A program will often need to allocate small chunks of your RAM to store various information - user input, files it reads off the disk, structures to pass to the windows API, etc. This is done most simply through the malloc() standard c library call, which returns a void pointer to the memory it allocated.

One of the bugs a program can have is a memory leak. When you allocate a chunk of memory, it becomes your program's responsibility to tell the operating system when you're done with it. You do this by passing the same void pointer you got from malloc() to free(). By "freeing" the RAM, you're no longer allowed to use it.

Imagine that over time any program had to periodically allocate a small amount of RAM when it got a network connection or something like that. If the program doesn't free the RAM it's using, eventually, the system resources will begin to exhaust. Windows usually responds to this a lot worse than Unix because of the way the operating systems differ in handling memory.

While an overheating computer can potentially cause any number of defects, such as a failed free() call, there are some more "common" things overheating can cause.

Lagging does sort of indicate some form of memory exhaustion. Do you have ECC memory? It's possible that the heat was causing errors to occur - with some hardware, this can be caught but a 'retry' has to occur.

As for the "128" down to "112", that sounds suspiciously like part of the RAM is beginning to fail.

What are your system specs? What size power supply?

I also recommend this article for more on these matters:
< http://boomgames.com/dyndoc.php/10compcrash >

I wouldn't be surprised, yesterday the smell of something burning was in my room and my mom suggested I turn my computer off when I'm not using it, and she was right, I leave it on excessively. When I access system information it now tells me I have 112 megabytes of ram when I originally had 128. My friend told me it wasn't probably something permanent and I'd have to leave the computer off for a while, which I will be doing.

I started another session of Red Alert 2 and I played a different mission and the game didn't lag at all, so maybe it's over, maybe it's not.

What should I do? I'm also thinking of upgrading my ram along with some other stuff, it is (or was..) 128 x PC100, I'm thinking of getting 256 x PC133..

Comments? Suggestions..?

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10 PRINT "HOME"
20 PRINT "SWEET"
30 GOTO 10

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When 1337 hax0rs start impaling each other with swords and typing code with a hook on one hand, then they can modify the term "pirate."

I tried to specify everything for the computer I wanted built but I guess this is the only part I missed, and the only part they cheaped out on me. Oh well, I'll get that fixed.

quote:

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Originally posted by demonk:
Aren't the 800 MHz PIIIs on a 133 MHz bus? I could be wrong, but that is probably what is killing your RAM. Running a stick of PC100 ram at 133 MHz may work, if the RAM is good quality RAM, but from what you have described, it is not, and it is dying. Getting a stick of 256 Megs PC133 RAM is dirt cheap right now. Don't question it, just go get some and through out your current stick. Problem solved!

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unless you've got some mobo made in antartica you should be able to just down step the ram to its natural setting of hclik rather than hclik + pci ...or whatever it is i cant rememebr off hand. but the 133fsb of the processor shouldnt have anything to do with the ram settings being off. i could be wrong as i'm not familiar with how pentium motherboards differ insetup to athlon boards. i t could just be a cooling problem. and if you open up the case the power supply should have its wattage written on the side

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To skate on the thin crust, known as reality

< Where's your self re-cocking-spect >

Now I'm starting to think that I still have my 128 megs of ram and nothing went wrong, and maybe it's telling me how much ram is free for us or something of the like, when I turn the computer on at where the screen pops up along with the 'beep!' it says I have something like 131000kb of ram (where the zeros are numbers I don't remember).

I know what a memory leak is but I'm not sure if my friend meant memory leak by saying ram leak...

My system specs are:
800mhz PIII
128 megs of ram (PC100)
TNT2 32 megs AGP
40 gig hard drive (split into 2 partitions)
WinME (crashes less than you think )