Help Windows low on memory!

[Tinky]

Originally Posted by Kymmy

Anyone got a simple memory/cpu tester for Tinky to use..?? I don't keep one handy anymore since I retired from support..

TInky, can I also suggest you check your PSU voltages and that your CPU fan is running OK as over heating/faulty PSU can exhibit the same faults

Originally Posted by ooogemaflop

Orthos tests both memory and cpu as does prime95 in a Windows enviroment. Memtest86+ iso burnt to cd would test in a live enviroment http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

Eeek!! Too complicated for this simple soul. I've run another virus scan, nothing detected, and also increased the Page File to 4000. Will monitor if this resolves the matter. Welcome also to ooogemaflop your help is most appreciated.

[danielf]

Originally Posted by Tinky

Eeek!! Too complicated for this simple soul. I've run another virus scan, nothing detected, and also increased the Page File to 4000. Will monitor if this resolves the matter. Welcome also to ooogemaflop your help is most appreciated.

You could try prime95 (as suggested above). It's a little program that does lots of calculations. It's used by overclockers to see if a system is stable. It has a 'stress test' option. If you set it to stress test and run it on a machine with faulty memory the fault should be obvious in a matter of minutes.

[Tinky]

Originally Posted by danielf

You could try prime95 (as suggested above). It's a little program that does lots of calculations. It's used by overclockers to see if a system is stable. It has a 'stress test' option. If you set it to stress test and run it on a machine with faulty memory the fault should be obvious in a matter of minutes.

Thanks danielf I did download that program but the whole thing froze and I had a heck of a time getting back here, but will download and try again. BTW this is doing my head in.

---------- Post added at 11:40 ---------- Previous post was at 11:23 ----------

Downloaded prime95 once again but the whole thing once again froze and I had to manually restart the PC. Don't think my problems are solved yet.

---------- Post added at 12:24 ---------- Previous post was at 11:40 ----------

It allowed me to do a system restore, so will monitor things for a while, will get back to you all. Many thanks for your help.

[Tinky]

Well so far so good, everything seems to be back to normal. Hope I haven't spoken too soon.

[vanman]

you could reboot and before you get to to the boot screen keep pressing f8 that will give you windows options at the bottom you will see Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool to test the Random Access look here http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial146.html

[Tinky]

Originally Posted by vanman

you could reboot and before you get to to the boot screen keep pressing f8 that will give you windows options at the bottom you will see Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool to test the Random Access look here http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial146.html

Thanks very much for that vanman, I may try that later on, at the mo everything seems OK. Useful to know where to look though, will bookmark that site.

[Kymmy]

Personally I'm erring on a PSU/voltage problem..

[Tinky]

Hmm! Curiosity got the better of me and I decided to run the windows diagnostic tool (didn't know I had one on my PC, thanks for that vanman). It took approx 8 mins, and the result was that there were no problems. Eh? So what was making my PC act so erratically this morning?, everything seems OK now as far as I can tell. Sorry if I wasted your time folks, thanks ever so for all your help.

do you have a blank cd? if so download the pre compiled memtest iso I linked to and burn the iso image to cd using imgburn( freely available) Then you will need to boot the pc from this cd

When the PC boots you will either see a full screen menu or a series of messages. IF you see a full screen menu hit the tab key and this should show you the messages

You are looking for to enter set up hit F2 or Del( most likely one of the 2) or better still Boot select menu hit F8 or F12( again normally one of these) if there is no Boot select menu then you will need to enter bios set up and set the cd rom as first boot device( you never know with a bit of luck it may already be set to this so boot with cd in first and see if it loads)

Prime95 freezing makes me think bad stick of ram as if it was a cpu fault it would fall over on a bad calculation and tell you. It could of course still be anything as kymmy says a failing psu or mobo could result in the same error

I would not trust the Windows Diagnostics as a deffinative answer but did the system crash after you set a static page file ?

[Tinky]

Well you certainly know your stuff oooge. If it weren't for what I said ^ I would seriously be trying all that , but more likely I'd be taking it to the PC hostipal. Hopefully all this information will be of help to anyone else who finds themselves in a similar position to what I found myself in yesterday AM. Just for the record, if I recollect correctly, I was able to do a system restore after the Page File had been increased, does that make sense? Since the restore everything seems normal, lets hope it stays that way. Once again your help has been most appreciated, thank you so much.

[Kymmy]

In that case could have been a corrupt page file, resizing it would have rewrote it..