DWINDLING RAM

  • Thread starter Thread starter ~~~AllisonWonderland~~~
  • Start date Start date
A

~~~AllisonWonderland~~~

Hello all,
My name is James Allison, and there is a strange thing happening to my
computer.

Originally it had 1,572,684 MB of RAM. About a week ago, I noticed that it
had gone down to 1,441,792 KB. Then it dropped to 1,441,264. And just now it
had gone down to 1,310,192 KB.

A while back, it got the MSBlaster worm. As a result, a trial version of
Norton Anti-Virus Pro, and ZoneAlarm Pro firewall was downloaded. NAVP
cleaned up the situation, and while those trial versions were on the
computer, Norton Anti-Virus 2003 and Norton Internet Security 2003 were
purchased. The trial versions were uninstalled, and the two purchased
Symantec products were loaded.

It was right after that that the dwindling of the RAM started.

Today a 200 GB USB 2.0 HDD was ordered, with the idea of using it for
backing up my 80 GB IDE HDD. What I have in mind is to copy EVERYTHING that
is on C: Drive onto the E: Drive (the 200 GB USB HDD) and then reformat the
80 GB HDD and reload all the software. When that is finished, all the
applications on the USB HDD will be deleted, leaving only data.

So some questions: Is there something "eating" the RAM? Will it come back
when the 80 GB HDD is reformatted and reloaded?

A lost of hardware and software can be supplied if necessary.

Any ideas about what is happening?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this strange situation.
 
How much _RAM_ do you have???

Click My Computer | Properties | tab "General"
it says ...?

--J
Replies to: jNpolak(at)Ojuno(dot)Tcom
 
me said:
How much _RAM_ do you have???
Click to expand...
Click My Computer | Properties | tab "General" it says ...?
Click to expand...

JC Allison:
Right now It now says 1,310,192 KB. But it started out at 1,572,864, about a
year ago, then just since I got the MSBlaster worm and the Symantec Norton
Anti-Virus 2003 and Internet Security 2003, it went to 1,441, 792 KB, then
to 1,441,264 KB.

Also, it has started to take longer and longer to download E-Mail. The
actual download doesn't take any longer, but the time it takes to connect
has gone from almost instantaneous to 30 seconds, and now it takes a bit
more than a minute.

Thanks for the response. It is greatly appreciated.
 
Art said:
That is strange indeed :)
Click to expand...

JC Allison:
I am chuckling... BTW, I miswrote... It wasn't 1,572,684... It was
1,572,864. Sorry about that. I hate it when that happens!
 
JC Allison:
In the time that it has taken since I first posted this post, the RAM has
dropped to 1,179,120! Honest!

This is getting serious! :)
 
Hello all,
My name is James Allison, and there is a strange thing happening to my
computer.

Originally it had 1,572,684 MB of RAM. About a week ago, I noticed that it
had gone down to 1,441,792 KB. Then it dropped to 1,441,264. And just now it
had gone down to 1,310,192 KB.

A while back, it got the MSBlaster worm. As a result, a trial version of
Norton Anti-Virus Pro, and ZoneAlarm Pro firewall was downloaded. NAVP
cleaned up the situation, and while those trial versions were on the
computer, Norton Anti-Virus 2003 and Norton Internet Security 2003 were
purchased. The trial versions were uninstalled, and the two purchased
Symantec products were loaded.

It was right after that that the dwindling of the RAM started.

Today a 200 GB USB 2.0 HDD was ordered, with the idea of using it for
backing up my 80 GB IDE HDD. What I have in mind is to copy EVERYTHING that
is on C: Drive onto the E: Drive (the 200 GB USB HDD) and then reformat the
80 GB HDD and reload all the software. When that is finished, all the
applications on the USB HDD will be deleted, leaving only data.

So some questions: Is there something "eating" the RAM? Will it come back
when the 80 GB HDD is reformatted and reloaded?

A lost of hardware and software can be supplied if necessary.

Any ideas about what is happening?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this strange situation.
Click to expand...

Best recommendation is to have a computer specialist test your ram. Many
computer shops actually have the equipment to verify ram's integrity and
will offer a small fee for this test.

If all is fine and dandy, and after the ram is reinstalled in the system
you may find that your numbers may be back to what they once were. That
would mean you have chip creep. It happens during the heating and cooling
of the motherboard, chips and contacts. Everything has different
expansion rates and may slowly creep out of place over many many weeks of
powerup/powerdown (heatup and cooldown).

I had the chip creep problem last month. I have a much much older system
than most people but run it under rather warm conditions in the summer. I
lost a count of 64mb of ram. After removing all chips and replacing them
firmly back in their positions, I had all 320mb running again. I also
decided to add another auxillary fan to the side of the case to help
exaughst the cpu heat. Cpu temps are down, and Im sure the motherboard
and ram chips are thankful for that.

DRACO-
 
sounds like a winblows problem(or normal winblows missreporting/you
reading....NOTHING can alter the amount of physical ram available to the
system.It either works or doesn't..that's the nature of the beast...
Are you reading the TOTAL *AVAILABLE* or the actual PHYSICAL amount??

The total memory available changes all the time...it's also modified by the
dynamics of the swap/page file...the more things your system runs..the less
available total memory you have,the actual physical amount doesn't change..

cheers Dalt
 
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