Okay, I started a new thread to ask some help on this process.

I get the general idea, which is to run one program at a time, and see what it does or does not do with memory. But I have a few questions about that and a couple other things to understand.

First, I'm only testing "software" programs, right? as in Opera, Eudora, etc. is Yahoo a software program, and if so... I would have to test it with Opera running, right? And is YIM a separate software program, as well? I can't see any way to test these without running Opera or Mozilla as well..hmmm. Do I somehow eliminate Opera as the culprit first?

Second, are Yahoo groups a separate thing to test? Should I test them individually or all at once, or will one suffice? And what about sites like this one, should they be tested individually as well?

Third, how long do I test a program before deciding it's ok? Do I open it, log memory, shut it, log memory and that's it, or do I run it for a certain length of time first? And if so, how long should I run it?

Fourth, if there are programs I don't regularly use on here (i.e. Print shop for example), do I need to test those too, even though they aren't affecting the daily memory loss ( as in, not used every day?).

Fifth, if we installed a program AFTER the memory loss began, does that automatically make it not the culprit? (i.e. Anytime Organizer, and esheep).

And last, if I have programs set to start up when it starts up (i.e. System Monitor, Tweak Ram, and Anytime Organizer), do I need to test the computer without them starting automatically, or will the test be the same if I simply close the programs? (Note: I don't think I can close TweakRam and System Monitor and still test the computer, but we only ran System monitor after it started losing memory, and just have had Tweakram for a day.)

Thanks, and I'm gonna be testing things...

Nightowl >8#

P.S. I didn't wanna bug John with all these questions tonight he worked late. He went to bed, and I wanted to test some things tonight. Thanks.

They betray your status as a non expert but they reveal an analytical mind.

Thanks :) I know I'm no expert. ;)

Third: How long to test? It depends on how much you can pound on it. A general rule, give it 2 or 3 hours of relativly constant use, then reboot and try the next one.

Okay, here is my first result then:(Providing log for your scrutiny)

ANDREI USAGE LOG:
Booted up 11:49 p.m. System monitor and Anytime started. Shut down Anytime.
level-388M (I have 500 M).

Opened Opera, connected, level-375. Home page is Yahoo.

Bookmarked to iwethey, (same window) level-373. Logged in, made one post.
level-371.

Opened new window. (now two windows open). Without logging into Yahoo, loaded 12 Yahoo groups, one at a time, in order, in same window, (trying to determine if cache was working). John has Cache at 20M.
level-359M

After 12 Yahoo groups, loaded three sites like this, and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, level-352 when done, and all sites shut other than one besides iwethey.

Opened Yo-Da site, logged in, level-351M. Made 2 posts, logged out, level-344M
Upon exiting site, got 351M. Seemed like I got all the memory back in that case.

Exited iwethey (this site) level-353M.

Logged into Yahoo mail (one window open now). Cleaned mail out of backup accounts, when done, level-339M.

Opened Yahoo SWP site (in new window), read 3 posts, looked at photos (in 2nd new window), level-336M. Upon exiting photo page, level-337. Now only two windows open again (mail and one group).

Now opened three Yahoo groups at once, (now have four windows open). Answered posts in all three, one at a time. During process, Anytime Organizer came on all by itself to set off it's alarm telling me it was 1 am. Shut it back off. level-327M after that. Answered and read 12 posts in one, 5 in another and 3 in the last one. Shut all groups except one, (two windows now open) level-315M.

Opened my main Yahoo group, opened new window, relogged into iwethey, level-318M. Read posts and made this post. Shut Yahoo group, signed out of mail, closed System Monitor. level-332M

END LOG...

I don't know what will be left when I exit, obviously, because I can't do it and post. But I'll make a note of it after I exit and post it tomorrow. I do know that earlier, when I shut down to get things ready for John to go to bed, we only had 332M despite EVERYTHING being shut off but the OS. That seems odd.

Now a few comments, and I'm off to bed.

This was a test of Opera only, right? Opera and Yahoo groups and sites like this? I didn't test YIM this time, never opened it. Was it a long enough test?

As I stayed on a particular group, I watched the memory slowly go down as I stayed on (past the 20M cache). The memory didn't go up till I exited. This is perplexing to me, because I am of the understanding that you can sit online all day logged into a given site or more than one, and hit reload or use DSL, and the computer should not be gobbling up the memory. Am I right or wrong?

Normally all day long, I open the following and monitor it throughout the day:
System Monitor, Anytime Organizer, Eudora, Opera, Yahoo mail, Yahoo Groups (usually 2 or 3 at one time minimized), and lately, iwethey, Tweakram, and Esheep sometimes (about 5 at a time).

My question is this. Is it not reasonable to expect to be able to sit online from say... 9:00 till about 12:30, and 1:00 till about 5:00 without these memory dropping issues? Because I used to could do this, and then last year, (I checked and the problem began sometime last March, getting worse about 3 months ago), it started disappearing rapidly. I could drop from 170M (this was when I had only 256M) to under 141M in less than an hour. The other day I dropped from 390M to under 245M in approximately a half hour. When I didn't have 500M, dropping that quickly, that low, caused major crashing.

My question is, should I be able to maintain those few things longer, or is it not feasible? Because what really confuses me is that some people leave their computers on ALL DAY and sometimes ALL NIGHT, and if reloading or staying connected, (which some do as well) eats memory on a usage basis (like a car using gas), why do those computers not run out of memory?

Thanks, and I'm headed to bed now. Owls have done enough research on this for one night, and they are sleepy.

Thank you, Silverlock, for answering my questions. :)

Nightowl >8#

What happened "Back in March" and then "3 months ago"?

Hmm good idea. I checked my monthly letter archives, to see what was going on.

The biggest thing I see is that Yahoo converted its clubs to groups. I had been sitting onlin in clubs since March of 2001, Mostly on Affinity, with no problems, and then in March, Yahoo made this big conversion. I created my own Yahoo group, my clubs converted and I was now sitting online in groups. Clubs had ads, but groups greatly expanded the number of ads and extravagance of them.

Also because of the conversion, I attempted to be on my first "non-Yahoo" message board, which was the Affinity site in March. His site got hacked at least once, and crashed two other times, all while I was using it, one night it even crashed while I was posting on it.

Andrei started having serious memory issues right after these changes, from what I can tell in my letters... That was when we discovered McAfee Virus Scanner might be the problem, or some of it, and John disabled it, causing it not to run automatically in any fashion, only if he manually started it.

Andrei stabilized some at that point. He remained stable, more or less, crashing less, (I stopped monitoring memory at some point in April), until for some reason Andrei started to affect my TV signal, which he had never done before. We went out and bought an RFI reducer and hooked it up to him, but there wasn't much change. Oddly enough, the signal problem cleared up on it's own in a few days.

Also, in July, we had to finally download the new version of YIM, which proved difficult, and took many tries and finally was able to be downloaded. I disabled IM environments, because they slowed everything. And John installed Mozilla and helped me use Mozilla to rewrite code to get in the Yahoo chat rooms... (something I rarely do now, though.)

My printer went bonkers, started spewing ink and weird things, but it's had that problem periodically for some time. And, I joined my second really heavy traffic Yahoo group, the SWFC. I also learned to upload photos to Yahoo groups for the first time. And, he downloaded the new version of Opera, and this time we purchased it so there were no ads.

In September, I joined LighthouseBBS but it was too overwhelming for me as well as took a long time to load. In October we replaced the CPU fan, and then later that month, the power supply, because the fan was not running, and when it did, made noise. My mouse also started having problems, so we installed a new MS Optical Wheel mouse (which I'm still getting used to, LOL!).

In November, I officially "quit" Lighthouse, but the Sysop wouldn't delete me, so I'm still there. And we started having serious problems with Brick, our ISP. We switched to our alternate awhile, and I started looking for a new one.

In December, we got a new keyboard for Andrei, because mine was having problems. And I became a moderator on another "non-Yahoo" message site, Yo-Da Sisterhood.

In January (which would be about the three months ago), John got and installed Anytime Organizer, for me. It started staying on all the time the computer was. And we got a new ISP. It appears the memory issues actually began again in Early February, not January, I apologize, I guess that was two months ago. It was right after we discontinued service with Brick, and started the new local servce.

Andrei began crashing dramatically, as in the screen would lock up, not paint, the programs would not shut, and then he'd go to either a blue screen, or nothing, (what I call the black screen of death with arrows), and I would hace to cold reboot. We tried adding new memory on the 15th of Feb, the motherboard would not take it. So we ordered a motherboard and installed the Tyan Trinity 400 one on 24th, and it would not take the Radeon Card video card. As you know, from here, we finally got it to take the Radeon card, and I think that's up to date.

I added esheeps on the 12th of this month.

I know that might be more information than you need/want, but I don't know exactly what you are looking for, so... there it is. :)

Thanks for the idea of looking back.

Windows has quite a few background processes running all the time. I have had my computer at work (one that I can't maintain) blue screen when I'm not even at my desk. FWIW to keep my work computer "clean", I reboot it daily.

But I have to reboot three to four times a day, just to maintain enough memory to stay on.

Down to specifics. Do you have a process that is automatically started periodically? Such as a virus scanner? Or a program that launches gets your mail and exits? If so, and they don't free all memory correctly, then over time you would experience memory loss.

I explained about the virus scanner, and Eudora is not supposed to be getting mail, so John says if we have any automatic processes now, he doesn't know about them.

OT. Forgive any typos. My wife is sleeping and to keep her poodles quiet, I have two of them sitting on my lap.

Recommendation. Go back in you memory file (brain) and try to remember what was done back in March. What changes were made to the computer, what new programs added and/or what programw were changed. That should provide a logical starting point to find your memory leakage.

Thanks I hope I outlined that above, from my written records. I keep good records of everything in my life. :)

Nightowl >8#

Something to remember is that if Win9x says something about "Not Enough Memory" - it's not talking about RAM. It's talking about a few heaps of 64 kB of RAM that lives below the 640 kB boundary. Having 300 MB free won't help you if those bits of RAM are being gobbled up and not being freed. Some apps with lots of buttons and fancy do-dads are notorious for grabbing too much of those bits of memory. Run the utility that comes with Win9x that tells you about your "System Resources". You need to keep an eye on the User and Graphics (?) resources. If they get below about 20% free, you're going to have problems.

Okay, I only got a message from Windows ONCE, saying "Not enough resources". For the most part, I know the used up RAM is increasing because I see the number drop on the System Monitor, and now the Tweak Ram.

We can't seem to find a User & Graphics resource on the System Monitor stuff with Win98. Does it have some other name? There does not appear to be that utility on here.

Windows gets cranky if its swap file (win386.swp) gets fragmented or if the partition where it puts is swap file gets too full.

John checked the Swap File and we have 764 Maximum, and we're only using 105 at this moment of it. I'm running Eudora, Opera, Yahoo, two groups, and NHL in the slot with Media Player, (listening to the live Penguin game) and Messenger right now.

Have you checked to see how much disk space you have free on your system? Have you defragmented your hard disk recently?

John says we have not defragmented it lately, we'll do that also.

This won't solve your memory leaking problem, but it might make your system run better.

Also, make sure you clean out the \\windows\\temp directory of old temporary files.

We'll look at that too. Thanks. :)

Nightowl >8#

More info on Win9x "resources" is [link|http://www.windows-help.net/techfiles/win-resources.html|here].

Hope this helps. Good luck.

It did! Thanks!!!

Nightowl >8#