Your Computer Is Low On Memory & Similar Errors

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Silverthunder, Nov 30, 2017.

  1. Silverthunder

    Silverthunder Sergeant

    Not long ago I installed a new video card and I also hooked up my old hard drive as a secondary drive (which I was just using with the windows backup service).

    Basically, since then I have been running into these problems (in this sequence):
    1) Computer freezes up for a few seconds and some Chrome windows turn black. Computer then recovers to a normal state.
    2) I regularly get an error message that says "your computer is low on memory." It comes up at a reasonable time, such as when I have 10 Chrome browser windows opened.
    3) I know Chrome crashed once, saying "the application was unable to start correctly (0xc000012d). Click ok to close the application.
    4) Today, my 2 monitors went blank and would not come back. I did have a lot of Chrome windows opened at the time and a couple of other very small resource programs running, too. Eventually, I disconnected the 2 video cables (one HDMI and one DVI) and then I used the VGA cable to connect one of the same monitors. Then, the picture came up. I am not sure if what I did helped at all or if it was just a coincidence. When I got the picture back the operating system was very unresponsive. It would rarely let me save the few notepads that I had opened. I also couldn't copy and paste. It slowly let me do what I needed to do, though, I kept giving it more time, coming back, and trying again.

    What I have done in response:
    I disconnected power and sata cable from the hard drive. I probably should have first turned off the backup service but didn't think to do that.

    Any advice or input is appreciated.
     
  2. Digerati

    Digerati Major Geek Extraordinaire

    Sadly, you told us absolutely nothing about your computer. I can only assume it is a PC since you installed a card. But what card? What motherboard or PC brand and model? How much RAM do you have installed? How much free disk space do you have installed? What version of Windows?

    Have you scanned for malware? With what?

    Did you try uninstalling then reinstalling Chrome?
     
  3. baklogic

    baklogic The Tinkerer

    One possibility is that the second hard drive has a fault, as the problems started after connecting it.
    Did removing the second hard drive help ?
    Also, we can help possibly , a little more if you answer Digerati

     
  4. Replicator

    Replicator MajorGeek

    Yeh, as stated by Digerati, its a lot harder to build a house without the full plans!

    From what you have stated above, my first suspect would be the new Vid card install.
    Have you tried powering down, pulling the new card and then reseating it?
    Compatible card I imagine, as machine wouldn't POST if not?
    Installed in correct slot on mobo?
    Second hand card or new?

    I could be way off the mark here, but with little info, its a longer game of diagnosis! ;)
     
  5. Replicator

    Replicator MajorGeek

  6. Silverthunder

    Silverthunder Sergeant

    Haha, yeah. You can almost immediately rule out macs if someone has installed a video card.

    Sorry about that. I forgot about the guidelines to include those details.
    I am running Windows 10,
    HP Pavilion 500-336
    Pegatron Memphis-S motherboard
    i3 4130
    4 GB DDR3-1600
    MSI Radeon R7 240

    Tons of free disk space on main drive. One thing about main drive is that I think my friend set the computer to use 4gb / 8gb of virtual menory from the hard drive.

    The second hard drive I was just using with the windows backup service. So, I assume that program manages that. I also hadnt been running that program that long.

    I did scan for malware. Man had it been a long time since I had done that...

    I didn't try reinstalling Chrome yet.
     
  7. Replicator

    Replicator MajorGeek

    After you installed the MSI Radeon R7 240, did Win10 auto sense and install drivers, or did you do it manually from OEM web server?

    What did the AV scan find, if anything?
     
  8. Just Playin

    Just Playin MajorGeek

    The graphics card requires 400 watts minimum PSu. Does yours meet that spec?
     
  9. Silverthunder

    Silverthunder Sergeant

    I have gotten a very brief freeze up where some of the chrome windows go black. It only lasts a couple of seconds, though. This even happened when all that I had was 5 Chrome windows opened. That is basically all that I had running.
     
  10. Silverthunder

    Silverthunder Sergeant

    I am trying the easy suggestions first.

    I let Windows install the drivers. Windows even installed some software-- it's some kind of icon with a red circle cluster, runs in the tray, and lets me change some settings.

    Malwarebytes did not find anything.

    For AV, I just use whatever Windows 10 has built in.

    The power supply is 300W. A friend of mine looked into what power supply would be needed. He said that the one that I had is enough. But, maybe he was wrong. If it matters, I don't use the computer for anything graphics intensive. I might watch some DVDs or movies through a subscription service but probably wouldn't be for a while (if at all). Also, I only have 2 x23 inch monitors. the main reason that I installed the video card is because I have a portable monitor which connects through hdmi only. Now I can connect that monitor to the computer and be across the room on that monitor. This is the model - https://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/co..._AoLWyTWRoC03kQAvD_BwE&is=REG&m=Y&sku=1057701
    which I bought so that my Mac mini could become portable (sort of).
    Also, I wanted to have HDMI because my secondary monitor looks terrible on VGA (that monitor has been nothing but problems since I got it). Maybe I can just do that through an adapter, too, but I'd imagine that that has drawbacks. Also, I only have 4 GB of ram, which I believe is shared with the on board video. So, I think I am boosting my ram performance a little. I do have some more ram that I could install but I was questioning how much I need that because I just think I wouldn't need it. I did try to install that once with a different video card in the machine (one that I previously tried but then ended up returning) but the computer would not boot with it. That might have been because I turned off secure boot when I installed the video card. I misunderstood an article that I read on the HP website and thought that I had to turn off secure boot. I think the only way to turn on secure boot now is to do so as part of reinstalling the operating system.
     
  11. baklogic

    baklogic The Tinkerer

    One purchaser of that graphics card said
    "It can display 4K resolution (3840×2160), however only at 30 Hz at maximum. This is fine for a HTPC if you are watching 24 or 30 FPS movies, but would be irritating if you are using your 4K display as part of a workstation. "
    As Just Playin
    With just 4gb of on board ram,I think you could be maxing out on the cpu, at these times- why on earth would you want 10 browsers open at the same time ?
    Are you running x64bit?- if so, ram can be upgraded to 16gb- cpu can be upgraded to an i7.
    https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c04345595
    I cannot find the spec on the psu, but I usually find these type of desktop only have about 300/350 psu's.
    I was trying to find out more, when you posted, and had typedthis before I read your last two posts- but have a look at it.
     
  12. Imandy Mann

    Imandy Mann MajorGeekolicious

    Not part of your main problem but you should have the option to turn secure boot back on in the bios. Boot to the bios look for Security or Boot. Turning secure boot back on should disable anything related to legacy booting automatically. No need to reinstall windows for that.
     
  13. Silverthunder

    Silverthunder Sergeant

    I was thinking about this question and I want to point out that Google Chrome mostly just so happens to be the program that's using a lot of resources, when I have a bunch of Windows opened. The second most resource intensive program, I think would be Visual Studio Community. But, I really haven't run that much recently.
     
  14. Silverthunder

    Silverthunder Sergeant

    interesting. I didn't know it ran 4k at all. I thought it didn't even do 1440p. This came up because I was thinking about going to 1 ~32 inch monitor with a 1440p resolution instead of these 2x23 inch. But, might not be the ideal 4k anyway. My thing with monitors is that I am kind of obsessed with having a monitor that doesn't have PWM Flicker, and sometimes it's tough to determine the specs on TVs with regard to that.

    As far as the 10 browser windows, I am actually glad that you asked. In some ways it's a bad habit. I will start off on one task, then get bored of it or remember something else that I have to do. So then I will start working on the a 2nd task. A lot of my to do list stuff does involve the web. But, there will also be some things that I will perpetually have opened: A Youtube video that I am watching for entertainment (I will take breaks and watch several minutes of it, then come back in an hour or whatever), a Youtube video for music which I will be occasionally playing, a Slack channel where I am waiting for people to respond, A window with Google voice opened as I am expecting some text to come in.

    A lot of the windows, though, could come from trying to find some info on the web. One search can lead to another search. For example, let's say you are shopping for a TV. Maybe you start on a site that is just a general review/ consumer advice. Then you don't understand a term that they use so you do another search to read about that. Then that brings up another question. So, you have a bunch of "threads" going. You also can't just bookmark the stuff because you also want to know the search words that led to that site because you are still conducting that search, too. Although I suppose you could bookmark the search results and bookmark the page that you are on, from one of those search results. I guess part of the problem is that my bookmarks are a bit of a mess. I am getting better though about creating a new bookmark folder front and center for stuff that I am currently working on. It gets cumbersome to work with so many web browser windows.

    The PSU is 300W. Fastest way to find that is to probably control - f power on the page that you linked.
     
    baklogic likes this.
  15. Silverthunder

    Silverthunder Sergeant

    I believe I was reading something on the HP website that once I turn it off then it can only be turned back on in conjunction with a reinstall. I was searching around their site to determine where I found that information but I couldn't find it. It's good to know that I can maybe re-enable it. Once I get the current problem isolated a little bit, then I will probably install the Ram and then try to disable secure boot.
     
  16. Silverthunder

    Silverthunder Sergeant

  17. Silverthunder

    Silverthunder Sergeant

    I tried playing a CD in my DVD player and there were problems. The computer was not able to play the CD I tried the CD in a different computer and it worked fine. I think this supports the thesis that the power supply is insufficient?
     
  18. Digerati

    Digerati Major Geek Extraordinaire

    Not at all. CD players consume very little power. Did the CD tray slide open and close? Did the CD motor spin up? If so, power was not the problem. More likely you didn't have the necessary drivers to access the CD or you didn't have the necessary codecs install to play the CD.

    Note a typical DVD/CD burner uses uses about 1.5A @ 12VDC and 1.5A @ 5VDC. In DC circuits, P= IE (power = current x voltage). So:

    1.5 x 12 = 18W
    1.5 x 5 = 7.5W

    So the maximum power required by a typical DVD burner is less than 26W. And note that would be during writes (burning) to the disk. Reading (playing) a disk takes much less power.

    If playing a CD placed an excessive demand on your power supply, the power supply would have shut down your computer completely.
     
  19. baklogic

    baklogic The Tinkerer

    As the graphics card appears to need 400w, then, logically , this would seem to be the way forward - replace the power supply with one over 400w, or, change the graphics card.
     
  20. TimW

    TimW MajorGeeks Administrator - Jedi Malware Expert Staff Member

    Have you gone into HP's website and seen if you can update your DVD player drivers?
     
  21. Silverthunder

    Silverthunder Sergeant

    the CD tray definitely opened and closed. I can remember if the motor spun up but I am pretty sure that it did. I lost track of this thread and now since it has been a while, my memory is a little hazy.
    I understand that you are saying that the DVD/CD players failure might not be attributed to the power supply. I might have rushed ahead a little with buying a power supply. I guess I would prefer to get some other things working before working on the power supply. I guess I am more interested in figuring out what the whole experience with this computer means. My priorities are ranked as follows:
    1) get computer in a state where it's not crashing/ saying that it's out of memory or low on memory while the second hard drive is installed.
    2) get computer working with the RAM
    3) get DVD/ CD player working

    I have been able to get the computer functioning properly (as far as I can tell) in 2 states:
    1- with the original power supply, an SSD (which has replaced the original hard drive), and the MSI R7 240 (which replaced the on board video).
    Other things that I have the parts for but that I have not been able to get to work:
    -upgrading the RAM to ADATA ddr3 1600 2x 4gb. When I put the Ram in, I am unable to boot into Windows. I can't remember exactly what happens but I think I get no picture on the display.
    -hooking up the original hard drive as a backup hard drive: when I have this hooked up, computer freezes for several seconds/ Chrome Windows go black.
    2- with a new power supply installed (DX-400WPS). With that, I can only get the VGA to work on my video card. With this setup, I haven't tried installing the RAM, hooking up the second hard drive, or hooking up the DVD player.

     
  22. Stephen_c16

    Stephen_c16 Master Sergeant

    I have a similar outfit. Thought I would check out Virtual memory and found this.

    I have changed mine.
    Good luck

    s.
     
  23. Geek_Justin

    Geek_Justin Corporal

    I have to agree that your PSU is the main culprit here. I would also adjust the virtual memory to "Let Windows Handle."
     
    Silverthunder likes this.
  24. Silverthunder

    Silverthunder Sergeant

    Thanks, I set it back. This article was in support of that..
    https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001293.htm
    Like I had posted earlier in this thread, one of my friends set the virtual memory to 4GB - 8GB several months ago (even before I hooked up the 2nd hard drive).
     
  25. Silverthunder

    Silverthunder Sergeant

    Also, I am back to the original power supply now.

    I just put a CD in and the CD player & it's playing fine.

    I haven't had any "crashes" like mentioned in my OP in a while. I been sticking to opening fewer browser windows these days, so that could be the contributing factor. Also, I have been using Pale Moon instead of Google Chrome (except for a couple of websites that don't work on Pale Moon).

    One thing that I didn't like about that power supply is that it had a ton of cables. It was also interesting that for the 24 pin connector it had a 20 pin connector and a 4 pin connector, so that it would be compatible with the 20 pin motherboards and the 24 pin motherboards. Here is the model that I had installed:
    https://www.bestbuy.com/site/dynex-400-watt-atx-cpu-power-supply-white/8311052.p?skuId=8311052
     
  26. Silverthunder

    Silverthunder Sergeant

    I am not sure which solution did the trick but it seems to be one of these..
    1) I let Windows handle the virtual memory as suggested by Stephen_16 and Geek_Justin
    2) It could be Related to differences between chrome and pale moon. Pale moon does get cranky when we have a high RAM usage-- the computer response time slows down and I react by closing some pale moon browser windows. Perhaps chrome is different in that it reacts with the symptoms described in the OP.
    3) Windows updates?

    Thanks for all of the help.
     
    baklogic likes this.

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