Windows 7 forum: My system is dragging; do I have a memory leak?

Wondering if problem thar I am having might be related. Win7 will no longer "hibernate", only "sleep", trying to find a good time to reload my system.

What I suspect... per system event logs I have about a zillion errors from Bonjour (iTunes) each day - like every few seconds. Not sure when it started, reason why I plan a complete reload.

All my PCs (netbooks, notebooks, smartphones) have M$ Windows, which is so bad (unreliable, spyware, malware, etc) that I have Linux derivatives (SuperOS or Android) on all of them.

I always delete the hibernation file. Nothing goes wrong at all.

BTW: M$-NTFS-compressed files/ drives are not compatible with M$ Windows nor other operating systems. If you dare M$-NTFS-compressed drive C:, you will destroy it completely ... the "bootmg" file should NEVER be M$-NTFS-compressed.

Only use NTFS-Linux drive format.

I have an old XP Compaq 512 RAM that doesn't go into standby or hibernate.
It had been unable to start at all (no nothing) for months and the day I was going to dump it I pushed the power button and it went on.
I had to factory restore it twice.
I use it sparingly but after finding a place in another room for it suddenly the standby problem started.
The point is, is there a way of restoring the power control functions after they have stopped working.
I figure you worked on that problem already that is why I ask. I tried once or twice to find an answer but I didn't find one.

Windows 7 is memory hungry, and you are probably short of ram. I would suggest at least 4 gig of ram. I personally have 8 Gig. DDR3 Ram is cheap now, and if your Motherboard supports more than 4 GIG add more. 8 Gig of DDR3 1600 ram cost AU$158 in Australia.
Colo.

"RamDisk Plus 11 can use "unmanaged" Windows' memory e.g. above 4GB. It can also use some of the stubbornly inaccessable memory between 3.2GB and 4GB"

http://download.cnet.com/RamDisk-Plus/3000-2094_4-10515039.html

the guy who posted add more mem if you have win 7 32 bit the max is like 3.5 geg.
in early versions of xp they did have a memory leak and it would fill up all the time till
microsoft got a patch out to fix it.
I think it is fixed but who knows ,did you check if maybe you are being used as malware or virus problem or botnet.

. . . to your post - I believe there is an inherent arrogance on many forums for individuals to simply post links or offer sophmoric one sentence responses that are really a disservice to those seeking information. I myself was guilty of such arrogance at one point in time. This post answered my issues - to the point - now things are rockin' and a rollin'.

Peace out
Maxx

Hello, my name is Jeff and I own a small computer repair business -Consult A Pro, Inc. What I have found is that systems that run slow with no apparent reason usally have hidden drivers and/or rootkits. I suggest scanning your system with root revealer or another root scanner. Also in certain cases I have seen corrupt AntiVirus programs do this as well. In this case just uninstall the AV program, see if the symptoms go away, and then reload the software from the original source.

Actually, even today, the same holds true.....reboot at least once a day. It clears out the memory buffers(cache). Certain applications (Microsoft Office, et al, among others), require the exclusive use of specific memory address'. When you "exit" the app, it's supposed to release the lock on those memory address', but reality says otherwise. After I reboot my pc (AMD PhenomII @ 3.2ghz X 4, 4gigs G.skill, Vista...blah, blah), physical memory shows 38-40% in use, 48-72 hours later 65-70%....time to reboot

A very true statement. The antivirus program can eat up memory. Also check if your system has a video card on the MOBO. That uses some of your memory. I bought a 512 MB card for $59.99, on sale, That helped so I did not have to share any system memory. That is not that way on a laptop or netbook. They are on board and it is too costly to replace it as far as I know, now.

@john.ford1
You did not address the problem. Adding more RAM (if possible)is NOT a solution... it only alleviates the existing problem, which eventually will use the additional RAM and... you are back to square one.

I'm not entirely sure. Definitions suggests it is where an Operating System, (in your case Windows 7), is unable to release RAM when some application or other is closed. There is more information on memory leaks here;
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms859408.aspx

It is not entirely the fault of the OS. Software writers should arrange their applications to free up memory when the application are closed, but often they don't bother, and so the application's data remains in memory until a reboot. A reboot clears all RAM.

But is this a problem? We can't say on your system because we don't know how much RAM your computer has.

There is a general misunderstanding about memory usage. People often think that high RAM usage is bad, but that is not necessarily the case. If RAM is not utilised then it just sits there, unused. For example if your system has 8 GB of RAM and memory usage is at 50%, then 50% of the RAM is not being used; that's 4 GB of RAM not being used. Surely that is not good?

Many retail computers nowadays have between 2 GB and 4 GB of RAM. For normal usage, eg internet use, watching videos, managing emails, documents, photos, listening to music, and so on, even 2 GB of RAM is plenty and will rarely be fully utilised. Windows 7 is a more RAM hungry OS than other any other Windows OS; It has more Processes and more Services running in the background, but even so, it's own memory usage is nowhere near the amount of RAM supplied in today's systems. However, if this is an older system with limited RAM, that has been upgraded to Win 7, then the new OS may indeed use a lot of the available RAM. But generally it is only when RAM extensive applications are used, for example, video editing, graphic design, and so on, that RAM usage can soar.

You say that 'performance is dragging', and although you don't go into detail, the causes for that can be many. For example;

1] Malware infection. The biggest culprit in slow performance systems is viruses and other malware.You should always use a firewall and an anti-virus scanner of course, and the anti-virus should always be kept up to date, should always be running in the background, and should be scheduled to run regular, (daily if possible), full scans. But anti-virus is not enough nowadays and we also need anti-malware scanners. Some combinations are toxic. For example the old favorites like an AV, (anti-virus), with Spybot Search & Destroy or with Lavasoft's AdAware, no longer work well because they often conflict with the AV. So we need stand-alone manual scanners like Malwarebytes' Anti-malware and/or SUPERAntiSpyware to run regular manual scans, but not in the background, and not daily.

2] Start-up programs. Having too many applications load on boot-up, (start-up), will slow boot-up and will unnecessarily use RAM. Reducing the number of applications that load at Start-up can greatly speed up the start-up process, and will keep RAM free for other uses. Windows has it's own utility for controlling start-up programs, called the System Configuration Editor. To use it, goto the search option in the Start bubble and use the search option to search for Run.The results will list in the start menu. Click on the Run it finds and in the new box type in MSCONFIG and click OK. In the "System Configuration Editor" window that appears goto the Startup tab and investigate the entries there. Remove any ticks for applications that you don't need to load at start-up, eg any media players, any instant messengers, any browsers, etc; anything that you can just as easily open when you actually require it.

3] Perhaps the easiest way to release memory is to shut down when you are not using the system.

4] If you mean that browser use is slow, then review the Add-ons your browser is using. Too many, or add-ons that are suspect, can affect browser use.

5] Disable any unwanted or un-needed Services. There's no easy way to do that except to work down the Services list in the Services Console, (do not use the MSCONFIG Services tab for this), and check what each service is and whether it can safely be disabled or set to manual. However, Black Viper has his own list of Windows 7 Services which will help the decision process.

6] Ensure that the system is set to manage the Page File, (Virtual Memory), itself, and don't input your own limits.

That is just some of the steps that can be taken to improve performance. I hope it helps.

Mark

Webroot products are a disaster waiting to happen if not already. I run AdAware, Avast, SuperAnti-Spyware, and MalwareBytes Anti-malware with all the real time protection running at once, and have none of the issues reported in the previous post.

I now feel that SAS is better used as a scanner only, but their protection scheme is in constant flux and improvement, which may make it difficult in deciding which is best in the future. I have very many security programs on my PC, which is a Vista x64 unit with 6Gbs of RAM and I use about half of it at any given time. I need the extra RAM for HD video authoring.

The only program I notice leaving memory behind in RAM, is FireFox. I use a few plug-ins on it, and they may be the cause. But I get only half a tick on my meter in extra usage on that one, so I don't know how it really is relevant to the subject here.

My biggest slowdowns are from cookies and all the attending traffic caused by servers consulting them, and also advertisements and the attendant traffic tracking those too. You do need to get malware off the PC, but AdAware keeps most of it off before it gets a chance to get on your PC in the first place. AdAware also has the amazing ability to clip all wasted communications by servers looking for cookies and tracking and service to advertisements that may come into your temporary files. CCleaner can lower this problem, by frequent cleaning, but I can't even get some pages to load at all without AdAware Free with AdWatch turned on.

I recommend Avast as the AV to use with all these anti-malware utilities, because they work together, and are free for my indigent clients. Only Avast, AdAware, and Spy-bot Search and Destroy are free for real time protection. I've had some problems with sluggish performance in the past with Spybot and no longer recommend it, as I found more malware upon scanning with Adaware and noticed it kept more of the crap off the PC than the old venerable SS&D.

AdAware is a memory hog, but like many of the advisers say here, using memory isn't a bad thing, if it boosts performance. My web-page downloads are faster than I've ever had them, in my life! If things start getting a little slow, I update AdAware, and do a quik clean with CCleaner, and PHOOFF! No problems! You don't even have to scan with Lavasoft's AdAware to notice a marked difference in download performance. Sometimes just updating and doing that alone is enough to solve the problem.

P.S. - Host files go a long way in blocking unnecessary advertisements. Most like AdBlock Plus in Mozilla - some like MVPS for Internet Explorer; but really SpywareBlaster does a good enough job of blocking on both of them, and protects against Active X malware; all without using a smidgen of RAM! I've noticed a performance gain with all of these, but even after blocking almost all the ads, I've still noticed performance gains by using AdWatch real time protection on AdAware.

I no longer have any clients with less than 1Gb of RAM for XP.

I had the same problem with XP: excruciatingly slow logging on and off, and memory freezeups. I went to Microsoft and downloaded and installed UPHClean (user Profile Hive Cleaner) which has an excellent READ ME included. UPHClean opens itself on startup and when your PC shuts down it forces release of all the (memory) handles that accumulated since last shutdown, releasing memory back for use. Better than adding new memory, simple and automatic.
Good luck.