ping: computer experts - memory leak?

[dawgfan]

Something I've noticed since I got my most recent laptop about 1.5 years ago - it's a Win7, 64-bit machine, and I have it set up with profiles for me and my wife (I have administrator privileges );

I've noticed that if my wife has been logged in for a while, and I'm also logged in and using it, that I have a relatively high rate of programs not running or crashing; just this morning, when trying to check the help manual for FBCB, Word would not launch and I was given an error message saying that I don't have enough memory available. I had open at the time Chrome, FBCB2 and Carbonite (an online data backup program), plus the usual anti-virus/anti-malware programs in the background (IObit, Microsoft Security Essentials, Spybot anti-spyware). My wife was also logged in, probably from the night before. She usually doesn't have anything running other than Firefox.

My machine has 4 GB of RAM, so I wouldn't figure that I'm over-taxing the memory, which leads me to wonder if I have some kind of memory leak issue happening, or if this is perhaps an indication of malware/virus that is operating in the background. I've tried a few times to call up the Task Manager and see what's running, but knowing what each .exe really is takes a greater degree of IT knowledge than I possess (one of the things I dislike about Windows - I wish there was a better way of tracking what each .exe is associated with which programs/processes).

I should probably also note is a refurbished Dell; I don't know if there's any possibility I have issues with the hardware, and if it might be related to why the machine was returned to Dell in the first place, but I thought I'd mention that as a possible factor.

Any ideas?

[fantom1979]

If there is a program open on your wife's login, it could be leaking memory. All depends on what programs are running on her side. When you run task manager, you should be able to sort everything that is running by memory usage. This is located under the Processes tab. You should be able to figure out what is eating your memory. If you don't know what the .exe is, you could try posting it here or googling it.

You might also want to check with Windows to make sure it is recognizing all of your memory. This would rule out bad memory. To do that, click start, right click "computer", click properties.