System Resources Always Low

[XtremeEX]

!!! I offer a reward for helping me out, read through and you'll see it at the bottom.

Ok, first off, I'm running a Custom comp I made a long time ago. I've had it for about 1 year now, before I didn't have any problems.

I lost all my system specs so this is off memory, I only am listing what I know for sure:

WIN 98 SE (Patched to the max!)
P4 @ 1.8Ghz
GeForce 4 MX 64MB DDR
512DDR RAM (2x256)
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum
40GB 7200RPM HD
Plenty of fans to cool.

At first my comp would run fine, tons of resources. Now, my comp is always at 20% resources OR LESS at startup before I open up any programs.

I can't have more than about 4 windows open at a same time or my computer will pretty much crash. I've REFORMATED 4 times this week!

I have Norton SystemWorks and Internet Security but THOSE ARE NOT THE PROBLEMS. I am aware of the ammount of resources the applications use, but they never gave me problems before.

I think it might be the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum. It sort of makes sense because I bought it later after having my computer fine but I cannot recall when resources started at an extreme low.

Does anyone have resources maxed down due to your Sound Blaster Auidgy 2 Platinum?


I would really appreciate some help in solving this out.

I own a closed website, but still running, and I can offer 20MB email boxes OR EVEN MORE, for anyone that would be able to dedicate some time in helping me out.

YOURNAME@stormedfortress.com. 20MB Mailbox. It's not public so you could even take "JOHN" if you wanted to!

 

[Maximus]

You could try this, go to your Start menu then Run. When in Run type msconfig, just msconfig. This should bring you to a window, on the top of the window there should be a tab that says "Startup", click that. After uncheck every box there except for Systray. You might want to memorize where all the boxes are checked in case this doesn't work. After click apply and restart. This should work, if it doesn't then I don't know what else will. Hope this helps!

 

[Rick]

Well, you problem is definitely Windows 98SE.

Stuff like that is a rare happening in Windows 2000 and XP. I have run across many instances where Windows 98 has gobbled up massive amounts of memory for no apparent reason. I have always fixed it in the past by upgrading it to Windows 2000 or XP. But in your case, it could be a program or service in the background leaking memory. The MSCONFIG idea is a very good troubleshooting tool. You can safely uncheck every program in MSCONFIG/Startup and when you restart, your problem will be no more if a program is at fault.

But if Windows 98 is to blame, as it has been in the past for me, I cannot offer you much of a solution.

 

[Rick]

Perhaps this link will help you out more.

http://support.microsoft.com/search...dType=ALL&maxResults=25&Titles=false&numDays=

 

[XtremeEX]

Are you sure about unchecking EVERYTHING?

 

[Maximus]

Everything except SYSTRAY should be OK. SYSTRAY is needed for windows do function properly.

 

[XtremeEX]

Alright, thanks a bunch man. I did that and restarted and my resources were at a whoping 97%! I gotta check out what program is taking up my space.

You guys e-mail me about the e-mail address if you still want one, if you don't want to use my service I can make it re-direct to your mailbox of preference. The webmail software aint THAT GREAT and unfortunately I cannot change it.

Just drop me a line at webmaster@stormedfortress.com with your desired NAME@stormedfortress.com and the password you want. It sounds skeptical but give me a new password you don't use at all because I don't want to be the one to be blamed for your password stolen on other stuff not related to this mailbox. I have bad memory and will not record your password on to my computer, it will only be up on the server so I cannot recover or view any passwords or your mail. :grinthumb

 

[Rick]

Originally posted by Maximus
Everything except SYSTRAY should be OK. SYSTRAY is needed for windows do function properly.

Even that is okay to uncheck. I've never had problems end tasking it or preventing it from starting up.

ExtremeX: Sounds like you have either a lot of background programs loading, or perhaps a "bad" one that is leaking memory. You may want to enable them one by to one to troubleshoot which program is to blame.

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

From what I know, systray provides only Windows' standard volume control on taskbar (or whatever the name of that thing is).

 

[Justin]

Systray is what displays all system icons down in the corner... any app that uses a systray icon will use systray. It is not *needed* for sure. But then again, technically explorer is not needed either, windows functions just fine without it.

 

[XtremeEX]

Thanks for your help you guys, but now I just got to start over now. My computer fuxed up while playing CS, my video card screwed and I uninstalled to reinstall it and my computer will never boot up again. I'll just have to check after each installation, my 5th time reformatting.

 

[Nic]

You want to minimise the number of programs that are loaded and running in the background. Win9x series has limited resources available and the limit is hardcoded into windows and cannot be changed. Win2k/xp have unlimited resources available, depending on the amount of memory you have installed. I remember once writing an application in Visual Basic, that had so many components on the GUI that it refused to load in windows 98, but worked fine in windows 2000. If you can, you'll feel much better after an upgrade to windows xp.

 

[lordx]

It's better to change your OS ....win2k or xp is better....also the drivers for this os's works better