Error: not enough free memory

When I leave my computer sitting for an hour or two without touching it, when I go to get back on there will ALWAYS be a white box that says "close", after i close it I will click on internet explorer and it will say that there's not enough free memory to run this program. This ONLY happens if I leave my computer on without touching it for an hour or so. When I restart my computer after I get these messages everything is fine. I am wondering what is causing this problem??? Like I said before, it ONLY happens if I don't touch my computer for an hour or so. Any ideas anyone??

Download, UPDATE and run Spybot search and destroy.
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/mirrors/index.html
Instructions here
BleepingComputer.com- Tutorial Section Spybot
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/ind…howtutorial=43&
(NOTE, this site offers a product called Spykiller which we do NOT recommend . Spybot is superior and free.)


Then download, UPDATE and run Lavasoft Ad-Aware. Choose to check for updates and then run the scan and choose to fix whatever it finds. (Put checks in the boxes).
Adaware
http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloadget.php?…bf695220993fc0f[/L]
Instructions Here
Gladiator Security Forum - Adaware Tutorial Updates & Scanning
http://forum.gladiator-antivirus.com/index…?showtopic=8050

Reboot after the scans
See if this helps

I already have those programs, and I keep them updated. So that doesn't help sorry.

Hi, I've been having the same problem! For the last few weeks, get a white rectangular message box without text in it except for "Close" (with the C underlined). I then close it but can't open any programs until I do a reboot-sometimes have to do a hard reboot to get the computer to turn off. Happens even if I just reboot and don't open anything. Takes several hours for the box to appear, whether I've opened anything or not. When I try to open a program after closing the mystery box, I get the following "error message: Not enough free memory to run this program. Quit 1 or more programs then try again." After trying to open thing, system gets very slow and I lose patience and do a soft reboot, then eveything works fine until the box appears again after several hours. thanks, Have HP 6736, 64 MB RAM upgraded to 256 MB a few years ago, Lynksys 10.100 LAN card added a few years ago, WIN ME (yeah, I know better now!), cable connection, MCAfee Virus Scan and Personal Firewall (from their site), Google toolbar with popup blocker, Earthlink as ISP, Earthlink webmail with spam blocker, Outlook Express, CWS, AdAware, Spybot Search and Destroy HJT. All services up to date including HP updates. Have an Iomega Mini 512 USB drive too. Did a Housecall Trend Micro scan.Turned off System Restore, then in Safe Mode did disc cleanup, can disc, defrag, CWS, AdAware, Spybot, McAfee virus scan. Nothing significan found. Turned on System Restore, restarted. Still getting the box. Posted thism a HJT log and a startup list to Geeks to Go, waiting for a response. Any help would be apreciated. Thanks , Kathy

Hello, does anyone know what to do about this, or what is causing it? thanks.

It could be a number of things. Typically, an error message like that doesn't really relate to RAM – it relates to disk. It can be as a result of virtual memory being turned off or set too low.

I would tend to work on cleaning up and defragging the hard drive, then examine the virtual memory settings:

To turn on virtual memory, follow these steps:
1. Right-click the My Computer icon on the desktop, and then click Properties on the shortcut menu.
2. Click the Performance tab.
3. Click Virtual Memory.
4. Click to select the Let Windows manage my virtual memory settings. (Recommended) check box.
5. Click OK, and then close the window.
6. When you are prompted to restart the computer, click Yes.
However, all of that being said, the mystery pop-up box leaves me smelling a virus/trojan/hijacker.

Therefore, I would suggest that you get HijackThis:

We need a Hijack This log file to be able to analyze what is happening on your computer. If you do not have a copy of Hijack This please follow the instructions in order: (if you already have HJT please make certain HJT is in it's own folder and follow instructions 4 to 6)

1. Please go to you're 'My Documents' folder, right-click and select 'New > Folder' and name the folder 'Hijack This'.

2. Download Hijackthis to the new folder from this website: http:/www.tomcoyote.org/hjt/

3. Double Click on 'HijackThis.zip' to extract and install HijackThis.exe to the new folder.

4. SCAN with HJT and SAVE LOG. (a notepad window will open with the log in it when you click Save Log) (Ctrl-A to'select all', Ctrl-C to 'copy')

5. POST the log in a new thread in the (HijackThis) forum. (Ctrl-V to 'paste')


DO NOT MAKE ANY CHANGES OR CLICK "FIX CHECKED" UNTIL SOMEONE CHECKS THE LOG, AS SOME OF THE FILES ARE LEGIT AND VITAL TO THE FUNCTION OF YOUR COMPUTER

We are unfortunately swamped with requests for help, and it may well take several days before a volunteer can pick up and anlayze your log. We try to handle requests in the order in which they arrive.

Be sure and read the post at the top of the HJT forum that explains what to do if you have not received help in 5 days.

Thank you for the info. I have already done both of those things. Windows is already managing my virtual memore, i checked. I also posted my hijack this log concerning a different problem and it came up clean as a whistle, nothing for me to remove at all. This is what leaves me so confused. Not that I want things to be wrong with my computer and for my hijackthis log to come up with a bunch of things wrong, but I was hoping that whatever was causing it would have showed up in the hijackthis log and it didn't. I have adaware, spybot, and spyware blaster, they all come up clean. I use 2 different online virus scans, trend micro and panda scan, they both come up clean also. I am just left without a clue lol.

How much ram do you have? Whats your CPU speed? How many items are in your startup? Is Hibernating turned on? why is Windows managing your pagefile?

I don't know the answer to any of those questions sorry, as you can see i am definately not computer savy.