Low memory on a 64-bit Win 7?

[Yousuf Khan]

So I got one of those strange "Low memory" messages from the computer.
It was strange because the computer is running Win 7 Ult x64, with 8GB
of RAM, and plenty of virtual memory, and when I glanced at the Core
Temp desktop gadget, it showed that my memory was only 24% used at the
time of the message. I figured it would be fixed by a reboot, so I did
it, and it seems to have worked so far. Prior to the reboot, the machine
had been up only for a little over 24 hours from reboot to reboot, but
there were periods where it was put into sleep in between.

I figure that this isn't really the overall memory that's running low,
but some specialized system pool. Any idea which pools it might be? I
thought all of the system pools were upgraded to 64-bit long time ago?

Yousuf Khan

 

[philo]

So I got one of those strange "Low memory" messages from the computer.
It was strange because the computer is running Win 7 Ult x64, with 8GB
of RAM, and plenty of virtual memory, and when I glanced at the Core
Temp desktop gadget, it showed that my memory was only 24% used at the
time of the message. I figured it would be fixed by a reboot, so I did
it, and it seems to have worked so far. Prior to the reboot, the machine
had been up only for a little over 24 hours from reboot to reboot, but
there were periods where it was put into sleep in between.

I figure that this isn't really the overall memory that's running low,
but some specialized system pool. Any idea which pools it might be? I
thought all of the system pools were upgraded to 64-bit long time ago?

Yousuf Khan

You did not give much in the way of details but I assume you meant
"virtual memory"

Best to let Windows manage that rather than set it manually

 

[Ed Cryer]

So I got one of those strange "Low memory" messages from the computer.
It was strange because the computer is running Win 7 Ult x64, with 8GB
of RAM, and plenty of virtual memory, and when I glanced at the Core
Temp desktop gadget, it showed that my memory was only 24% used at the
time of the message. I figured it would be fixed by a reboot, so I did
it, and it seems to have worked so far. Prior to the reboot, the machine
had been up only for a little over 24 hours from reboot to reboot, but
there were periods where it was put into sleep in between.

I figure that this isn't really the overall memory that's running low,
but some specialized system pool. Any idea which pools it might be? I
thought all of the system pools were upgraded to 64-bit long time ago?

Yousuf Khan

I run Win7 HP 64-bit with 6GB RAM and four CPUs. The only message I ever
get comes from AVG about Firefox, as a pop-up in the bottom right
corner; usually stating that it's grabbed 250MB and is growing.
Not a Win7 message, though. I don't think I ever get one from the OS itself.

Ed

 

[Yousuf Khan]

You did not give much in the way of details but I assume you meant
"virtual memory"

Best to let Windows manage that rather than set it manually

I did mention virtual memory, if you re-read it, I said there is "plenty
of virtual memory". It's not the virtual memory, it's already on automatic.

There isn't much to go on at all, there's nothing about it in the event
viewer either.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Paul]

So I got one of those strange "Low memory" messages from the computer.
It was strange because the computer is running Win 7 Ult x64, with 8GB
of RAM, and plenty of virtual memory, and when I glanced at the Core
Temp desktop gadget, it showed that my memory was only 24% used at the
time of the message. I figured it would be fixed by a reboot, so I did
it, and it seems to have worked so far. Prior to the reboot, the machine
had been up only for a little over 24 hours from reboot to reboot, but
there were periods where it was put into sleep in between.

I figure that this isn't really the overall memory that's running low,
but some specialized system pool. Any idea which pools it might be? I
thought all of the system pools were upgraded to 64-bit long time ago?

Yousuf Khan

Maybe Core Temp installs a driver (Device Manager - show hidden devices)
and that driver is leaking one of the pools ?

I find all sorts of strange stuff in "show hidden device", such as
a copy of "giveio". Any program that needs to access hardware
details, needs some mechanism to get there. And perhaps if
such a driver is probed once a second, 86400 times a day,
and leaking memory, it could be using up whatever
fraction of system memory is set aside for that pool
(paged or non-paged).

The sysinternals site probably has an article on finding
the pool tag associated with the leak. Assuming that's what it
is.

You could also try to reproduce the symptoms (run the system
for the same period of time and see if that low memory shows
up again). Then remove Core Temp and repeat the test period,
and see if the error still shows up.

Paul

 

[s|b]

You did not give much in the way of details but I assume you meant
"virtual memory"

Best to let Windows manage that rather than set it manually

I also have W7 HP x64, 8 GiB of RAM and I've set Virtual Memory between
16 and 8.192 MiB (swap file is located on a SATA, OS is installed on
SSD). Windows (not me) always chooses 16 MiB and I haven't seen any low
memory messages yet.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Maybe Core Temp installs a driver (Device Manager - show hidden devices)
and that driver is leaking one of the pools ?

Core Temp just needs Administrator access, but it just gets all of its
info through the OS, or directly off of the CPU (in the case of CPU
temps). It's memory report pretty much matches what you'll see out of
TaskMan or ResMon, i.e. Microsoft's own tools.

I find all sorts of strange stuff in "show hidden device", such as
a copy of "giveio". Any program that needs to access hardware
details, needs some mechanism to get there. And perhaps if
such a driver is probed once a second, 86400 times a day,
and leaking memory, it could be using up whatever
fraction of system memory is set aside for that pool
(paged or non-paged).

It's been running for over a year without any issues, and it hasn't
really changed in that amount of time either. It's more likely being
caused by one of Microsoft's latest patches, in my opinion. The patches
come in weekly, more chances of Microsoft screwing up than anything else.

The sysinternals site probably has an article on finding
the pool tag associated with the leak. Assuming that's what it
is.

You could also try to reproduce the symptoms (run the system
for the same period of time and see if that low memory shows
up again). Then remove Core Temp and repeat the test period,
and see if the error still shows up.

Ah it hasn't happened, it was a one time thing, just very strange since
it's never happened before and I wouldn't expect it to have happened
considering how much memory is available on this system.

However, for a couple of hours prior to the message, I was seeing that
videos were having trouble playing on the system. Normal Youtube videos
were having all kinds of different problems, in windowed mode, I'd see
that the videos were all showing a blank green screen, until you moved
the slider around to forward or reverse it. And then those same videos
wouldn't play in full screen mode either. Later, I even noticed that
saved videos on the hard drives were not playing properly through Media
Player Classic, but were playing through Windows Media Player. Again,
all of this got resolved by rebooting.

Yousuf Khan

 

[sothwalker]

So I got one of those strange "Low memory" messages from the computer.
It was strange because the computer is running Win 7 Ult x64, with 8GB
of RAM, and plenty of virtual memory, and when I glanced at the Core
Temp desktop gadget, it showed that my memory was only 24% used at the
time of the message. I figured it would be fixed by a reboot, so I did
it, and it seems to have worked so far. Prior to the reboot, the machine
had been up only for a little over 24 hours from reboot to reboot, but
there were periods where it was put into sleep in between.

I figure that this isn't really the overall memory that's running low,
but some specialized system pool. Any idea which pools it might be? I
thought all of the system pools were upgraded to 64-bit long time ago?

Yousuf Khan

What option did you check that makes Core Temp show the memory being
used?

I use Core Temp and must have missed that.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

What option did you check that makes Core Temp show the memory being
used?

I use Core Temp and must have missed that.

It's the "Display RAM use" checkbox in options.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Ken Blake]

It's the "Display RAM use" checkbox in options.

I don't see that choice here. I'm running version 0.99.5. Do you have
a later version? I see 1.0 listed on the web, but when I download it,
it's still 0.99.5. If you have 1.0, can you point me to a web site
that has it?

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I don't see that choice here. I'm running version 0.99.5. Do you have
a later version? I see 1.0 listed on the web, but when I download it,
it's still 0.99.5. If you have 1.0, can you point me to a web site
that has it?

It's upto 1.0 RC4 now:

Core Temp
http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

Oh, I think I know what the problem is. I'm actually talking about the
Core Temp desktop gadget rather than Core Temp itself. The desktop
gadget has these additional displays on it. I've been using the Core
Temp since the 0.99 days myself, and I've always had this feature
available through its gadget.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Ken Blake]

It's upto 1.0 RC4 now:

Core Temp
http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

Oh, I think I know what the problem is. I'm actually talking about the
Core Temp desktop gadget rather than Core Temp itself. The desktop
gadget has these additional displays on it. I've been using the Core
Temp since the 0.99 days myself, and I've always had this feature
available through its gadget.

I was about to tell you that I had been to that page and couldn't find
a download to it. Then I saw the above paragraph. OK, thanks, I'd
rather stick with the "program" rather than the gadget.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I was about to tell you that I had been to that page and couldn't find
a download to it. Then I saw the above paragraph. OK, thanks, I'd
rather stick with the "program" rather than the gadget.

The gadget still needs the program to run. It just adds some additional
features to the program.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Ken Blake]

The gadget still needs the program to run. It just adds some additional
features to the program.

Thanks. Understood, but I don't particularly want any additional
features.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Thanks. Understood, but I don't particularly want any additional
features.

Additional features such as a graphs for temperature, core utilization,
and the aforementioned RAM utilization.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Char Jackson]

Thanks. Understood, but I don't particularly want any additional
features.

I'm reminded of the Capital One commercial where the little girl is asked if
she'd like extra cash in her wallet and she says, "No!"

 

[Ken Blake]

I'm reminded of the Capital One commercial where the little girl is asked if
she'd like extra cash in her wallet and she says, "No!"

I don't want any extra cash in my wallet either. I'd rather have the
extra cash in the bank.

Similarly, I don't want any extra features in CoreTemp if those are
features that I already have in some other program I'm running (which
I do).