demagogue on 12/5/2011 at 16:51
I'm getting inexplicable "Your computer is low on memory, Close X" error messages & CTDs when I run process-heavy stuff. The netbook has 1 GB of RAM, not a lot as it is. (Win7-32, Asus Ha1005, Intel 1.6GHz.
Belarc Profile: (
http://i53.tinypic.com/2rfsrx1.jpg)
So before yesterday, to set a baseline, I could still run Minecraft on the "farthest" fog setting and maybe it hangs a little but not too bad. Now I get the "low on memory" error when I open more than maybe 10 Tabs in Firefox (I'm used to opening like 30 tabs without issue, lining up articles or whatever), and get the Low Memory error when I just open Minecraft, I can get it to run with "tiny" fog setting, but if I bump it up to "short" fog level in a game, it just CTDs.
The first time I got the error, Windows raises the Paged memory, now it says it's 155MB.
If I run just Firefox, that's 150MB (2nd biggest sink is 20MB), Task manager "Performance" says I have around like 300 MB available memory left, ~100MB free, sometimes down to 80MB Free (edit: now down to 40MB; is that a new thing? edit2. Now 6.... what is this? Now back to 50). And this is the condition it can give the error.
Stuff I've looked at:I thought it might be an overheating issue because the fan was getting louder in the last month. I sprayed it with some WD40 to make it quieter, but still worry about it. HWMonitor says the "computer" is averaging around 135 F. (55C) degrees (the CPU and "5AS"(?) are lower, 45/115, <40C/<100F), but looking at other computers that get into the 140s F (60s C) it doesn't seem my computer is that bad, and I'm getting the Low Memory errors even when the computer is just turned on and still rather cool... The Low Memory problems are happening at any time, all the time, the same way. (I haven't really seen other issues with overheating either, but maybe?) Google searching hasn't really told me any connection between overheating and "Out of Memory" issues (there can be slowdowns, but at least not reading about Low Memory error messages). Google hasn't revealed any other inexplicable sudden Low Memory causes. I have learned B12 deficiency can be a cause of human memory loss, lol.
So I'm wondering why there could be a new lack of memory suddenly that is in such massive contrast with past performance which was fine (for 1GB of RAM), and nothing new going on in Task Manager Processes that shows anything different or processor heavy. Overheating? Nothing new I see running in Task Manager. Under the "Performance" stat, "Free" memory wobbles anywhere from 100MB down to 6MB RAM Free, hovering around 50MB-80MB just having Firefox running ... makes me wonder if this is a new thing and what could have caused that if that's part of the problem? (And if so, where's the memory going, if we have 1GB, only 150MB used in Processes at most. I'm still learning about how memory works, but it seems with another ~800MB around with Firefox running (110MB; can spike up to 200MB at the most) and that's the only major thing running, 2nd biggest sink is 20MB... how could a few windows open in Firefox give me a Low Memory error?)
Anyway, any ideas? Any of this sound familiar to anyone? Anything I can do?
june gloom on 12/5/2011 at 18:10
Have you tried running anti-spyware? As well as a virus scan?
demagogue on 12/5/2011 at 21:52
Good thinking. I'll run a few... Probably take most of a day. Maybe I'll report on it tomorrow or whenever.
I was almost assuming it was hardware related because I didn't see anything suspicious in Task Manager/Processes, but you never know.
Al_B on 12/5/2011 at 23:50
That's definitely worth doing as a matter of course, but I'm impressed that you haven't run into more problems with only 1GB of RAM and 155MB of page space with Windows 7. Minecraft can be pretty memory hungry so my guess would be that a combination of software updates of both it and possibly Firefox have tipped things over the edge and now your netbook is simply struggling.
Have you tried opening the resource monitor from the performance tab in the task manager? Once there there's a further tab dedicated to memory usage which may help tracking down anything that's taking up more memory than you expect. As an alternative, (
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653) process explorer can be useful - particularly when seeing which services are assigned to instances of svchost.
demagogue on 13/5/2011 at 01:16
I've long gotten used to the limits of 1GB of RAM, little hiccups in HD video etc, but this is a whole other bag of cats. This is like I can hardly open Firefox *alone* without it crashing from <50MB of memory left.
Edit: BTW, 1st antivirus sweep didn't catch anything special. (I do sweeps periodically too.)
Edit2: The 155MB of page space was forced on by Win7 only a few hours ago. I don't think I've even been on long enough (doing normal stuff) to notice its effects. Even if it had any, it's probably totally swamped by the tsunami of the main memory sink itself.
Quote Posted by Al_B
Have you tried opening the resource monitor from the performance tab in the task manager? Once there there's a further tab dedicated to memory usage which may help tracking down anything that's taking up more memory than you expect.
Funny enough, I was doing it practically as you were posting. ;)
So yeah, here's what Resource Monitor shows when I have nothing private except RM running. (sorry about the pic size.) You can see the single biggest thing running (svchost, circled in red) takes up 43MB physical memory, and the bar is showing 426MB of physical memory is "in use", though for the life of me I don't know by what. So that's like 400MB, 40% of the memory unaccounted for AFAIK. The image of that "Physical Memory" graph on the right shows everything, where even with nothing running, already half is covered in green.
Inline Image:
http://i52.tinypic.com/2hzqvcy.jpg...................................................................................
Then I run Minecraft and you can really see the problem. Minecraft itself (javaw.exe) takes up 300MB, but because of that strange 400-500MB sink I can't figure out, that adds up to ~800MB in use, and it's already pushing towards <50MB of Free memory.
Inline Image:
http://i54.tinypic.com/2nbzp0w.jpgSo it seems like there's this consistent unaccounted 400-500MB sink, which is basically half of all the memory, and the only things in the Process table like svchost aren't even getting close, maaaybe pushing 50MB.
Edit: Ok, I'll take a look at Process Explorer and see if that can show what's going on in that 450MB sink. Just wanted to post this now for the record.
Edit2: Process Explorer just shows the same thing. You can see in the red circle I made, the biggest running process (explorer) taking up 46MB, and a few svchost about the same, and then you see the overall bar image at the top showing that nearly 1/2 of all physical memory is in use, around 400-500MB. So I don't know how to account for that extra ~400MB of physical memory in use.
Inline Image:
http://i54.tinypic.com/xmlnvr.jpgWhat makes it weird is I can't think of what happened to make this an issue now. Was there a Windows update I just forgot about? A virus that the sweep didn't show? And 400MB! That seems like a lot to just be unaccounted for suddenly, and not something a Windows update would do I think.
I wish I had screenshots from last week to compare these to, to see just how much physical memory was being used then. Also curious if there's another way to see what that 400MB of physical memory is actually doing.
Al_B on 13/5/2011 at 14:48
Don't worry about the working set size - that's not really a good indicator of you running out of memory. It doesn't include memory in the standby page and I believe it also includes memory mapped files. Also, some memory is shared between processes so you can't just add up the figures and expect it to match with the amount of RAM used.
The commit charge is much more important, however, and it looks like you're very close to the limit on your second screenshot. The limit is made up of the amount of physical RAM you have and the size of your page file(s). You can see the total amount on the performance tab of your task manager (and how much has been used).
From your screenshots I'd be inclined to stop SQL Server (do you need it on your netbook?) and take a look at other items with a high commit value. You're probably as well to increase the size of your page file anyway - Windows wouldn't normally only allocate 155MB with 1GB of RAM.
demagogue on 13/5/2011 at 23:39
Ok thanks.
The Commit value is usually higher than the Working value, so that makes it sound worse than I first thought. The idea of processes sharing memory also makes it sound even worse than I thought (I stop a process and still don't get the memory I had before).
But anyway, backup for a second. What sort of thing might make all of this be such a problem *now*? I've had this netbook for about 2 years now, and I got a really good feel for how far the memory could go. It basically could run a game pre-2004/5. So it could run Doom 3 & Darkmod; not the best, but you could play it & no memory errors. I was playing Viet Cong, 2003 game, plays smooth.
Now we're talking about if I even open Minecraft, before I even start a game I get a memory error, it crawls at "Tiny" fog (where it used to be high FPS), and if you bump it even to "Short" fog it CTD (forget about it getting to "Far", which it used to do ok). I'm just thinking about the memory distance between a memory error & CTD for "Short" fog in Minecraft vs running Doom 3 without a memory error. That to me sounds like a 100-200 MB or more worth of memory's difference, doesn't it? That change happened suddenly.
Does that kind of change happen when you get new processes running, or old processes hogging more space suddenly?
Is that the only/most likely explanation of why this is a problem now?
Is this kind of change something a Windows update could really do?
I've been thinking it's a background thing or even hardware thing, because I've seen memory issues across most every program I run (games, Firefox, Word, etc), but don't know what changed recently.
So anyway, stopping SQL Server didn't have much appreciable effect. The Commit graph averages only went down a few MB when it's stopped, and I'm still getting memory problems. And just looking at it, it was committing like 50MB of memory. It just doesn't seem to reconcile with the distance I have to go to get Doom3 running again without a memory error. And is that the kind of program that could change overnight to sink that much memory suddenly? (Is it part of a Windows update? Are there other programs that are most likely to change like that?) But looking at all the processes in Task Manager, none of them really look like they are what sapped that distance away. I'll see how far I can cut back, but already I'm down to stopping <20MB stuff. The whole thing just seems strange to me, not knowing what it changed now after 2 years of things being fine. That's really the first thing I'd want to know, what could have changed recently to do something like this?
Al_B on 13/5/2011 at 23:55
I honestly don't know why you're suddenly experiencing a problem now. Your memory usage doesn't appear to be atypical for Windows 7 and you have to remember that even though the memory is shown as in use it doesn't mean that Windows can't put it into the standby page area if it feels so inclined.
However, now you're seeing out of memory errors. Those must be down to the commit space used. Increase your page file size - and it would help if you posted your commit charge usage and limit.
As I've said before, I suspect you've been on the edge of a memory problem for a while and you've been tipped over the edge recently.
demagogue on 12/6/2011 at 19:35
Well it's a month later and within the last week suddenly I'm not getting the memory errors anymore.
It looks like in retrospect maybe it was a coincidental combination of 3 things happening at the same time, a Windows update, a Minecraft update, and a Firefox update... Looking back, Minecraft & Firefox were the two programs having the most insane memory issues. And the Windows update was probably just more process heavy. Then later Minecraft (or Java?) & Firefox updates I guess cleaned up some inefficiencies, because they're running ok again now.
Or I don't know what it was exactly. The serious issues stopped as mysteriously as they started. I mean it's just a netbook with 1GB so it's not a powerhorse anyway, so I believe you it's been pushing the line all the time anyway. I'm just happy that the insane problems are gone now. Sort of unsettling how quickly it came and went though.
