I am getting a memory error?

Question

ok so here is the message i get after a couple of minutes of being on my computer.

[Window Title]

Microsoft Windows

[Main Instruction]

Close programs to prevent information loss

[Content]

Your computer is low on memory. Save your files and close these programs:

Firefox

Windows Media Player

[Close programs] [Cancel]

[Footer]

Windows will only close enough programs to restore needed memory.

i have windows vista basic i have 1.5 GB of ram, i have a half GB usb flash drive thats used as ram, and i have a 1GB paging file.

i use mcafee as a virus scanner.

and under the processes list in the task manager svchost.exe uses most of the memory about 149,400 K! this has never happened before and my comp is only a year old. i have no clue what to do! McAfee says i have no viruses i have cleaned my reg with Ccleaner and i dont know what else to do. every time i run a game like BF2 i get a memory engine error as well.

PLEASE HELP!!

Answer 1

you could have to many programs starting that you cannot see

Download " The Ultimate Troubleshooter " this has a section for start up programs and you can stop all except for your anti virus one working

Some programs when installed automatically are set to run when windows starts you have to stop them

Also TUT details all running processes that you can check and stop it details what they are for and whether safe to stop.

you may find as I did I had 3 programs that were trying to access the internet stopped them running and saved memory

Answer 2

run memtest86 with one stick of ram at a time overnight

if no error then is not the ram.

Answer 3

well vista basic is c**p from my understandings now don't get me wrong i got nothing against vista but your also not running it with enough ram you need 2GBs and McAfee is a system hog too so the two combined are probably the problem. Your going to have to bump your RAM probably to 3GBs to run a game like BF2 without issue on vista. The biggest issues with vista is it should have never been released as a 32bit OS cause i have heard that the 64bit doesn't ever get the memory errors but then alot of this is hear say. I got Vista home premium on one PC at home but still do all my gaming on the XP pro PC since its the beefer of the two