, stuck with it.

Same with all instances of svchost.exe.
You may have 5 or 6 running at the same time. Nothing you can about them,either.

Dont know MsMpEng.exe. Do a google search for it, or someone here might reply.

Regarding Process Explorer, it can be saved as a *.txt file, but I recommend doing a screenprint at the appropriate times and compare the differences. Easier, IMHO.

Gadwin printscreen is one of 2 that I use.
http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/
You have to set it up differently if you want to print the full screen, or a part of the screen. Not that difficult. Bazza

===

 

I assume PSP is Paintshop Pro.

 

msmpeng.exe is a process belonging to Microsoft Windows Defender Antispyware which protects your computer against Internet-bound threats such as spyware and trojans which can be distributed through e-mail or attack directly to the computer allowing unauthorized access to your computer. This program is important for the stable and secure running of your computer and should not be terminated.

A decent Image Manipulation Program is The Gimp, although I can't comment on its memory usage.

Also, you can create a performance log in Windows to track memory usage over time. Here's how:

1. Right-click 'My Computer'
2. Select 'Manage'
3. On the 'Computer Management' window, expand, 'Performance Logs And Alerts'
4.Select 'Counter Logs'
5. In the right-hand side, right-click on empty space
6. Select 'New Log Settings'
7. On the 'New Log Settings' dialog, type a name for the log
8. On the Log dialog, press the 'Add Objects' button

Here, you can select a wide assortment of performance indicators. You'd be most interested in memory and page file. Once you are done creating, you can right-click your log, and select 'Start'. Windows will now keep a running tally of the performance indicators you've selected.

 

That is exactly what I need! All set up.
Thank you VERY much!
I will set it up then post it in a few days, if you don't mind.
1 thing that I don't 'get' is that my graphics card is suppose to have extra memory
on the card itself (btw: it is a PCI card.)

 

I forgot to ask you,
Which format is preferable for reading and analyzing the logs?
The txt - csv, or the blg - binary?

thanks

 

I'd have to encourage you to experiment on this one. I know that the binary gave me the realtime usage. I think that the txt or csv would be less dynamic, showing just the stats dumped over time, but would provide searching and formatting options. I can't say for sure because I've never used those formats. I suppose this depends on HOW you will be reading and analyzing... CSV for example, would make it easy to load into an Access database.

 

This is just the 1st 2 lines of the csv :
"(PDH-CSV 4.0) (Eastern Daylight Time)(240)","\\THEBEAST\Memory\Page Faults/sec","\\THEBEAST\Memory\Available Bytes","\\THEBEAST\Memory\Committed Bytes","\\THEBEAST\Memory\Commit Limit","\\THEBEAST\Memory\Write Copies/sec","\\THEBEAST\Memory\Transition Faults/sec","\\THEBEAST\Memory\Cache Faults/sec","\\THEBEAST\Memory\Demand Zero Faults/sec","\\THEBEAST\Memory\Pages/sec","\\THEBEAST\Memory\Pages Input/sec","\\THEBEAST\Memory\Page Reads/sec","\\THEBEAST\Memory\Pages Output/sec","\\THEBEAST\Memory\Pool Paged Bytes","\\THEBEAST\Memory\Pool Nonpaged Bytes","\\THEBEAST\Memory\Page Writes/sec","\\THEBEAST\Memory\Pool Paged Allocs","\\THEBEAST\Memory\Pool Nonpaged Allocs","\\THEBEAST\Memory\Free System Page Table Entries","\\THEBEAST\Memory\Cache Bytes","\\THEBEAST\Memory\Cache Bytes Peak","\\THEBEAST\Memory\Pool Paged Resident Bytes","\\THEBEAST\Memory\System Code Total Bytes","\\THEBEAST\Memory\System Code Resident Bytes","\\THEBEAST\Memory\System Driver Total Bytes","\\THEBEAST\Memory\System Driver Resident Bytes","\\THEBEAST\Memory\System Cache Resident Bytes","\\THEBEAST\Memory\% Committed Bytes In Use","\\THEBEAST\Memory\Available KBytes","\\THEBEAST\Memory\Available MBytes","\\THEBEAST\Paging File(\??\C:\pagefile.sys)\% Usage","\\THEBEAST\Paging File(\??\C:\pagefile.sys)\% Usage Peak","\\THEBEAST\Paging File(\??\D:\pagefile.sys)\% Usage","\\THEBEAST\Paging File(\??\D:\pagefile.sys)\% Usage Peak","\\THEBEAST\Paging File(_Total)\% Usage","\\THEBEAST\Paging File(_Total)\% Usage Peak"
"10/04/2006 09:05:00.043","916.37938835711111","117342208","333332480","2111905792","8.0123570956701364","201.8074011500525","407.57471323189696","574.47424283005137","153.21685228084095","137.38914858361969","27.337892565749712","15.827703697221269","35659776","34689024","0.9892314810763293","63913","252440","260366","111456256","121556992","26456064","0","94208","0","0","84905984","15.783491918184955","114592","111","5.5093655650650932","5.5144569296017032","5.91278076171875","5.9183756510416661","5.7111742689284739","5.7165175220536417"


Beats me as to what it all means LOL! The .blg is not readable in a log form - Oh well

 

LOL!

This has obviously been viewed in a text editor. Opening this in Microsoft Excel, or any other CSV compatible spreadsheet application makes it alot easier to read. (You see the data in columns instead of blobs )

From this I can tell:

You experience 916.3793884 page faults per second.
You use 5.509365565% of your pagefile on average

As well as alot of other statistical data... not sure what exactly you're after, though......