Ok for her birthday I bought my wife a Compaq laptop with 512MB of RAM.  When we boot up the system and I look at System Information it indicates 512MB of physical memory but only 114MB are free (sometimes even less)

WTF!?  This is just booting up with NO applications running.  The only additional background task I know of is the Norton's security stuff (anti-virus & firewall) and I had to disable that to get the value up to 114 MB free.  Why is almost 80% of my ram being used up for the OS?  Is it normal that svchost is running a half dozen copies?  There are also a coulpe other processes (IApp and Ipodsomething or other) using up big chunks (40MB) worth of memory.

Thanks for any info & tips you can offer.

Have a look at this.
Find out what you don't need running and uninstall the unneeded programs.

Task List Programs

Start > Run > type in MSCONFIG

Go to the startup tab, and disable anything besides Firewall, Antivirus, or anything else you definately need on startup.

Honestly, it's not going to get too much better.  Windows itself uses a massive amount of memory just to keep your screen up.   You can also use the tab next to startup (forget what it is) and turn off "themes" and that will free up a lot of memory - but windows will look like 5.1 and not be very attractive anymore.

For my startup, all I have running are Zonealarm, and Norton.  Play with it a bit and see how you like it.   Be sure to WRITE DOWN what's checked on the list BEFORE you start messing with it - that way if you lose functionality in a program you can restore it to what it is now, and start testing one item at a time.

hijackfree

xblock  scroll down and click download

hijackthis  post your log file here.  


Symantec programs are absolute memory hogs.  If you have the original cd's  I would suggest uninstalling it to see if that helps with hte problem.   The antivirus could be corrupt.  manual removal tool (if you have trouble uninstalling it)

Thanks guys I'll definately try your suggestions.

I am aware of MSConfig - I've was using it on my Win 98SE system to find what my problem software was.  It's a good tool.

BTW I just checked my work machine (Windows 2000 Pro) a 1GB machine had 558MB with only Outlook running.  Windows seems to be getting very bloated.

format C:\

then install Linux

Quoted: format C:\ then install Linux

LOL!  Boy there are days when I'm tempted.....

These LTs or what ever comercial stuff bought now a days is loaded with all kinds of crap non-free programs.

People are fooled by thinking they get all this cool useful software..yeah right.

What they dont realize is the stuff is not free and after 30 or 60 days of the trial they dont
explain or tell you about its expires then they get pop ups and BS messages all the time

The Format C:\ is the best idea if I had aquired a new commercial computer, notice I said aquired.

I certainly would not buy one, I build my own. Its the best quality and stable computer I could
ever want.

Just my 2 cents..

+1 for formatting. Big companies like dell and compaq ship their pc's with a lot of CRAP on them. The important stuff should of came with the pc like your windows cd microsoft office or whatever you might of bought. Format it then install what you think you will need ie virus protection, firewall, and of course the appropriate drivers for your hardware. PC's with a low ammount often are slow because theres so much stuff installed on them. Keep the PC clean and dont clutter it with useless programs.

I was going through and deleting software from day 2 of having the machine.  You guys are right there is ALOT of crap in there.  Other than the virus stuff and Explorere we haven't been using the included packages as I installed our own copy of Office.

Funny thing is the Laptop came with only 256MB of memory.  Before I left the store I had them add another 256MB.  You'd think I'd have at least that much free.

Anyway thanks for the tips.  I've been going through the processes and detemining which are needed and which are junk.  I'm removing things as needed.

tag