Any Windoze experts on here ? Bit OT ...

[David Nebenzahl]

On 2/19/2011 6:13 PM Arfa Daily spake thus:

"William Sommerwerck" <grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:ijp0kl$j5l$1@news.eternal-september.org...

Do you notice any slowdown when this occurs?

I have a similar "problem" under W2K. Windows creates a virtual
memory swap file when started, and expands it as needed.
Unfortunately, the expanding swap file causes the machine to slow
down, and a restart is eventually required. (This can take a few
days to a week or more, depending on how "hard" you push the OS. I
tend to have a lot of apps and files open at once, so I have to
restart as often as every four or five days.)

Yes, it does slow down. I have the Windoze memory usage widget running, and
you can see the usage creeping up over a couple of days or so, to the point
where it reaches 90+ %, at which point, the machine is crawling, and having
difficulty having multiple programs open at once.

Meaning no disrespect here, but are you sure it's *memory* that's
getting depleted here? I've got Win2K, and keep the Task Manager on my
taskbar. It indicates CPU usage %, not memory, at least if you're
talking about the visible indicator it shows onscreen. (Of course, it
also shows memory usage for each task as well as CPU usage.)


--
The phrase "jump the shark" itself jumped the shark about a decade ago.

- Usenet

 

[Bob Villa]

On Feb 19, 11:28 am, "Arfa Daily" <arfa.da...@ntlworld.com> wrote:

Pretty bog standard machine here. AMD Athlon 64 processor, 2GB of single
channel DDR 160MHz memory, couple of hard drives etc. Running Windoze 7
Ultimate 64 bit (not my choice, put on there by my lad, when he built the
machine).

In all general respects, it works just fine. But it has this really annoying
thing of clogging up its memory over a few days. Normally, this machine is
never turned off, as was also the case with its predecessor, which ran all
sorts of Windoze versions over the years that I used it, ending with XP Pro.
There was never any problem with memory clogging on that machine. This one,
however, starts off, after a clean boot, showing about 35% memory in use at
idle. There are a few 'background' progs running, such as a clock
synchronizer and a weather monitor, and Thunderbird as a mail client, anti
virus etc, so I guess that 35% is reasonable. But over the course of a few
days, the amount in use creeps up and up until you reach around 90% usage
with the same background progs running, and it otherwise idling. I have
tried a number of memory 'cleaner' programs and the best I have found to
date is one called simply "CleanMem". It claims to do a genuine job of
clearing unused crap out of the memory that's been left behind, unlike other
cleaners which it says work by fooling the system in some way by filling the
memory with zeros or some such. I'm not really au fait enough with the
workings of computers to understand just what it was saying, but suffice to
say that it does seem to work better than the others I've tried. But even
that one seems unable to recover the situation beyond about 75% usage. The
only way to get the memory back, and thus recover the speed of the machine,
is to do a "Restart", which is a royal pain in the arse.

So, is this just a poor characteristic of 7 that previous versions of
Windoze didn't suffer from ? Does anyone else have a similar problem, or
have found a way to resolve it ? Not looking for a long drawn-out discussion
on this - I can live with it. Just interested to see if anyone better
qualified at this sort of thing than me, has a definitive answer.

Arfa

You would think the biggest bottle-neck would be your ram at 160Mhz?
(166 for DDR single-channel). You would run great using XP or Win2K.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

I have never had any real problems with Windows. I'm a fairly heavy user
compared to Joe Average, and have, over the years, had many varied and
exotic applications running on Windows machines with OS's from Win 3.1
right up to Win 7. I know that it's not a very fashionable or approved
position
to declare, but I actually quite like the Windows concept on the whole,
and
would never indulge in Gates-bashing. I actually think that Windows has,
over the years, done more to expand the world of personal computing, and
to 'standardise' application writing, than any other OS or platform.

I've never had major problems with Windows, either -- and a late friend of
mine told me how the Macintosh OS simply fell apart on his machine and
required re-installation. * But...

Microsoft has never done enough to assure that third-party Windows
applications are reliable and compatible. Worse, Microsoft is in the process
of destroying its own applications, by letting the programmers design
them -- a very, very, very bad idea. (I'd heard this rumor for some time,
and it was confirmed in a magazine article about Ray Ozzie, whom Microsoft
hired a few years ago to fix things up. Steve Ballmer has apparently blocked
most of his attempts to "do things right".)

Microsoft's fundamental problem is that it has never understood that the
interaction between the user and the operating system (or applications) is
/the/ most-important thing.

I have no intention of ever switching to the Macintosh, if only because
Apple is even worse than Microsoft -- Apple lies through its teeth.

* In truth, this happened to me six years ago. Windows would run, but
behaved very strangely. I had to re-install Windows and the applications. I
don't know what caused this. Since then, I've had no problems.

 

[Jeffrey Angus]

On 2/21/2011 11:18 AM, Meat Plow wrote:

What do you consider fancy?

By "fancy" most people mean, you're using software
they've seen on sale at Staples or Best Buy.

Jeff

 

[Meat Plow]

On Sun, 20 Feb 2011 16:36:37 -0800, William Sommerwerck wrote:

No problems, but if you want reliability, I suggest Ubuntu or one of
the other Linux distributions. If you're running a fairly basic set of
applications (Web, email, word processor, spreadsheet, etc), then Linux
will be a suitable replacement.

That's the catch, of course. Operating systems other than Windows or
Macintosh don't have fancy software written for them.

What do you consider fancy? I use Cinelerra a non-linear video editing
suite that I consider as fancy and powerful as Adobie Premier, Sony Vegas,
or Final Cut.




--
Live Fast, Die Young and Leave a Pretty Corpse

 

[William Sommerwerck]

That's the catch, of course. Operating systems other than Windows
or Macintosh don't have fancy software written for them.

What do you consider fancy? I use Cinelerra, a non-linear video
editing suite that I consider as fancy and powerful as Adobie
Premier, Sony Vegas, or Final Cut.

Can't argue with that. I'd consider Photoshop or Ventura Publisher to be
"fancy" software.

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 03:36:27 -0800 (PST), Bob Villa
<pheeh.zero@gmail.com> wrote:

You would think the biggest bottle-neck would be your ram at 160Mhz?
(166 for DDR single-channel). You would run great using XP or Win2K.

160MHz would make it DDR2-667Mhz or PC-5300 memory. With 64 bit
memory transfers (normal for a 64 bit OS and an AMD X2 processor), the
transfer rate is:
xfer rate = clock rate * bus multiplier * DDR doubler * 64 bits
= 160 Mhz * 2 * 2 * 64
= 5120 MBytes/sec
Methinks that's fast enough for most applications.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR2_SDRAM#Chips_and_modules>
--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 16:34:23 -0800 (PST), Bob Villa
<pheeh.zero@gmail.com> wrote:

On Feb 21, 3:53 pm, Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com> wrote:
On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 03:36:27 -0800 (PST), Bob Villa

pheeh.z...@gmail.com> wrote:
You would think the biggest bottle-neck would be your ram at 160Mhz?
(166 for DDR single-channel). You would run great using XP or Win2K.

160MHz would make it DDR2-667Mhz or PC-5300 memory.  With 64 bit
memory transfers (normal for a 64 bit OS and an AMD X2 processor), the
transfer rate is:
   xfer rate = clock rate * bus multiplier * DDR doubler * 64 bits
             = 160 Mhz    *    2           *   2         * 64
             = 5120 MBytes/sec
Methinks that's fast enough for most applications.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR2_SDRAM#Chips_and_modules

I am NO expert, but it appears you are just plugging numbers where you
want. He has DDR single-channel. Clock speed multipliers raise by
increments of 33...so how can 160 be considered valid?

Well, I'll admit that I'm making a substantial number of guesses due
to the usual lack of supplied details.

The 160Mhz memory clock is the real clue as DDR-333 is 166MHz while
DDR2-667 (PC2-5300) is 160MHz. You had it backwards (but I didn't
initially notice).

Whether the memory is slow or fast doesn't matter. The problem is
that the operating system is showing a substantial memory leak, and
exhibiting a corresponding slow down. Neither memory configuration
should have such a slow down.




--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Bob Villa]

On Feb 21, 3:53 pm, Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com> wrote:

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 03:36:27 -0800 (PST), Bob Villa

pheeh.z...@gmail.com> wrote:
You would think the biggest bottle-neck would be your ram at 160Mhz?
(166 for DDR single-channel). You would run great using XP or Win2K.

160MHz would make it DDR2-667Mhz or PC-5300 memory.  With 64 bit
memory transfers (normal for a 64 bit OS and an AMD X2 processor), the
transfer rate is:
   xfer rate = clock rate * bus multiplier * DDR doubler * 64 bits
             = 160 Mhz    *    2           *   2         * 64
             = 5120 MBytes/sec
Methinks that's fast enough for most applications.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR2_SDRAM#Chips_and_modules
--
Jeff Liebermann     je...@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

I am NO expert, but it appears you are just plugging numbers where you
want. He has DDR single-channel. Clock speed multipliers raise by
increments of 33...so how can 160 be considered valid?

 

[Arfa Daily]

"David Nebenzahl" <nobody@but.us.chickens> wrote in message
news:4d61f53e$0$26857$822641b3@news.adtechcomputers.com...

On 2/19/2011 6:13 PM Arfa Daily spake thus:

"William Sommerwerck" <grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:ijp0kl$j5l$1@news.eternal-september.org...

Do you notice any slowdown when this occurs?

I have a similar "problem" under W2K. Windows creates a virtual
memory swap file when started, and expands it as needed.
Unfortunately, the expanding swap file causes the machine to slow
down, and a restart is eventually required. (This can take a few
days to a week or more, depending on how "hard" you push the OS. I
tend to have a lot of apps and files open at once, so I have to
restart as often as every four or five days.)

Yes, it does slow down. I have the Windoze memory usage widget running,
and you can see the usage creeping up over a couple of days or so, to the
point where it reaches 90+ %, at which point, the machine is crawling,
and having difficulty having multiple programs open at once.

Meaning no disrespect here, but are you sure it's *memory* that's getting
depleted here? I've got Win2K, and keep the Task Manager on my taskbar. It
indicates CPU usage %, not memory, at least if you're talking about the
visible indicator it shows onscreen. (Of course, it also shows memory
usage for each task as well as CPU usage.)

Yes, I'm quite sure that it's memory. If you are not familiar with Win 7,
there are desktop 'widgets' available, one of which is a pair of little
graphic 'speedometers' for want of a better description, the larger of which
indicates CPU capacity percentage, and the smaller of which indicates
percentage of physical memory in use. Aside from this, I think I said
elsewhere in the thread that I have tried various memory analyser and
cleaner utilities, and the current one I've been trying out, also has a
display to indicate how much memory is in use, and if I have that one up
with the Windows widget, they agree exactly.

Arfa

 

[Arfa Daily]

"Jeff Liebermann" <jeffl@cruzio.com> wrote in message
news:vh26m699f0frntcnt97mdstq6kc8139ar8@4ax.com...

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 16:34:23 -0800 (PST), Bob Villa
pheeh.zero@gmail.com> wrote:

On Feb 21, 3:53 pm, Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com> wrote:
On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 03:36:27 -0800 (PST), Bob Villa

pheeh.z...@gmail.com> wrote:
You would think the biggest bottle-neck would be your ram at 160Mhz?
(166 for DDR single-channel). You would run great using XP or Win2K.

160MHz would make it DDR2-667Mhz or PC-5300 memory. With 64 bit
memory transfers (normal for a 64 bit OS and an AMD X2 processor), the
transfer rate is:
xfer rate = clock rate * bus multiplier * DDR doubler * 64 bits
= 160 Mhz * 2 * 2 * 64
= 5120 MBytes/sec
Methinks that's fast enough for most applications.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR2_SDRAM#Chips_and_modules

I am NO expert, but it appears you are just plugging numbers where you
want. He has DDR single-channel. Clock speed multipliers raise by
increments of 33...so how can 160 be considered valid?

Well, I'll admit that I'm making a substantial number of guesses due
to the usual lack of supplied details.

The 160Mhz memory clock is the real clue as DDR-333 is 166MHz while
DDR2-667 (PC2-5300) is 160MHz. You had it backwards (but I didn't
initially notice).

Whether the memory is slow or fast doesn't matter. The problem is
that the operating system is showing a substantial memory leak, and
exhibiting a corresponding slow down. Neither memory configuration
should have such a slow down.


--
Jeff Liebermann

I was looking again at what you were saying in one of your other replies,
about how fast the memory is filling up for it to go from 35% to 90% in 3
days or so, but I think that I may have given the wrong impression there. It
doesn't just do it on its own. If I restart it right now, it will come back
with around 35% of memory in use, for the tasks that run all the time on the
machine. If I just leave it at that, and go to bed, when I get up in the
morning, it will still be at 35%. As it will at lunchtime, if I still do
nothing. It is the action of using the machine that causes the memory to
start to fill up. I use email a lot, but T-Bird is left running all the
time, so I guess it's not actually anything to do with that. I use Explorer
a lot to retrieve files on the machine, and Internet Explorer 8 for web
browsing. I use Windows Live Mail for newsgroup handling, and Acrobat and
latterly PDF-Viewer (although the problem was there before I even got that
program) for viewing pdf schematic files. I suppose that I need to look
carefully at what amount of memory is in use before I start a particular
task, and then recheck after I close it back down, although I am sure that
in general, I have actually done this, and seen that it never seems to go
back down to quite what it was, before whatever task was started up, which
is why I felt that it was an operating system thing in that it wasn't
totally removing everything from memory that was associated with that task,
after I close it down. As to the memory type, PC components are a mystery to
me. I am merely reporting here, what the system reports to me as to the type
and speed that's in there.

Arfa

 

[Bob Villa]

On Feb 21, 8:43 pm, "Arfa Daily" <arfa.da...@ntlworld.com> wrote:

I was looking again at what you were saying in one of your other replies,
about how fast the memory is filling up for it to go from 35% to 90% in 3
days or so, but I think that I may have given the wrong impression there. It
doesn't just do it on its own. If I restart it right now, it will come back
with around 35% of memory in use, for the tasks that run all the time on the
machine. If I just leave it at that, and go to bed, when I get up in the
morning, it will still be at 35%. As it will at lunchtime, if I still do
nothing. It is the action of using the machine that causes the memory to
start to fill up. I use email a lot, but T-Bird is left running all the
time, so I guess it's not actually anything to do with that. I use Explorer
a lot to retrieve files on the machine, and Internet Explorer 8 for web
browsing. I use Windows Live Mail for newsgroup handling, and Acrobat and
latterly PDF-Viewer (although the problem was there before I even got that
program) for viewing pdf schematic files. I suppose that I need to look
carefully at what amount of memory is in use before I start a particular
task, and then recheck after I close it back down, although I am sure that
in general, I have actually done this, and seen that it never seems to go
back down to quite what it was, before whatever task was started up, which
is why I felt that it was an operating system thing in that it wasn't
totally removing everything from memory that was associated with that task,
after I close it down. As to the memory type, PC components are a mystery to
me. I am merely reporting here, what the system reports to me as to the type
and speed that's in there.

Arfa

Possibly, you could download and run an analyzer and let us know CPU
and memory type, etc.

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

 

[William Sommerwerck]

Most Linux distributions come with The Gimp and Open Office. The Gimp for
my needs is as good as any build of Photoshop I've ever used. And
probably could be used commercially. Open Office Works as well as the
good old offices before Microsoft went crazy. I'd say it compares to
Office 2000/XP. And comes with all your needs. I use Evolution for email,
a perfect GNU replication of M$ Outlook for my needs. All this is no
cost. Not even the OS. I haven't booted into W7 on this dual boot PC for
a month. Here is a snapshot of my 3D Cube desktop. The switch is on a
cube that reduces back into the switcher image them rotates on 3 axis.
Running on desktop #1 is Cinelerra. http://bayimg.com/cADPoAadP
The ducks on the pond image is the switcher background not the desktop.
The desktop cube recedes 50% with the push of the middle mouse button or
wheel then dragged to the next of 3 others. Once you release the button
or wheel the desktop files the screen. It's eye candy but also useful.

I'll give Linux a look when I have the money for my next computer.

The problem is that I still use Office 2000 (I use Word every day, and love
it), and there's the remote possibility I might need Ventura again. Without
going into the excruciating details, Ventura is one of the great
applications. It takes a week or so to get familiar with, but is /extremely/
easy to use. It's a classic example of why "good" software often has a
shallow learning curve.

 

[Meat Plow]

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 10:30:37 -0800, William Sommerwerck wrote:

That's the catch, of course. Operating systems other than Windows or
Macintosh don't have fancy software written for them.

What do you consider fancy? I use Cinelerra, a non-linear video editing
suite that I consider as fancy and powerful as Adobie Premier, Sony
Vegas, or Final Cut.

Can't argue with that. I'd consider Photoshop or Ventura Publisher to be
"fancy" software.

Most linux distributions come with The Gimp and Open Office. The Gimp for
my needs is as good as any build of Photoshop I've ever used. And
probably could be used commercially. Open Office Works as well as the
good old offices before Microsoft went crazy. I'd say it compares to
Office 2000/XP. And comes with all your needs. I use Evolution for email,
a perfect GNU replication of M$ Outlook for my needs. All this is no
cost. Not even the OS. I haven't booted into W7 on this dual boot PC for
a month. Here is a snapshot of my 3D Cube desktop. The switch is on a
cube that reduces back into the switcher image them rotates on 3 axis.
Running on desktop #1 is Cinelerra. http://bayimg.com/cADPoAadP
The ducks on the pond image is the switcher background not the desktop.
The desktop cube recedes 50% with the push of the middle mouse button or
wheel then dragged to the next of 3 others. Once you release the button
or wheel the desktop files the screen. It's eye candy but also useful.



--
Live Fast, Die Young and Leave a Pretty Corpse

 

[Mike Tomlinson]

In article <pan.2011.02.20.02.47.13@lmao.lol.lol>, Meat Plow
<mhywatt@yahoo.com> writes

Open the Task Manager and see what process(s) are eating up your ram and
CPU. Report back.

I'd put good money on it being Firefox. Seems to gobble up memory and
not release it on exit.

--
Mike Tomlinson

 

[Mike Tomlinson]

In article <0393m6tc7r3o7uae8okvqkef8u4ll3mq30@4ax.com>, Jeff Liebermann
<jeffl@cruzio.com> writes

C:\> systeminfo | find "System Up Time"
System Up Time: 13 Days, 4 Hours, 58 Minutes, 27 Seconds

*coff*

http://jasper.org.uk/uptime.jpg

No problems, but if you want reliability, I suggest Ubuntu or one of
the other Linux distributions.

Absolutely.

--
Mike Tomlinson