System resources prob..

[PWBS]

Hi ppl.....Ok, got a question about system resources . I've been using some new music software, for editing wave files n such, and now the system is losing all it's resources. I know they can be kinda draining anyways, but this is on the side of ridiculous . I,ve ran some pretty intense proggies on this puter and never had this effect. My system is a K6-2 3Dnow 300...EpoX mobo(mvp3e-m)..128MB pc100.... 6mb voodoo rush vid card...... 32x cd drive..... 6.4GB h/drive..blah blah... I use norton speed disk all the time and use a 200mb swap file... An eg of one proggie i run is Fruity Loops.. Now i got down as far as 7% resources left after just playing some loops.. I closed down most everything that was running, 'cept explorer and systray and it still did'nt free anything up.. Is there something going on here, or do i gots to upgrade my puter big time.???

Thanks ppl......

PW.....

[Dominus]

Try letting Windows manage your virtual memory for a while & see if it still happens.

[OuTpaTienT]

How long does it take for the resources to get so drained?

I ask because there are quite a few programs out there that have "memory leaks". This is where a program takes availible resources to use, but when it's done and should make those resources availible again, it will only release some (say, 75-95%) of what it took. So over a period of time (hour to many hours) all your resources get locked up.

[MickQ]

If your computer still seems to be operating at normal speeds yet reports the low resources (7%), then maybe the problem isnt really there and its a clash between Windows system properties and the program you are using.

If your computer is noticeably slowing down at these times:

Go find yourself a program called memturbo.

Im a bit of a sceptic with this program. I wont let it run the whole time in the background (which it will do by default when you install it...delete the shortcut in your Startup folder).

When you notice your system slowing down a lot when it really shouldnt, run memturbo and I have found it can make a big difference in that kind of circumstance.

As said above, its likely the cause is bad programming resulting in memory leakage which is chewing up your memory when it shouldnt be.

Memturbo checks the running apps and also the memory they have allocated to them by Windows. The rest of the memory it frees up.

It also defrags the memory.

I wouldnt let it run the whole time or automatically. Just have it on your HDD somewhere so when you have the problem occur, you can run it and 10 secs later things should be running much smoother.

[PWBS]

The system takes only a matter of half an hour to reach such low levels. And all i'm really doing is working with a few wave sounds.. My son games on this puter all the time, and he plays the very latest of games. So i guess this is something to do with memory leaks?. Even if i quit running the app that caused the probs, i need to reboot big time. It doesn't free up anything for me, and often causes a crash.(it hangs). So i'm grabbing Memturbo and will give that a blast.. Let you know what goes on....
Cheers....

...........PW

[PWBS]

OK, I'm using memturbo and the same thing is still going down. The only way to free things up, is to reboot everytime. This is really getting on my goat now as i'm not really able to work on stuff without shuting up shop, and starting over. A real pain if you want to just get on with things while fresh in ya mind......
Anymore ideas?

[MickQ]

If its just the one program doing it (not sure if it is), then go check out any FAQ's or troubleshooting guides from the place that makes the software. Failing that, Id find some new software if you can...it maybe dodgy inneficiant software.

Another version of the software may also work. Otherwise, it really could be caused by just about anything!

When the problem is occuring next time, go to start button -> Run and type
drwatson

and when dr watson starts in the taskbar, click on it and choose 'Dr Watson' and then after it does its scan, see if it reports something as being wrong.