Over the last week or so I have suddenly developed a severe memory drain, without having installed any new programs likely to cause problems. Although on booting up I have over 30 MB free RAM (paging file usage around 75 MB, and a win386.swp file around 77 MB) the free RAM drops with most programs, particularly when surfing the internet with MSIE 5.5 -- and the win386.swp file then increases steadily, reaching around 460 MB, or almost all the free space on my C drive.
My desktop:
Motherboard Name DFI K6BV3+/XV3+
Motherboard Chipset VIA VT82C598 Apollo MVP3
System Memory 128 MB (SDRAM)
My Operating System is Win98 SE
I've checked and followed similar postings here to try to solve the problem myself. In particular, I have:
virus-checked
defragged
run scandisc
run msconfig/startup, and removed most superfluous programs
run sfc
run hwinfo /ui
run drwatson
removed temporary internet files and *.chk files
checked for port/device conflicts
re-installed MSIE 5.5
installed "Cacheman" to try to improve system perfomance
all without success.
My partitioned C drive has 3.1 GB capacity, with 610 MB free. The other partition has 880 MB free -- more expansion space for the swap file?
Here's some memory readings for a typical session:
Fresh re-boot:
Free Ram 26.8 MB, Paging File Usage 84.0 MB, Win386.swp 88.0 MB
Open MSIE5.5:
14.3, 97.3, 124
Connect to internet:
1.8, 115.1, 124
One browser window open:
0.0, 216.7, 228
Two minutes later:
0.2. 250.8, 256
Two browser windows open:
0.0, 285.3, 300
Two minutes later:
0.0, 302, 330
Three browser windows open:
0, 348, 360
After ten minutes total internet connection:
0, 375, 384
Three windows open, 15 minutes internet connection, very noticeably out of memory:
0, 421, 432
Disconnected from internet, no windows open:
21.4, 315.2, 448
Ten minutes later:
18.5, 321.1, 344
Five minutes later still:
14.0, 325.1, 328
After re-booting:
38.2, 69.5, 76.0
As you can see, the drain on memory seems to increase with time, and memory is not regained on stopping all activity. The size of the swap file drops only very slowly. I need to re-boot to get back to normal.
Programs running concurrently at that time were:
MacAfee VirusScan 4.5.0
ZoneAlarm 3.1.395
Cacheman 5.11
Roxio GoBack 3.0
This is my first encounter with EE. Can anyone suggest further diagnostic tests to try to pinpoint the problem?
(Very difficult to get English-speaking tech help here in northern Thailand!)
