c dr memory problems..

Can you help? I delete program after program and still continually receive the message that I have no space left on my c drive.

When I originally boot and check there is lots of unused space. Moments later, I receive a message that all space has been used and a suggestion that I run cleanup.

I go to to c drive and notice that a file, 'win386' has just been added to the drive. I'm assuming that this is Windows 386 and can't understand why or who is adding this to my hard drive since my os is windows 98, second edition.

My question may seem that of an idiot....can I delete this file and, if so, will it just keep coming back?

Thanks in advance!

garyz

 

What is the file extention? Is it a .swp file? If it is you should not delete it. It is a swap file used as virtual memory. It gets so huge because you probably don't have much RAM.
If it is an .exe file it could be a virus.

 

memory problems

Hello Crack--yes, it is a swap file.

I appreciate your help and anyone else that wants to weigh in on this problem.

The more I delete ...the less memory I have. Deleting files, emptying recycle bin, nothing seems to alleviate the memory problem. I have to confess that I don't know why a win 386 file shows up in my directory and is related to memory. Obviously, I have much to learn.

There are lots of files on my c drive that can be deleted without impairing the operating system...I'm simply not sure which ones they are.

This problem apparently isn't too interesting to people on this board. Not much response. Maybe it's time to visit my friends at Best Buy...

garyz

 

Just how big is you hdd ? When you first start up how much free space is shown? Have you ran a anti virus test ? use "find/ file or folders" , select the Date tab and select "during the previous 1 day" check the file sizes , any big one (1meg or so) if so post its name.

 

A couple more questions. How much ram do you have and how big is the swap file? I'm thinking that if it's a large one maybe you can force it to a smaller size depending on whether or not you have enough ram to do so.

 

memory problems

Top Farmer/Zander--this is what I have been able to discover so far. The win 386 swp. file was a large one....now it shows '0' size. Everything seems to change from one boot to the next..

when I ran directory this is what I saw:

Used space: 2,929,469,440 bytes

Free space: 3,670,016 bytes


At another location I saw this info:

Capacity: 2,933,139,456 bytes

2.73gb

287 mb ram


Also, I just did the 'find/filesFolders suggestion. There are many many files for 2/09/05 and 2/10/05 but most are between 0 and 300 kb. Only the win 386 file is different...it only shows the numbers 72,70...so I can't tell how large the actual file is. As to the hdd...I am unsure..where can I find that information? Hope some of this helps. Thanks again!

 

open My Computer and then left click on the hdd/ select properties for size \use\free space for hdd.


to get info requested by "Zander "

the win386.swp is normally in the C:/windows folder . on the swp file right click\properties to get its size.

right click on My computer\properties how much memory is listed ?

 

memory problems

Thanks, Top Farmer for your continuing help!

Capacity: 2,933,139,456

win 386 swp size: 63,963,136

hdd: there is nothing in control panel referring to the hard drive

When I checked for the memory above I saw a reference to 2.73 gb. Is that the size of the hard drive?

Thanks again!

 

Your HDD can be split into several "drives ", your HDD probably only has one drive, the C: drive. Right-click on the C: drive, select Properties and you will see the information (used space, free space and capacity). (Note: this is under My Computer not Control Panel).

Maybe some tips for making space:
Go to Add/remove programs in Control Panel and check for programs that you may no longer need.

If you have a full install of MS Office and only use Word, you can run the install CD to remove other programs like Excel, Access and Power Point.

Check everything in My Documents.

If you use MS Outlook or Outlook Express, delete old e-mails, but check to also empty your Deleted e-mails folder.

Everything in the folder Windows\Temp can be deleted except for those files with today's date (it won't let you delete those anyway.

Hope this helps

Matt

 

memory problems

Sorry for the delay in answering. Took a trip away from all of this..computer stuff.

Mattman, I have deleted everything possible. I have run disk cleanup.

Right now my hard drive shows 73,994,240 bytes free. Ten minutes from now I will get a message that I have run out of space on that drive.

Could this be a virus playing games?

Also, I have decided to 'start over' but can't locate my 98' second edition disk. Is there a way to accomplish this without the disk and if not how to I go about getting a new one?

Maybe it's time for an update of my os. If I purchased a version of xp...would that solve the memory problem?

 

Gary
I've been doing some figuring here and it would appear that the numbers you've given us aren't at all out of line with what they should be. I was thinking that if you had enough ram (which you do) we could limit the size of the swapfile but your swapfile really is all that large by swapfile standards.

Your hard drive capacity translates to 2.7316990 GB which is in line with what you stated in your previous post. As for the swapfile, 63,963,136 bytes translates to just over 61 MBs which isn't at all an excessive amount for a swapfile. Here's another quote from one of your previous posts.

This too seems to all be correct. If you look at your free space here in terms of bytes available it seems to be quite a bit but it really isn't. 3,670,016 bytes = 3.50 MBs which is next to nothing. If you add the used space and free space you come up with 2.7316990 GBs (as I said before) which is about as close as you can come to 2.73 GB.
73,994,240 bytes translates to only a little over 70MBs of free space.

Depending on what you're doing the swapfile could easily increase in size to where it would use all of that. It seems to me that you're just plain running out of room on the disk and need to somehow free up some space on the drive. It's pretty tough to recommend what to do without being able to actually sit down and take a look at it. Some suggestions would be to uninstall anything you don't use. Check the amount of space Internet Explorer uses for temporary internet files. If you're on broadband you could set it to something in the 10 to 20 MB area. I'm on cable and have mine set to 10 MBs but I've tried it in the past without using any and really can't tell much difference. Make sure your recycle bin is empty. Check your window\temp folder and delete everything that's in it, or at least everything windows will allow you to delete. If something in it is in use windows won't allow you to delete it.

How about mp3 files? Do you have any of them on the drive. If so, you could burn them to a cd and delete them from the hard drive. Same goes for any pictures you have saved on the drive. Have you created any mp3 files from music cds of your own? Do you have any video files saved on the drive? If so, burn them to a cd and delete them from the drive. If so, it's possible there may be some rather large wav files left over from the process that you could delete depending on how you did it.

Depending on what you use the computer for you could limit the size of the swapfile. I have a computer with 98 on it that has 320 MBs of ram. I set it to use a fixed size swapfile of 100 MBs and never had any trouble with it and I'm one that always has quite a bit running at once. To be honest, mine hardly ever used the swapfile. I ran it for while without one and never had any trouble. The trouble here is that even if you tried to run without one, from the figures you've given you'd only gain 60-70 MBs of hard disk space which isn't going to get you very far in todays computer world.

I really don't know what else to say. If you're sure the drive isn't partitioned and 2.7 GBs is all the room you have on it, there's not much else you can do other than add another hard drive. If you want you could try a couple of online virus scans but as I said before, from the figures you've given things don't seem to be out of line here. In case you want to give it a try, here's a few links to some online virus scanners.

http://security.symantec.com/ssc/vc_scan.asp?langid=in&venid=sym&plfid=23&pkj=MPVGYNBRFNJSVSTIVVB
http://www3.ca.com/virusinfo/virusscan.aspx
http://www.ravantivirus.com/scan/
http://housecall.antivirus.com/housecall/start_corp.asp

Edit:
One more thought. To free up some space you could try compacting your email folders if you haven't already done so. If you use Outook Express you do this by opening OE and clicking file>folder>compact all folders.

 

memory problems

Zander--I appreciate your help regarding this problem. Obviously, my tech skills are lacking!

Just as I began to post this reply I received a 'run out space on dr c' notice. I checked the drive and I have 10,240 bytes free. Earlier I had 88,722,321 free.

Does using the Internet use up this space? Can pop up ads use it up?

When I began receiving these space messages I deleted everything I could think of to delete. I deleted many programs. The messages just kept coming.

I don't have any mp3 files. I have deleted anything that would have pictures of a personal nature. At one time I was doing a lot of bonus hunting at online casinos. I had as many as 15 or 20 of them on my desktop and never had a memory problem. All of them have been deleted. I had some other programs that I used in an online business I was running. All of them have been deleted.

I could understand having these problems when I was participating in the online gambling 'party' that went on for awhile...and when I was doing the business...but all of those programs have been deleted and ...now, months later with virtually nothing new added, I'm having these problems.

I am constantly deleting any temp Internet files whenever I get the 'out of space' message

I wouldn't recognize a file that was necessary to the function of my computer if my life was on the line. But I'm listing some files that are on my hard drive that may well be unnecessary to the normal function of the computer. Can you tell me if any of them can be safely deleted...

mplayer.exe
explorer.exe
winrep.exe
wjview.exe
background.gif
jview.exe
clspack.exe
drwatson.exe
upwizun.exe
sigverif.exe
wscript.exe
smartdrv.exe
catroot (dir)
logos.sys
logow.sys
msows409.dll
calc.exe
asd.exe
setup.bmp
tiles.bmp
circles.bmp
waves.bmp
pinstripe~1.bmp
1stboot.bmp
allstat.exe
progman.exe
regedit.exe
sndrec32.exe
welcome.exe
winhlp32.exe

There are many others that I'm unfamiliar with that I won't list for now.

Your input would be appreciated!

 

Most of those files that you listed you want to keep. Windows at one time or another will look for them.
The BMP files are the eye candy for the desktop properties, you can get rid of them.

Try this for a good cleanup of your drive. These will get rid of files not possible in windows.
Restart in Dos Mode and do these commands. Two of them will appear to do nothing when done correctly, the first and seventh.
smartdrv
deltree c:\windows\cookies
deltree c:\windows\history
deltree c:\windows\temp
deltree c:\windows\tempor~1
scandisk /all /autofix
scanreg /opt
scanreg /fix
Type a Y that you want to delete, check for typos at this time. When you get the message that windows has repaired your registry, reboot.

You could go into Add\Remove Programs, under the Windows Setup tab, remove items you never use like the Calculator, etc. I suggest not to remove Paint as there a file that go with it that some printers need to work with windows.

 

The way I see it:
Windows starts with 73-88mb of free space. After some activity (running on the internet?) the swapfile grows to run the harddrive out of space.

The swapfile is an "overflow" when RAM is used up, so something is filling the RAM addresses then spilling over to run in swapfile.

There is what is called a "memory leak ". A program will keep calling for memory addresses and will not allow Windows to reset or clear the old ones.

You may have a memory leak. There is information about it on the MS website, but if you cannot discover which program is causing it you may have to resort to drastic action (backup your data, format and install again). Even if you found the "culprit ", with only 73-88mb of free space, you would be limited in what you can install or save in the future.

Matt

 

memory problems

Mattman--your post does not point at a culprit....and that makes it the most germane response to the problem so far.

There is no culprit! What is happening on my hard drive isn't discernible by techie or human!

We are dealing with a ????worm????, a disenfranchised virus????

Please note: Once again: please note:

I have deleted everything that is deleteable!!!

In the past I have had 3 times the number of programs on the hard drive than exist on the same hard drive now!

Running disk cleanup and deleting email is lobbing peach fuzz as an effort to stem the flow of Niagara Falls!

I will either buy a new computer or stand in a designated circle and await absorption by aliens....aliens who can explain finally, once and for all ...the existence of crop circles....

Thanks everyone....into the night.....

 

How can you be so sure ?? And it just might be a good idea to change the attitude.

You have a problem. Others are trying to help. Sometimes what seems to be a wrong idea jogs someones memory brings out the good idea.

In a case such as your ANYTHING GOES

One thing that I have not seen ( or missed ). How about shutting down everythinig possible that is loading at startup ?

Have you run an Anti-Viurs check? Have you run things like SpyBot and AdAware ? To check for badies ?

Do you have an AV program installed and activated at all times ?

It may not be HOW MUCH but WHAT is on the HD. It APPEARS to be something that is running from the HD.

BillyBob

 

Good Idea Gary - that'll work.

 

The windows swap file is a very fluid file. It grows and shrinks according to windows whims. One of it's behaviors is that windows will increase the size in anticipation of it's use, sort of like making reservations for 8 when you expecting 4, you have the room ready if need it. It will do this no matter if you need it to or not.
If you would to prevent it from getting so big, add this line in your C:\Windows\System.Ini file, under the [386Enh] section.
[386Enh]
ConservativeSwapFileUsage=1
You must reboot for changes to take affect.
If what I have seen posted that your installed RAM is 287 mb, the win386.swp should stay at the zero size, and you will get faster performance, as this forces windows to use all your RAM, keeping data off of the drive. Is that what you want?
Please note, because of this setting, you will have less free memory reported, and this is a good thing. Unused RAM is wasted RAM.