low memory problems

this just started a few weeks ago. I am only running 256m. I plan to upgrade soon but would like suggestions in the mean time. when i open task mgr I have like 50 processes running eating up ram. are all these needed? if not, how can i determine which ones to stop without crashing something?

Do you have like a thousand programs running in your system tray? That's the area where little icons reside next to the clock on the taskbar, in case you didn't know. Usually things that dock there tend to eat up a hell lot of RAM.

Also, if there are many many programs running when you open the task manager that you didn't run in the first place, you may have been infected by spyware. Refer to chissler's spyware help thread for more info on what to do if that's the problem.

One more thing you can try before checking to see if it's spyware that's eating up your ram is to run msconfig.exe from the "Run" option in the start menu. Then go to the startup tab. It's usually safe to uncheck everything, that's there, as they're not essential to make windoze run.

Hope this helps

Originally posted by Beachcoma
One more thing you can try before checking to see if it's spyware that's eating up your ram is to run msconfig.exe from the "Run" option in the start menu. Then go to the startup tab. It's usually safe to uncheck everything, that's there, as they're not essential to make windows run.

It is safe to uncheck everything that is not marked yes in the Essential column...

Also if you have processes that must run to be connected to the internet, it would not be wise to turn those off, either.

But remember any changes you make there, can be undone. Just keep track of what you do turn off.

I would strongly recommend turning off only one at a time. And think before you turn anything off. It may be needed...

Good Luck.