What's sucking up RAM?
 

Hello,

Is there a program anyone knows that will show me what's sucking up my ram? Similar to the 'top' command in unix?

I'm running Win 98, have 256MB of ram, and this past week I've noticed that system resources are at less than 50% a few minutes after boot - even if I'm just browsing the Internet. This never was the case. (I'm getting the system resources info from Windows Explorer -> Help -> About Windows dialog box)

I've scanned for viruses and spyware and came up clean with both. The task manager box is showing nothing unusual running, and msconfig shows no new loading-upon-boox programs.

It's getting to the point where I'm having to reboot every now and then to maintain enough free ram. Help!

Thank you.

Well you are running Windows 98 and if I recall, it did have a few memory leaks, so that could be it. Other than that, I couldnt say. Sorry Im not more helpful.

I'd suggest using Win2k. I much prefer it over any other version of Windows released. Not that I suggest you abandon your Win98 install, just as a last resort and you still want to use Windows.

Hello,

The issue isn't Windows 98 - I have at least 3 other machines running it and I've been running it on the machine in question for many years with no problem. It's something recent causing a very fast decline in free ram. I can actually see it dropping over the course of a few hours. Hence when I'm looking for something to show me memory utilization. Any thoughts?

Upgrading to a new OS isn't an option now unfortunately.

Thanks

you need something similar to task manager in 2k/xp

something like aTaskManager 1.0 from wekasoft.com
or
http://3d2f.com/programs/1-301-taskinfo-download.shtml

As an alternative, you can try the tiny (and completely free) process viewer
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/fil...id,6102,00.asp
to see what's running.

I will also recommend using startup control panel to check what's in your startup (I don't know if it will look in spots that msconfig doesn't)
http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

Other then a process viewer/task manager thing, the only other things I can think of are some sort of windows rot and trying a registry cleaner/unused dll checker.

Spyware.

/mac user snicker.

I did several scans, both with Spybot and Ad-aware. They both came back clean. Plus I've got a firewall on the router, so I doubt it's anything like that. In addition, I browse using Opera, not IE.

This program was great in the sense that it has an option to free RAM and when I applied that it freed up over 100 MB of RAM. However, it is not practical to keep loading and freeing ram like this - it's like using a pail to bail out a leaky boat. Plus the software expires in 30 days.

It didn't show any specific programs running hogging up the ram. I'll keep looking though. thanks.

Run MSCONFIG and turn off all the startup items. Reboot and see if it happens the same as before. Turn items back on one by one and find the problem program.

Whats sucking up your RAM? Your yew?

Sorry....

you, sir, are awful.

(ewe)