System Reporting RAM Wrong

Malware Expert Major Chaslang has given me a clean bill of health with respect to malware and suggested I post my problem in the Hardware Forum.

Trying to get a crappy old TV Card working I recently downloaded an enormous pile of rubbish from various quarters (some looked somewhat dubious) and my PC has been misbehaving ever since. It has become sluggish, pages load slowly (often time-out and hitting “Try Again” usually brings it up).

The one thing that Chaslang noticed was that my memory is reported as 4GB (whereas I only have ½GB) and he felt that this might be related to my problem.
Memory Module Properties:
Socket Designation A0
Type EDO
Speed 70 ns
Installed Size 4096 MB
Enabled Size 4096 MB


To provide a snapshot of my system I attach an Everest Report made just now (and a MS System Info dump together with System Inf from Control Panel).

Any help or advice gratefully received.

 

Go to your start menu and open a Run field. Type in "msconfig", without " " , go to the Boot tab. Go to Advanced options -> uncheck the box next to /MAXMEM

 

I have that problem in Win 7 64 bit with 6gigs of ram. Under normal boot it shows 6gigs(2.75 usable),but when I uncheck the maxmem box it says 6gigs(4.75 usable). My question is why doesn't it do it under normal boot.I checked out each stick of ram and they are fine,I tried to find memory remapping in my bios ,but to no avail.It's a XFX680iLT.:confused

 

MIMSY: Thanks for super fast reply from right behind me.
I looked at MSCONFIG and couldnt find a boot tab. Boot.Ini yes but this doesnt seem relevant. Attach two dumps. Am I dumber than I already knew? KRgds Don :cry

PS - When I killed CMDCONS the Advanced boot options became black and as you can see in Hunter 157 also attached the MAXMEM box was not checked. So what now?!:crybaby

 

TimW: At the moment I have it on Selective Startup and everything has a check (the result of a malware witch hunt) but normally I start up with the applications I use and uncheck all the updaters and so forth that people like Adobe and Co put into startup often without asking. I am normally guided in this matter by http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_content.php and a few other sites of this nature. I am cautious and uncheck an item and then see if it has any effect before I add it to my personal list of "non starters".

 

Like I said...in normal bootup modein Control Panel/System it states that I have 6gigs of ram and only 2.75 usable. If I go to misconfig under boot/advanced options and type in mt total ram I have installed then click ok and apply and ok again and reboot,then under Control/System it shows that I have 6gigs of ram and now 4.75 usuable which it should be.

 

Like I said...under Control Panel/System it shows that I have 6gigs of memory and ONLY 2.75 usable. When I go into msconfig/boot /advanced options and put in my total memory that I have installed,click ok,then click apply and ok and reboot then in Control panel/ system it NOW shows 6gigs of memory and 4.75 gigs usable which it is suppose to say and use.

 

sorry,won't do that again:-o

 

BOOT.ini is the boot tab I was talking about. And I'm also curious about why you're not in Normal Start-up mode. If you have too much running on start-up you should hunt down and remove those processes manually, not by using msconfig.

 

MIMSY:TimW asked the same question yesterday and I replied in my post #6

To tell you the truth I have always fumbled along with computers since the 1960’s, used them, modified them, built them, been overenthusiastic trying out any free software on offer but really having little idea how a computer really works -- I always felt my brain was too small!! Touch wood I have never run into serious problems – or rather problems I couldn’t resolve. Some years ago I found a startup item like xyzxyz.exe or ctfmon.exe and googled it. I found http://www.neuber.com/taskmanager/process/ctfmon.exe.html
And http://www.processlibrary.com/about/
And http://www.intelliadmin.com/index.php/2006/09/why-windows-takes-so-long-to-start-up/


And ever since that day Neuber has been my bible! Many geeks (obviously not major ones!) had suggested using selective startup and I have used it unthinkingly for years. It made some sense to not start up applications I had “on trial” so to speak. An example at the moment is ssn.exe (Simple Sticky Notes). For this to be any good it needs to startup on boot. I doubt if I am going to want to keep this but have not really had a chance to try it out and possibly compare it with other apps of this ilk – so it would really suit me to keep it unchecked on startup at the present time. Also I usually found something on startup i didnt THINK should be there so I stopped it to see what the result was. When I look at “Services” I see much I do not like and don’t think I need them running -- mainly I see and dislike, updaters and a myriad of things that are of zero interest to me, like infrared monitor and ipod service to name two I see now.

I have now re-educated myself by reading amongst other stuff http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-10165_7-5554402-1.html which was very well explained.

Anyhow I have now gone to normal Startup and found Boot Options still greyed out with cmdcons highlighted. I selected XP Home Edition and got boot options in black. There is no check in the MAXMEM box. From your original reply to my first post I assumed you expected to find it checked.

I am sorry it has taken me so long to provide this answer and also apologize for this rather verbose post now. System Info still reports Total Physical Memory 4,096.00 MB


Bedtime in UK now:zzz! Again many thanks

PS I have just seen Plodr's post and respond to him or her: Yes I have Mike Lin's StartUp. It is easier to use and I do use it in preference to MSCONFIG. I have in the past tried WinPatrol but it didnt get installed when after 10 years with W2K I reluctantly set up XP a year ago. I still have W2K on a little ASUS EEE PC 701 (which I just use to read ebooks in bed) EasyCleaner by ToniArts also has a not so good startup section. I use EasyCleaner a lot as it is a quick and onestop place to clear temp files, cookies, duplicates etc.
Don

 

PLODR: Thanks a ton for reminding me of WinPatrol. I had forgotten how much I used to like it -- I guess I had a 2007 version . I have installed the latest version now. It certainly is user friendly and explains things in a way that a non geek can understand. I used to use delayed start for some applications I liked to have running but not urgently and I had forgotten how I did this until I saw my old friend Scotty just now!:wave