System resources (or lack of)

[SLF 999]

I have a Compaq PC AMD 900, 20 Gb hard drive (16Gb free)and 256Mb mem, running Win ME
The problem is it keeps running out of system resources, tells me that there is no free space and that the system is low on resources and to close a program and try again, this can happen with only 2 or 3 things running, eg net conection, IE6 and outlook, try and start anything else and I get the messages.
Is there any way of finding what is grabbing the resources and not releasing them, or a way to keep the resources free in the first place?

[Icarus]

This is worth a read for W95/W98 but I beleive it should also apply to ME.
http://www.computerbits.com/archive/2000/0800/resourcemeter.html

[Brit Abroad]

Unfortunately, this will always happen to a greater or lesser extent with Windows 95 / 98 / ME. - Win 2000 manages memory much better.

I had similar problems recently and did a bit of research and discovered that there is a bug in Win ME with regards to Outlook express. - If you have lots of emails in your inbox / outbox and bin (especially with lots of attachments, then when you come to close Outlook express, it won't give back the resources to the operating system. Microsoft are allegedly working on a fix for ME for this, but I wouldn't hold your breath if I was you.

I improved the situation by doing some serious spring cleaning in my mail folders and upgrading to Outlook express 6. You should also prevent any unnecessary programs from loading at start up: After boot up, press ALT-CTRL-DEL before anything and count the programs running. If you have more than 8, then I'm sure you can get rid of a few. Do this by running 'msconfig' at the command line and unticking unneccesary programs in the startup tab.

I seem to remember, like me you have had a few problems of your USB ADSL modem dropping the connection ? I found that by doing the above, the situation improved drastically.

Hope this helps.

Brit
:cool:

[SLF 999]

Thanks for the advice, Ill have a look at the start up, as I found this which may help others with Compaq PCs -
The majority of the problems have to do with windows freezing or locking up. The cause of this is that a compaq computer, right off the assembly line has so many useless programs running in the background the system resources are dragged down to (approximately) 65% available. The system resources should be up in the high 80's. To get this to what is should be:

1. click on START then click on RUN
2. in the box beside open: type MSCONFIG
3. click on startup
4. click on the check marks to remove anything that says "reminder" or "cpq"(useless compaq software) also remove "backweb" and "service connection" if you need help with this give the 1-800 number a call, all of us techs do this 20 times a day just to make the computer usable.
5. click on APPLY
6. click on GENERAL
7 . remove the check marks beside "process config.sys" and "process autoexec.bat"
8. click on OK
9. restart the computer

And Ill keep an eye out for anything on Microsofts site.

On the subject of ADSL modem, after spreading the load over the USB ports (powered USB hub only for the modem!)the situation has improved and its even working correctly after the PC has been in hibernate mode (something it wasnt doing before)

[SLF 999]

Thanks for the help guys, made some changes in the startup and its now running like a dream.
Resource Monitor tells me with outlook, 2 x IE, yahoo messenger all running that there is 52% free resource.