Post #127,140
11/21/03 5:19:50 PM
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Windows 98 memory management
What reason would a Windows 98 system with 128M of RAM in it need to have a 100M+ swap file immediately after boot? I've tried a few demo/shareware utilities to figure out what is going on, but nothing seems to want to claim the memory that is being used. I've run Spybot, done the scandisk/defrag, I've defragged the registry even and done a general file and registry clean up. Still something is eating memory. Windows System Monitor says that over 200M has been allocated. To what and why? Any ideas?
If it helps, Norton AV and Kazaa are on it.
Have fun,
Carl Forde
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Post #127,142
11/21/03 5:40:54 PM
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Kazaa or Kazaa lite?
I have a red sign on my door. It says "If this sign is blue, you're going too fast."
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Post #127,198
11/21/03 9:32:33 PM
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Re: Kazaa or Kazaa lite?
I don't remember at the moment. I can check the machine on Sunday. Why do you ask?
Have fun,
Carl Forde
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Post #127,372
11/23/03 9:12:33 PM
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will be removed
Kazaa wasn't being used, so it will be removed.
More news as it happens.
Have fun,
Carl Forde
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Post #127,427
11/24/03 12:08:47 PM
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Spybot Search 'n Destroy.
NOW.
[link|http://www.safer-networking.org/|http://www.safer-networking.org/]
Even if you uninstall Kazaa, you get a bunch of crap left behind - and that may be behind some of the slowness/page file nastyness. Spybot will clear out all the extra crap.
I have a red sign on my door. It says "If this sign is blue, you're going too fast."
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Post #127,150
11/21/03 6:24:17 PM
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Did someone change the setting...
...that has windows control the memory management?
Believe its one of the tabs in the System folder of the Control Panel.
You can have windows manage itself or you can specify how much swap memory you want...its generally a bad idea to change from the default.
Win 98 generally will create a pretty large swapfile on the harddrive anyway...even if you're not running alot of stuff.
If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition
[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
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Post #127,196
11/21/03 9:28:32 PM
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I checked the virtual memory setting
it's at the default. Windows is managing the swap file size. Given the amount of memory in the machine, and how little is running at startup, I'd expect the swap file size to be 0, or so.
Have fun,
Carl Forde
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Post #127,212
11/21/03 11:39:48 PM
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Well...I have a few items that load at startup
...and my win386.swp is 106 meg.
I don't think its anything but a wonderful "feature" of Win98.
If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition
[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
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Post #127,213
11/21/03 11:41:51 PM
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I think your assumptions are incorrect.
Hi Carl,
Given the amount of memory in the machine, and how little is running at startup, I'd expect the swap file size to be 0, or so.
Remember the documents from the anti-trust trial where MS people were talking about developing new "MIPS-eating" applications so they could sell more Windows licenses? Keep that in mind when thinking about Windows. They want to stress the system so that you feel you have to buy a new machine. :-)
With that in mind, it becomes more understandable that MS likes to maximize the cache size even at the expense of having more stuff in the swap file. NT was notorious for dumping stuff out of RAM to the swap file just to keep a big cache available so that it would seem the system was faster at loading programs.
[link|http://www.epinions.com/content_1812045956|This] post on epinions says that the minimum swap file size should be about 292 MB for Win98. YMMV.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #127,219
11/22/03 1:01:50 AM
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assumptions
it could well be that my assumptions are wrong. It wouldn't be the first time.
My interest is more than academic though because system performance is terrible. It won't even play a CD smoothly. I can see that bumping up the swap file size will help, but in my uninformed opinion that's just covering up the underlying problem. Starting an application causes the swap file size to grow. It seems to me something has grabbed most of the memory in the system and is starving the other applications.
In the article you linked to the point about CD & CD/RW drives is very interesting because this machine does have a CD & CD/RW drive. I don't know how they are configured. But I will find out. :-)
Have fun,
Carl Forde
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Post #127,236
11/22/03 6:40:14 AM
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Windows can do screwy things with swap.
It genuinely needs some, BTW, due to quirk in the memory management algorithms (details are very difficult to find, I'm afraid), but that doesn't mean it will be in use. Plus applications can explicitly allocate swap.
It might be time to do a re-install. 2K Server had a weird quirk in some installations where it's quiscient state took more and more memory until it was re-installed. Rebooting didn't help.
Wade.
Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
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Is it enough to die
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be Anything but Ordinary
Please
| -- "Anything but Ordinary" by Avril Lavigne. |
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Post #127,169
11/21/03 7:40:10 PM
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Memory leak
Programs that leak often leak all at once, recursively allocing memory until you're in swap hell. In Linux, I can read the hard disk light pattern and know when Im all in.
Reapply whatver service packs are around for your version - that should eliminate a bad DLL you inhaled.
-drl
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Post #127,197
11/21/03 9:31:33 PM
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service packs
I had the same thought. I've applied all the critical updates available from Windows Update. No change.
Windows Update did recommend a new sound driver, which I declined. The sound works and didn't want to take the chance of breaking something else.
Have fun,
Carl Forde
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Post #127,222
11/22/03 2:43:05 AM
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Blasted during upgrade!
Maybe you have my problem.
finally got around to upgrading from Windows 98 (bye bye shiteware!) to 2k Pro. svchost was crashing - hmm not good. I *know* the Windows 98 upgrade works flawlessly - so I immediately suspect something fishy.
Search for svchost.exe - find three versions - one is system32 (OK) one in dllcache (a copy) and one that is too big - in wins. I open it up in my binary editor and scroll down - see the word tftpd - FUCK! I've been blasted! The date on the file was today! What happened - when I upgraded IE and Lookout, it downloaded my mail and one of the 100s of stupid worms that show up in my inbox got thru. No damage, just a pisser.
Lesson - when Windows starts acting screwy, don't assume "it's just fucking Windows!" - it's probably something worse, given the density of malware on the Net.
Look in registry under \\hklm\\system\\currentcontrolset\\services for strange things. RpcTFTP is not good.
-drl
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Post #127,242
11/22/03 9:08:41 AM
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Swap file needs to hold core dump
I seem to remember from some course that windows needs to have a swap file large enough to hold a core dump when the crash feature is activated. As it was explained to me, the swap file should never be less than half the size of system RAM and ideally should be slightly larger than total RAM.
-----------------------------------------
It is much harder to be a liberal than a conservative. Why?
Because it is easier to give someone the finger than it is to give them a helping hand.
Mike Royko
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Post #127,293
11/22/03 9:22:13 PM
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Could be Spyware
Get Spybot: Search and Destroy
[link|http://www.safer-networking.org/|http://www.safer-networking.org/]
Beware that Kazaa has Spyware installed and if you remove it, it will no longer work. You may want to try Kazaa Lite instead, even if it is a hack of Kazaa, because it lacks Spyware.
I told my college instuctor about it when his system was doing the same thing, and someone stole his password to send out Spam. He ran Spybot and found over 500+ Spyware/Adware programs on his system. Many of them keyloggers, etc. System ran 1000% better after he removed the Spyware/Adware.
"Lady I only speak two languages, English and Bad English!" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"
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Post #127,371
11/23/03 9:12:24 PM
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spyware
could be, but I ran Spybot and all it found were some cookies and reg keys to set the default pages in IE. So I don't think spyware is the problem.
Have fun,
Carl Forde
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