Memory problems

[alancohen]

I am getting 'insufficient memory resources' messages on my PC (Athlon 800 MHz processor; 381 MB RAM; 30GB hard drive with over 5MB unused; Windows XP). Looking at the Task Manager the Commit Charge (K) 332240B, although I would imagine it is sometimes greater. Looking at the Virtual Memory in System Manager shows a total paging file size of 576B. Task Manager also shows about 40 'processes' running in the 'background'. Question - should I increase the memory available in some way, or should I reduce the number of processes running? If the latter, then how do I know what all of these processes are?! (HPOTDDO1.exe; CMESys.exe, to name but two.)

[j2buttonsw]

If the commit charge exceeds the available (physical)memory then the computer will rely on paging your memory which reduces performance. Microsoft recommends having a page file that is 1.5 times higher than available RAM which equals the 576 MB you report. Your commit charge (332 MB) is very close to your available memory (384 MB) and so I would think about increasing your RAM (as it is still pretty cheap and an excess of RAM is always good). Stopping processes can be risky, it is better to preventing them running in the first place. I would run msconfig from the run command and stop everything from starting up then see how your memory usage is. As an aside, I have found that "insufficient memory" errors are often cured by reinstalling the application giving the error rather than upgrading RAM.

[j2buttonsw]

Oh, and another thing: you should service pack XP and do the latest Windows updates as these can resolve various memory "leaks". Oh and also run adaware as cmesys.exe is the Gator spyware

[xyzzy@bok]

most 'processes' are listed and explained here; http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/task
list.htm