Member Avatar for KunalBhatia

Hii,

My Windows XP laptop goes unusually slow after when I open any program (say Internet Explorer) on it after startup.
I suspected I am having a heavy startup so I observed my task manager stats.

1. On startup and stabilizing , my RAM usage is normal and it shows I have enough free memory.
2. If I start any program and use it for a minute, the problem starts.
3. On observing task manager again, I found that my free RAM has dropped very low, used RAM is also low, but the Pageing size has increased a lot.

I have checked, my total RAM size is correct as per my specs on startup.

So plz somebody helpout, why does my RAM does not get freed up even if I close any software. and Why My PAge Size is increasing terribly ( I doubt this is the culprit).

Also, Do I need to replace my RAM chips now??


My Specs:
300 GB HDD, 700 MB Ram, Win XP SP2

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by skilly

Dani AI

Generated

Short diagnosis and a focused triage path that complements suggestions from , and :

The Task Manager "Page File" / "PF usage" graph on XP reflects the system commit charge (virtual memory that must be backed by RAM or pagefile), not the literal bytes currently written to pagefile. Opening an app can raise commit charge quickly; if that committed amount stays high after the app closes, it usually means either a user-mode memory leak, a background process holding allocations, or a kernel-mode (driver) leak rather than bad RAM alone. (learn.microsoft.com)

Start with the basic triage already suggested by others: validate RAM with a bootable memory tester and run full anti-malware sweeps. If hardware and malware checks are clean, move to process-level inspection: use Process Explorer to add the Private Bytes / Virtual Size columns and watch which process’ private/committed memory grows over time. Use VMMap to break a single process’ address space into mapped/committed types so leaks from heaps, mapped files, or reservations become visible. If killing a process causes commit charge to fall, that process is the culprit. (learn.microsoft.com)

If killing processes does not reduce the commit charge, suspect a kernel-mode leak. PoolMon shows paged/nonpaged pool usage by tag so a continually growing tag points to the offending driver or component; mapping the tag back to a driver usually identifies what to update or remove. For stubborn cases, capture a memory dump and analyze with the Debug Diagnostics Tool or Windows debugging tools to get evidence for the offending module. Replacing RAM is only required if the hardware test shows errors; simply enlarging the pagefile masks leaks but does not fix them. (learn.microsoft.com)

This workflow (hardware/malware → per-process Private Bytes/VMMap → PoolMon → dump analysis) narrows the cause quickly and avoids unnecessary hardware replacement.

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Member Avatar for PsychicTide

May want to look into using Memtest 86+. It will test your RAM to make sure it can handle what it's supposed to.

http://www.memtest.org/#downiso (haven't tried this download location yet)

Edited by PsychicTide because: n/a
Member Avatar for PsychicTide

On a side note, remember, the first line of defense is always software before hardware... make sure to clean your system properly... different programs search for different things and some are better than others... I suggest Spybot: Search & destroy and Malwarebytes.

Edited by PsychicTide because: n/a
Member Avatar for KunalBhatia

Thanks for ur replies..
will check for spyware and malware first and then will revert you..

Member Avatar for skilly

you need a new computer....
respond if you have more questions, such as 'why?'

i can tell you how to make your computer more efficient.
you should have at least 2GB of RAM to compete in today's society.....
but i can still help...700MB is operable....but you won't have any fun

Edited by skilly because: n/a
Member Avatar for KunalBhatia

you need a new computer....
respond if you have more questions, such as 'why?'

i can tell you how to make your computer more efficient.
you should have at least 2GB of RAM to compete in today's society.....
but i can still help...700MB is operable....but you won't have any fun

My system was fine one week back.. I was enjoyin workin on it....
The problem has started recently, My RAM is nt freeing up, System starts and remains at 100% CPU usage and 90% RAM usage

Member Avatar for skilly

another thing you can check, type 'msconfig' into the run...line(from start button)
check the services tab and startup tab to view &disable programs

you should update to sp3, and get the latest security updates

Edited by skilly because: more
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