Toshiba laptop problem

Gekko

I seem to have a problem with my laptop - it's not major - but it is annoying.

I thought it needed more RAM so I've just got rid of the 512MB or RAM and swapped it for 2x2GB which means there's now 3.5GB.

But it still seems to be playing up.

What happens is when I'm browsing quite a few websites at once, it eventually gets to the stage where when I try to open another tab in Internet Explorer, it will just say "connecting" but the website won't load.

It sometimes helps if I open Task Manager and sometimes a programme like Acrobat Reader or Outlook won't have closed properly.

In the past I've had a warning icon show up saying System Memory too low.

I think I've adjusted the system cache properly and am wondering if it could be something else that's causing the problem.

Any help appreciated.

bbtex

there could be many reasons:(

-Check if u have enough HDD space available (delete some move u watched)
-Remove old RAM and use only memory u bought recently
-scan ur disc with anty-viurs

When did u last re-install ur system?

Dartz

That could be Windows' Virtual Memory thing sitting down, since it configured itself for 512mb of RAM... I had a problem with it often on my old Toshiba... it just sat down and refused to do memory intensive things.

It wouldnt run simulations for one thing... despite the software working quit happily on a ten year old PC with half the memory. It just sat down and said no.

Check your pagefile size... maybe increase it a little bit and see if that fixes anything

Lazarus2.0

Even with 512Mb of physical RAM virtual memory will have been set at 1.5x 512 so 768Mb pagefile unless you changed the virtual memory allocation , OP. You'd most likely know you had done so as it's not one of the easier settings to track down and adjust and I doubt that's the problem in any case .

Go to Control Panel/Internet Options . In Browsing history delete temporary files . Also click Start/All Programs/System Tools / Disk Cleanup and run that . Finally click Start/Run . Type in msconfig . Go to Startup tab and uncheck any programs you dont want running at startup . That'll clear most of the usual guff so if there is a problem app it'll be easier to see after that

Jackovarian

if your computer opened the browser page, albeit minus information, its still working fine.

have you tried any other programmes with loads of pages to see when it maxes out the machine?

chances are its just your internet connection or setup. if your using wireless try connecting via wire.

like, if you were on dial up and you tried opening a load of pages you would get the same problem only sooner!

solution, don't open so many pages, or open them as windows then minimize them. this m,ay stop them from loading. as most pages these days take ages to load, with all the hidden bits and flash ads.

Gekko

Thanks for the replies. I've tried a number of things like adjusting the virtual memory and paging file settings. Thought I had cured it but the problem has just started again.

I also did a defragment and also ran a detect and repair with Chkdsk, which hasn't made a difference.

There's some similar sounding problems mentioned when I searched the Microsoft Windows XP site. The most similar to my problem said to contact Microsoft as there is some kind of hotfix available.

At the moment my guess is that it's something to do with XP or internet explorer.

Gekko

Can anyone help on whether it's a problem caused by MS XP?!

Gekko

this isn't happening as frequently....

but yesterday everything on my screen turned upside down for some reason and I had to do a system restore!

Help?!

AlmightyCushion

Some monitors have the ability to flip the screen. That's probably what it is.

charlesD

but yesterday everything on my screen turned upside down for some reason and I had to do a system restore!

Depending on your video card, video drivers, and way your hot keys are configured, the screen can sometimes be flipped. I believe the combination of shift+alt+(an arrow key) will flip it if you have the hot keys configured. Otherwise if you are able to do it the options will be in your display settings, either under desktop->properties or using whatever config utility is installed to handle your video card.

With that said, it should not do it without you telling it to, so you would probably want to do a virus scan, just to be sure. I usually use a combination of ClamWin, SpyBot, and Ad-Aware.

In regards to your browsing, have you tried FireFox? Firefox is, IMHO, a better browser, but it does sometimes have memory issues when you open too many tabs. It would be interesting though to see if you get the same error in firefox as you do in IE.

bbtex

troyan horse!

Soundman

bbtex wrote: »

troyan horse!

Great help.

The word you are looking for is Trojan, by the way. What brings you to that conclusion anyway? You shouldn't be going around telling people they have viruses and the like without explaining why you think so.

Gekko

CharlesD - thanks for the info about flipping the screen. I must have pressed that key combination by accident.

bbtex - yes that's what I thought but did a virus scan yesterday and it's not a trojan horse.

Maybe it's just crappy internet explorer. Not sure I can be bothered with Firefox. Will see how I get on.

Lazarus2.0

bbtex wrote: »

there could be many reasons:(

-Check if u have enough HDD space available (delete some move u watched)
-Remove old RAM and use only memory u bought recently
-scan ur disc with anty-viurs

When did u last re-install ur system?

Well everyone knows that if a web page wont open and you delete a movie , buy new Ram and do an antivirus scan if your screen rotates it has to be a Trojan :mad:

OP . it wont be XP per se , though you should obviously keep it updated . The screen rotation could be just accidentally hitting the hot keys or (much less likely) a gfx card issue . Were there any pranksters in the vicinity ? The old ones are still the best ! I wouldnt be inclined to associate that with your laptop stuggling to open multiple IE pages . Are you on IE7 , btw ? As Jackovarian asked , are you on a wireless connection or wired ? Sharing a connection ?

gamer

some people say winxp runs better with 2gig ,than 3 ,take out second memory chip and see if it solves the problem,many new laptops have 2gig max memory and they run vista fine.maybe you have a virus, or spyware slowing down the os.i had a weird virus,everything worked fine,except i could not browse cds,or dvdroms, i could browse usb drives .I just reinstalled windows.some pcs need very specific memory ,ram chips, maybe the ram is too fast for the laptop you have.try running winxp in safe mode.