Memory Gobbling

[Bigaldoc]

Boy, here lately there's something I'm doing when I'm running XP MCE SP3 that seems to be frogging up or hogging up memory! A couple of days ago I tried to open a PDF file stored on my hard drive and couldn't do so. I tried to run a couple of different programs and got nothing but a "Critical Sound" chirp. I thought a bad guy might have crept in, so I tried to run Malwarebytes and got the same chirp.

Frustrated I did the usual reboot and the problem disappeared, Malwarebytes and Avast found no bad guys and the PDF files I have stored open fine and other things all seem normal. Since a reboot "fixed" it, I'm inclined to think it was a memory corruption. It happened again this morning and once again a reboot corrected it.

When I got my new Blackberry a couple of days ago its software installed a couple of apps like BB Desktop, Updater but I've taken them out of autostart to monitor for a few days. Just a heads-up in case anyone else cares to read it.

[viking33]

Boy, here lately there's something I'm doing when I'm running XP MCE SP3 that seems to be frogging up or hogging up memory! A couple of days ago I tried to open a PDF file stored on my hard drive and couldn't do so. I tried to run a couple of different programs and got nothing but a "Critical Sound" chirp. I thought a bad guy might have crept in, so I tried to run Malwarebytes and got the same chirp.

Frustrated I did the usual reboot and the problem disappeared, Malwarebytes and Avast found no bad guys and the PDF files I have stored open fine and other things all seem normal. Since a reboot "fixed" it, I'm inclined to think it was a memory corruption. It happened again this morning and once again a reboot corrected it.
When I got my new Blackberry a couple of days ago its software installed a couple of apps like BB Desktop, Updater but I've taken them out of autostart to monitor for a few days. Just a heads-up in case anyone else cares to read it.

I haven't had that particular problem but I have noticed that when using XP, it has slowed down to a crawl when opening IE8 or even some web pages. No sign of virus or malware as yet. I haven't been able to pin down the reason, even using selective start ups. I was wondering if it may be from the latest batch of security updates from MS. Stay tuned.

[JoeP]

It would be good to start Task Manager and see what is going on.

Joe

[Leif]

I haven't had that particular problem but I have noticed that when using XP, it has slowed down to a crawl when opening IE8 .......

I only use IE8 as a last resort now. On all PC's I have it can take 30 seconds to start, but as I normally use Firefox it isn't really a problem, and I can't be bothered to troubleshoot at the moment.

That's made me think - the others at work who use IE8 don't have Firefox installed, and no-ones reported a problem...

[viking33]

It would be good to start Task Manager and see what is going on.

Joe

Yeah, I took a peek in there. Didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Nothing eating up CPU time and plenty of available memory.
i did see this file: jqs.exe in there but didn't recognize that one.

Edited to add: Found that jqs.exe is Java quick start. Disabled it but didn't seem to make any dif.

[Bigaldoc]

It would be good to start Task Manager and see what is going on.

Joe

Yeah, I took a peek in there. Didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Nothing eating up CPU time and plenty of available memory.
i did see this file: jqs.exe in there but didn't recognize that one.

Edited to add: Found that jqs.exe is Java quick start. Disabled it but didn't seem to make any dif.

Funny you should say that, Bob. This morning when I couldn't run anything, I too opened the Task Manager and saw that JQS.EXE thing for a minute but then it was gone. Coincidence, or might it be the culprit?

Joe: As I said, Task Manager didn't show a thing and since everything cleared back up after reboot, that's why I figured it to be a memory corruption thing like we used to see back in Win98 days - I forget what it was called.

[BobH]

My Firefox started taking extended time to load pages. The delays were unlike anything I've ever experienced with Firefox. I'm running XP Pro SP3. The first thing I did was to run my clean up tools. After CCleaner for both files and registry, I ran Malwarebytes, then Defraggler. I ran a quick defrag first, but that left quite a few fragmented files; so I ran the full defrag overnight. Still I had 3 fragmented files which a quick defrag took care of this morning.

I've not noticed any slow loading pages since running these tools, but I wasn't having the kind of problem you reported Big Al.

[JoeP]

It would be good to start Task Manager and see what is going on.

Joe

Yeah, I took a peek in there. Didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Nothing eating up CPU time and plenty of available memory.
i did see this file: jqs.exe in there but didn't recognize that one.

Edited to add: Found that jqs.exe is Java quick start. Disabled it but didn't seem to make any dif.

Funny you should say that, Bob. This morning when I couldn't run anything, I too opened the Task Manager and saw that JQS.EXE thing for a minute but then it was gone. Coincidence, or might it be the culprit?

Joe: As I said, Task Manager didn't show a thing and since everything cleared back up after reboot, that's why I figured it to be a memory corruption thing like we used to see back in Win98 days - I forget what it was called.

Have either of you tried running IE with addons disabled?

Joe

[viking33]

Joe,
No not yet. Just tried Mozilla and it ran fine. Will have to try disabling add-ons.

[JoeP]

To start IE with addons disabled use the -extoff command line switch.

Joe