computer having virtual memory issues... help?!
 

My computer seems to be running like absolute shit today, and keeps saying that i'm running out of virtual memory... despite running less programs than usual.

I'd gotten rid of a lot of spyware recently, so i'm wondering if something got deleted that shouldn't have, or I may just be having a completely unrelated problem.

any thoughts on what I shoud do here?

Are you running out of hard drive space?

Nope. 10 gigs of free space (38 gig drive). It was pretty tight a couple of weeks ago, but I cleared out a lot of old stuff about 10 days ago (pretty much video games exclusively).

Did you empty your recycle bin after doing that? Just a suggestion because I know not having enough hard drive space can cause that. You might also try adjusting your virtual memory space to a lower level.

first (obvious) question - have you tried rebooting?

Feel free to ask the dumb questions guys, I won't be offended.

1. Plenty of HD space and an empty recycle bin
2. Yes, I've tried re-booting a few times, giving the computer hours off to cool down, and every other standard trick.

Is Windows managing your virtual memory, or have you configured it yourself prior to the madness?

I've never touched it.

Ack, should've asked this earlier...but what's your operating system? Me? 2K? XP Home? XP Pro?

XP Home.

you need more RAM

But why after 8 months would this problem suddenly come out of nowhere?

True...that doesn't quite make much sense to me. Out of curiousity though, how much RAM are you running?

256 megs.. This is actually my father's computer, so I can't verify at the moment whether that's what it is supposed to have or not.

How embarrasing, I don't remember how much RAM is recommended for WINXP. I'm looking at an extra copy of WINXP Office though on my desk and the minimum RAM is 256 so I imagine you need an extra stick in that system.

64 is the minimum for XP (believe it or not), and 128 is the minimum recommended by M$.

If you've been running ok up until now, I don't think the answer is memory. You may be on to something where you think you might have screwed something up getting rid of the adware. Adware, among other things, can be really poorly written, and removing some (but not all) can sometimes leave a rogue program wasting resources trying to find it's partner programs...

I would do two things. One, check to see what programs are being loaded at startup and disable all the ones you don't need. A GREAT resource for this is available at:
http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_content.php

Two, if you are still having problems, download Zone Alarm (www.zonelabs.com) - it will help you monitor what programs are trying to acess the web. It's possible you have a trojan or something similar bogging down your system, and hopefully ZA will spot any traffic from it.

I'm done fooling with this for the night, and will resume on thursday (won't be home tomorrow).

I'll definitely re-check everything the sypwayre and startup department.

I know the RAM thing isn't the issue becuase this really did just come out of nowhere.

Madden? ;)

The funny thing is... I was thinking about that today. I know it's not possibly it... but it would finally prove that EA is the most evil company ever. :mad:

Just out of curiousity...have you considered a defrag or two? Maybe you cleaned out some pretty big programs and all, or did a lot of installing and deleting? Possibly even some downloads or the like. Just something to consider, I suppose.

I defragged very recently, but I'll do that, a disc-scan, and all the other crap tomorrow just in case.

Might also want to run an 'msconfig' from the 'Run' menu, to see how many programs are running in the background upon startup. Related to Draft Dodger's post above, of course.

Well, I know Madden has frozen my machine a number of times. One interesting thing I did read in the madden guide/faq was that you should turn all firewall/virus protection software off while running it. Not neccessarily relevant here, but was of note (I don't do it of course :) ).