Windows 7: RAM Trouble - System Hanging

Hey guys! I'm new here (obviously). Just got one small issue that I'm hoping someone here may be able to sort out.

I've been running into system hanging issues due to the RAM being maxed out when doing certain activities. For instance, if I run JDownloader and it downloads for excessive amounts of time (usually overnight) I wakeup to a frozen system. I also do some work using After Effects and when I render the final movie ( a large one) it gets about halfway through and maxes out the RAM.

Under normal operation the system uses about 1.21GB of RAM with anywhere from 57-60 processes running, amd 30% usage of Physical memory. I've read in another thread that these numbers are somewhat normal for Windows 7 operation. What I can't figure out is why there is a sudden spike in RAM useage when performing certain tasks like I listed.

Any ideas? Or do you require more info?




System Specs:

Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.40GHz
4.00 GB RAM
Nvidia GeForce 8800GS

mmm.. What else do you need?

Hello Dave,

Just having a quick look at your specs, there is nothing really alarming about your ram usage. Your running processes seems to be a little high though. I'm sure there are some things you have running that don't need to be while doing memory intensive tasks like video editing.

Can you type "msconfig" into Windows search, then click on the start up tab and post a screen shot?

What antivirus if any are you using? Using the latest version of Java and jDownloader?

As you can see, I've already disabled a few things that I don't think need to be running. System is still the same though. I tried rendering an AE project again and the system hung with 3.98GB of RAM being used. It becomes so unresponsive that anything I do takes literally two to three minutes to happen.



Antivirus = Eset NOD32
JDownloader = Current
Java = How can I find out if it's current?

dave305,
You seem to be having issues with some specific apps.
Have you tried to tweak memory and cache preferences in AE? Heres a page on that.

After Effects CS3

Also, there seem to be innumerable google search results about high mem usage by JDownloader. Suggest you go through those.

Did you by any chance disable Pagefile...?

zzz2496

@Bill2 - Nah, it's not that. I've had AE on XP with the same settings and never had any issues there. As for JDownloader, I wasn't aware, but that was kind of a random program I just threw out there. It seems to happen also with Photoshop and a few others.

@zzz2496 - I don't think I did. Or are you suggesting that I do?

Another issue has recently come to light. I put my PC on Sleep mode yesterday and when I came back, it booted fine but then froze. I had to turn off the power to get it to shut down. I'm wondering now if I just need to reinstall? If this is the case, it won't be Windows 7. I'm going back to XP. Never had any problems there and I can finally get ProTools working again without having to buy the $200 Windows 7 upgraded version... if they ever come out with it. :\

Well... First, disabling pagefile will almost a always give you more problems than not, if you can... check your pagefile, make sure it's on and not too small. Second, you might want to try memtest, test your memory for errors, do at least 5 passes. Another note, check your drivers, make sure they're the latest (go to the product manufacturer's website to get the latest driver, don't use windows update).

zzz2496

Edit: Another note: check event viewer for any critical errors...

@zzz2496 - where do I find pagefile? All drivers are up to date. The only one I have any issue with is my Soundblaster Audigy ZS. Apparently, the game port for it is not compatible with Window7. I've since disabled it since I don't use it.

bump?