I've got a bit of system lag and I'm trying to decide whether or not to get more RAM or if there is something I can do to free up some memory. According to my system information at this particular time, 60% of my memory is being utilized, but I've seen it as high as 74%. Of the items making use of the memory, there are a number called SVCHOST.EXE, but the ones that are taking up the most memory are IEXPLORER.exe (30 MB), MSMSGS.exe (20 MB), and one that says Windows32 with a red stop sign icon (50 MB). Is there anyway I can free up some of that memory? Should I just bite the bullet and install some more RAM, and if so, any recommendations? Or is there something else causing this lag? Maybe it's just me, but an Athlon AMD 950 should be performing better than this is.

128MB is not enough RAM for Windows XP. I have 512 installed, and 300MB of RAM is free right now. So that is 212MB of RAM that is being used right now. Of course, I have tweaked my system so it will ony use the minimum size of swapfile and use as much ram as possible. The speed is very good, and Xp is only using 39MB of my paging file right now.

over the years, i have found most of those 'lags' are harddrive related. adding memory will enhance the system speed, but not lag.

hrm, does anyone know what the red mark by windows 32 means? im suspicious ... 50 megs is a LOT of memory for any process to be taking up your system will run ok with 128 megs ram, though of course better with more. but that process is sus

For the Red mark by the Windows32, where is the reference to Windows32 located at? As far as memory usage, the largest memory block in use on my computer is only 23,044KB (31.29296875 MB), and that process is svchost.exe. Internet explorer only takes 22,444k. Although if the application is large (like the OO.o loader), it may take up to 50MB of RAM. Where is the Windows32 reference at?

Lagging is caused by (2) problems, Low Disk Space and Low Memory. Now Windows XP will run off 128 but atleast 256 is best. Once your harddrive gets passed 60-75% it will start to lag alot, and memory may inprove the perfomance but if your harddrive is full then you have 2 problems not 1. I would go buy another 128Meg stick and slap it in the computer, then if its still lagging then i would check your harddrive and you might want to invest into another one. You can run both harddrives, 1 as your main for windows and the other to hold all your information. Hope this helps

Don't know if this will help, but I have noticed that all this lag problem is surrounded with an OS and GeForce Video Cards. I myself have a GeForce 4 T200. Also, I used to have 256MB RAM with a 1.5 GHz P4. This whole lag thing started to happen back in November 2003. Since then, I have installed an extra 1 GHz memory. I still have the lag problem. Today, I will be going out and buying a new video card to see if that does anything. Lastly, I did do all the updates, patches, virus scans, spybot, etc...and nothing came from it. Also, I have reverted from Directx9.0b back to Dirextx8.1b (it came with one of my games) and still have the problem. As long as I don't run a program that requires a lot of graphics, my computer runs fine. So, right now, my $400 computer is a big jukebox...lol. One more thing to add, it isn't a harddrive problem. I have 4 OS (Win2k, Win XP, Win ME, Win NT) and they are all doing the same thing. And yes, each OS is on a separate 60GB Hard drive. Each hard drive is loaded with the original copy of the OS.