Generic insufficient resources messages

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richms

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#76003 27-Jan-2011 04:22

PC has got to the stage where its unusable within a day now, so daily reboots are nolonger enough.

I have probably about 300 apps installed so reinstalling windows would be a 2 week long process with finding things etc which I really do not want to do... (ahem activation etc)

What is happening is it is swapping heavily. The hopeless taskmanager that 7 has is absolutly no help to see how much is being used, but no single app is using too much (well firefox does, but thats less than 2 gigs)

What happens is after a while some resoruce runs out, apps will not launch with an error about "insufficiant resources" winsock connections start to get 10055, and then soon after that ipconfig stops even showing anything and TCP totally dies. A reboot is all that solves it.

But up to that point the machine is basically trashing the swapfile.

I am about to do another check for spyware etc, but 2 weeks ago when it started to get worse, there was nothing coming up and I dont expect that there is anything that will have changed in that time.

So the question is, what resources should be running out? I have a massive swap file on a HDD that only has a swap file and some movies (30 gigs of swap) so that shouldnt be an issue, and the only other thing I know of that windows would run out of is GDI handles, which I thought was solved in XP.

Resource meter just shows me the typical memory, disk, network, and the only excess activity is disk which is only on the swapfile for whatever apps are running.

Im pretty certain that its network related since it usually only happens in the freeoffpeak time when I have jdownloader and 3 copys of utorrent running on the machine. The VM is unaffected.

Once it has gone like this, even trying to open control panel will not work - server execution failed is the message.

Anyway, how to find what resource is being depleated and what is causing it and easiest way to solve it is what I am looking for.

PC is a horridly hot AMD AM2 6000+ with 4 gigs, windows 7 x64, old AMD780G mobo and various hard drives etc.

Richard rich.ms

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#431652 27-Jan-2011 04:35

Now I have ended everything its not swapping lots, as is usual, but its still out of whatever it is, trying to open things gets windows with no content, net stop workstation gets that there is not enough storage available to complate the operation. Guess its reboot time again.

edit: Seems its jdownloader that pushes it over the edge. Am getting another install up and running to see if it behaves itself on its own. Guess another computer is on the cards now.

Richard rich.ms

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#431661 27-Jan-2011 08:06

You shouldn't need another computer. But perhaps your 4GB are not enough for what you do?

Multiple copies of uTorrent, download manager, Firefox, and Virtual Machines? Perhaps it's running out of heap space, in which case I'd say a bit more memory would help. Thought of going 8GB instead?

Also have you checked how any programs it runs at startup, that you don't need? Check "Hide ICON" option from those programs in the system tray? Uninstalled Windows Gadget if you don't use them? Stopped services you don't need (Wireless Autoconfiguration for example, if your PC doesn't have WiFi, etc)?

I have a licence good to go for PC Tools Performance Toolkit 2011 if you want to try it?

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#431684 27-Jan-2011 09:11

Firefox using 2gigs seems over the top. How many tabs do you have open, and how many addons? Poorly coded addons could be a major factor when using that much memory.
As mauricio said, your PC is well spec'd IMO. Maybe some more ram, but I think you need to look at removing startups that are not required, or any services that you do not use. A lot of software will run services at start up, and unless you are using the software regularly, you may not need the service at all.

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#431687 27-Jan-2011 09:13

I don't install *ANY* add-on on my browsers - Google Chrome and Internet Explorer. Actually I disable some of the default Internet Explorer add-ons.

For example, you install Skype, there goes one or two add-ons. Every time you start the browser these things will load up.

Firefox is not the best thing in the world. And those add-ons consume memory and processor - most of the times for nothing.

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#431747 27-Jan-2011 10:43

This has been on my 'try' list for a week or so: MemoryFox.

The developer has a note there - the latest version (AMO Mozilla Firefox Memory Fox 5.5) has been submitted for a full code review process therefore it is currently not present in the extension store. This much older version is available tho.

I'm not sure FF is the total source of your problem but the extension could be interesting in your extreme situation. If you decide use it, reboot before applying it, and restart firefox after applying it so we can be sure if it made any difference.

Sad to say I mostly use Google Chrome browser now for the much better memory management and process model. Even so, Chrome has limits as well eventually, and there is much room for improvement.

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#431789 27-Jan-2011 12:53

GDI limits still apply, this is accurate. Well written applications are aware of this and try to avoid the problem. Task Manager -> Processes -> View -> Select Columns -> GDI objects will give you some kind of idea if this is a factor and where it is happening.

Total handles are listed on the 'performance' tab. As is 'physical memory usage'.

Set task manager 'always on top' (and maybe 'show processes' from all users) and leave it running, with no screen saver or lock out. Btw, sometimes just having task manager running can make the system more responsive - within limits.

All that aside, this sounds like a generalised low memory condition to me.

richms

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#433496 1-Feb-2011 06:06

Ok, it did it again tonight, there was nothing out of the ordinary for GDI or User objects - about 800 was the max for both.

I am fairly certain that it is filezilla causing it, as it has only ever happened when I have been using it overnight in the free offpeak time, and it often has issues where it fails to draw the progress bars for each download properly.

The VMs keep on running fine, and if I kill apps there becomes some free physical memory available and swapping stops, yet the messages about insufficient storage keep happening.

will leave it with just one firefox with only a couple of tabs open and see if its screwed up in the morning.

the 2 gigs was for all firefoxes, I have several profiles open since I have several google accounts, and also to seperate the business and personal trademe accounts.

Richard rich.ms

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Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

gzt

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#433673 1-Feb-2011 13:15

Perfmon is what you want for detailed process performance monitoring over time.

It will take some experimentation to get the data selection and report format right:

Start -> Run -> Perfmon -> Data Collector Sets -> User Defined -> New -> Data Collector Set -> Process -> - > [select or 'all instances'] -> Add -> then run the set.

+ add some memory stats so you can see the relationship

Later open the report and add the counters/data you want to see in it.

Interested in your methods if you get a good result on the process level.

For additional flexibility you might need to export to csv after adding counters to the report then viewing that with Microsoft Log Parser.

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#433758 1-Feb-2011 16:25

Don't watch it graphing in realtime like task manager tho. The performance hit is atrocious. Let it collect data silently, then view and adjust the reporting when you are ready, most likely after a reboot.

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#433806 1-Feb-2011 17:39

Sorry, but are you running virtual machines on a system with only 4gb of memory?

How much memory do you have committed to each VM? and what OS is installed on them?

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richms

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#434279 2-Feb-2011 14:13

2 VMs, 256 and 384 megs for them, both running from the XP mode base image that microsoft give away, but just making a new VM, not their setup tool thing that seems to add an eternity to the boot time of them.

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TwoSeven

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#434398 2-Feb-2011 17:52

Page file usage indicates to me that there is insufficient memory for the demand being placed on it.

What applications do you have running on startup and do any of them use memory cached files or additional memory. What is your 'committed memory' value?

DOes it still swap when your VMs are not loaded. If not, then it could be the VMs being swapped out.

Finally, what is the size of your page file set to?

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Ragnor

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#434559 2-Feb-2011 23:17

richms:
The hopeless taskmanager that 7 has is absolutly no help to see how much is being used, but no single app is using too much (well firefox does, but thats less than 2 gigs)

Windows 7 and Vista have a decent Resource Monitor, from the task manager go to the performance tab then click the Resource Monitor button.

Otherwise it's in Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Resource Monitor on Win7, I think.

Sysinternals Process Explorer is good too
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653

tonyhughes

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#434564 2-Feb-2011 23:24

Add RAM.
Add RAM.
Disable unneeded processes that are starting up (checkers/helpers/updaters for all those apps).
Add RAM.
Add RAM.
How much disk free space do you have?
Add RAM.
Add RAM.
Remove all unwanted / unused applications and data (archive off machine, delete, whatever).

Add some RAM.

richms

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#435067 3-Feb-2011 22:15

TwoSeven: Page file usage indicates to me that there is insufficient memory for the demand being placed on it.

What applications do you have running on startup and do any of them use memory cached files or additional memory. What is your 'committed memory' value?

DOes it still swap when your VMs are not loaded. If not, then it could be the VMs being swapped out.

Finally, what is the size of your page file set to?

Page file is set to 32 gigs on a drive that only also have movies onit, so is never being accessed other than pagefile use unless I am adding to or copying off, which is seldom.

Pagefile usage is a normal part of use of the system. Otherwise nothign would ever work. Its not the swapping that is an issue, that just makes it slow which I can deal with since I am not under any time pressure to get things done, Its the crapping out eventually that causes it.

I think it is either filezilla, tweetdeck or HDsentinal, since those are the 3 things I have stopped running on the computer itself and it is being well behaved. Moved tweetdeck to the VM so if it goes stupid (highly likly as it is built on an adobe product) it cant break everything.

If the VMs are not running, it doesnt seem to make any difference to things, but if I dont start them first, I often cannot start them later, so I start them up and just suspend them so that they are not taking CPU when its not free offpeak so are not running to download

Richard rich.ms

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