[BigAlMc]

Hi,

I recently upgraded my RAM from 256MB to 1.25 GB as my Acer Travelmate was running fairly slowly.

I am running Firefox 2.0 and have set up the about:config tweaks commonly discussed on this forum (pipelining, prefetching etc)

However, my laptop still slows down a lot from time to time. I suspect it might be a memory leak but when I open the Process part of Windows Task Manager, Firefox is the only program allocated large chunks of memory.

On different occasions I have checked and it has anywhere between 100MB to 600MB allocated. Whats more it seems to be constantly gradually increasing within each session. i.e. if I end Firefox and start again it starts with a small but steadily increasing memory allocation.

Does it sound like my Firefox has a memory leak? Or is it just all the prefetching etc that is causing sessions to end up utilising such large chunks of memory?

Many Thanks
Alan

PS I regularly run Spybot, Ad-Aware and AVG and am relatively confidant that my laptop is pretty clean of malware - so I dont think thats the problem.

 

[Kalim]

Hi

Firstly how many and which extensions/themes do you have installed?

How many tabs and which sites are you running when you get the high RAM usage?
How long do you run these sites for?
Do you clear your temps, history and downloads regularly?

BTW if your using Fasterfox, its a known issue with prefetching and its advised to turn it off as the result would be just as fast if not faster.

Do the sites have a lot of video content, pictures, java or flash content that you visit?

Do you get the same result if your run Firefox safe mode?

Memory leak can exist but I don't think one with the latest version 2.0.0.1 has been known. The testing for a leak is pretty rigorous and you would have to take part in it to confirm anything of a bug or problem.

Also check Task Manager under the "Performance" tab -> Commit Charge (K) -- record the Total and Peak values and report them back. Do this after you've been running your daily activities and when you feel like shutting off your system.

Note that some sites don't allow pipelinning and multiple connctions per server so they'll take froever to laod if used that way.

 

[BigAlMc]

Thanks for the reply Kalim.

In answer to your questions;

No real extensions other than google web accelerator and picassa media detector.

Only one or two tabs at a time.

Can be on some sites for up to an hour or so.

Dont clear my temps history or downloads as plenty space on my hard-drive. Would clearing these help?

Not using Fasterfox, as figured the about:config tweaks probably did much the same. As a side question is fasterfox faster than 2.0.0.1 is when tweaked?

Sites have picture content and occasional java. No video really.

Havent tried using Safe Mode. Is that worth a try?

And I will try your tip about the performance Total & Peak monitor.

Many Thanks
Alan

 

[Kalim]

Uninstall Google Web Accelerator. Its pointless and will cause such problems.

Then restart Firefox and try again. If it still does, open it up in Firefox (safemode) [should be in your Start Menu next to where Firefox is] and see how it goes then.

Yes, go to the option for "Clear Private Data" and get rid of temps (that conflict), history and list of downloaded files in download.rdf

All these slow down and hinder, as well as use up RAM under Firefox.

See how all that goes.

 

[BigAlMc]

Thanks Kalim,

I suspected that the Google Web Accelerator wasnt doing much good anyway.

I will give that a try and post again if I continue to have problems.

Cheers for the advice.

Regards
Alan