I have seen FireFox get up to 300MB, but only when I am using tabbed browsing, with 10+ tabs (and they have been running for multiple days).
I am not sure if it is a memory leak in how they handle tabbed browsing, or what, but that is the only time I can get FireFox to hog that much memory.
I do agree that upgrading just to run FireFox seems like overkill.
Upgrading My PC's RAM
Firefox, like all programs, has some small memory leaks, but that's not what's responsible for your heavy memory use with Firefox. Firefox uses a predictive caching scheme where it tries to load data from the links on pages into memory so there will be reduced load time when you click them. It bases how much memory it'll use on how much system memory you have, so Firefox should never drag you to a total halt over memory issues as it will restrict itself when necessary. If you use tabs it starts pre-caching quite a lot of pages, which is why that memory number grows so dramatically. There are a number of web sites about altering the settings in Firefox to restrict that caching.
Also, if you leave even a well-kept WinXP box up and running for days, with an application like Firefox open for days also, you are asking for trouble. Windows XP needs to be rebooted probably at least every week to stay healthy the way you likely use it, Racketboy. Even XP doesn't have strong enough memory protection to prevent cruft.
Also, if you leave even a well-kept WinXP box up and running for days, with an application like Firefox open for days also, you are asking for trouble. Windows XP needs to be rebooted probably at least every week to stay healthy the way you likely use it, Racketboy. Even XP doesn't have strong enough memory protection to prevent cruft.
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lordofduct
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- Location: West Palm Beach
I got a PM about this thread, so I think I'll put in some words that come to mind.
First and foremost as it seems to be the highlight of this thread, Firefox: the memory leaks have been an issue they've been working on for a long time now and are barely even there in the newest builds. One thing it seriousily suffers from though is it is notoriousily slow in loading images. I don't know what causes it, but graphically heavy pages take a lot of time to load (in comparison to other browsers, by about a couple seconds).
but, really, Firefox is the least of your worries. If this program is dogging down your system. There has to be something else going on. No browser should be killing a P4 with a gig of RAM that bad.
As for RAM I'd like to advise the same things Mozgus has. But a little more, do some error checking on your RAM. Make sure that it isn't wasting cycles on rewrites. If there happens to be any bad writes to it you lose massive speed to having to rewrite the sectors. There are several benchmarks and the sort that do this kinda job, and also check for errors that may come out of the processor. A cheepy way of checking this is to look at your pagefile and see if it is getting lots of use (also make sure it's at a good size... keep in mind, XP SHOULD of defaulted it to 1.5 times your RAM size (similar to the size choice for 'swap' in Linux)... try making it larger and you probably will receive a boost as well).
I also want to bring up dual-channel. double dual channel is something not all mobo's support well. On top of that it isn't the biggest performance boost it is made out to be. You don't really see it shine unless your using it in excessive rewrite cycles (such as seen in videogames and the sort, that is why it was big in the gaming arena). Not to say it isn't worth it. But what you should really make sure is that the bus speeds and your RAM are time equally with each other. In the scenarios you are running your computer you'll see a better performance boost out of that then out of dual channel mode.
Your running a 2.4 P4... i'm gonna assume that is a 2.4b, which has a 533mhz FSB... which is a quad 133 base bus speed. actually (that's how intel rates there chips... long explanation behind it). Running RAM at a FSB that is a multiple of your processors FSB will in a lot of cases actually help speed low useage applications up. Like what you do. If you ran PC2100 in dual channel mode (that's a FSB of 266mhz, but a 133 base bus speed... making timing exactly the same) you'd probably see better performance. That's why you'll notice the most expensive P4's on the line out there for gaming rigs had 800mhz (quad 200 base)FSB speeds to match the PC3200's 400mhz FSB (200 base).
...
Really though, a gig of RAM should really be doing what you need it too.
Instead what do you have for a video card? That could probably give you a bigger performance boost then another gig of RAM. If your just using onboard, go right out and get yourself a cheapy video card (like an FX series from Nvidia), it will boost performance a lot because your processor no longer really has to process the visuals going on.
Especially make sure you have a card if your using a VIA chipset. I like Via and all, but usually mobo's with via chipsets use Via's video chip which is rather dismall.
....
damn it, this thing is kinda broken up a lot... got a bad phone call. Time to hunt down a drug addict and rob his ass of 5 bills. YEY!
I'd like to add though, in my garage I run a 1 gig with a 2.8ghz. The system runs hot and uses a crap video card, I get dogged a lot if using iTunes, photoshop, Visual Studio, firefox, and the sort for long periods of time. The system isn't timed well though, the FSB differs a lot from my RAM and the processor isn't 'SUPPOSED' to run at 2.8ghz (making the big difference between RAM speeds. But the damn VIA northbridge won't let me run the processor at it's real speed. The system just freezes.
The same rig USED to have a 2.4 ghz in it with a gig of RAM that was clocked adequately (PC2100 and a 533mhz FSB on the P4). The machine performed a lot better back then, but I traded out the processor for this 'SUPPOSEDLY' slower processor because my parents needed it. Alas it OC'd really poorly and knocked my tuning off, so it craps out on me now... I can't even run it with it's cover on or it overheats.
funniest bit about the whole issue... the chipset it has isn't supposed to support anything over 2.53ghz
First and foremost as it seems to be the highlight of this thread, Firefox: the memory leaks have been an issue they've been working on for a long time now and are barely even there in the newest builds. One thing it seriousily suffers from though is it is notoriousily slow in loading images. I don't know what causes it, but graphically heavy pages take a lot of time to load (in comparison to other browsers, by about a couple seconds).
but, really, Firefox is the least of your worries. If this program is dogging down your system. There has to be something else going on. No browser should be killing a P4 with a gig of RAM that bad.
As for RAM I'd like to advise the same things Mozgus has. But a little more, do some error checking on your RAM. Make sure that it isn't wasting cycles on rewrites. If there happens to be any bad writes to it you lose massive speed to having to rewrite the sectors. There are several benchmarks and the sort that do this kinda job, and also check for errors that may come out of the processor. A cheepy way of checking this is to look at your pagefile and see if it is getting lots of use (also make sure it's at a good size... keep in mind, XP SHOULD of defaulted it to 1.5 times your RAM size (similar to the size choice for 'swap' in Linux)... try making it larger and you probably will receive a boost as well).
I also want to bring up dual-channel. double dual channel is something not all mobo's support well. On top of that it isn't the biggest performance boost it is made out to be. You don't really see it shine unless your using it in excessive rewrite cycles (such as seen in videogames and the sort, that is why it was big in the gaming arena). Not to say it isn't worth it. But what you should really make sure is that the bus speeds and your RAM are time equally with each other. In the scenarios you are running your computer you'll see a better performance boost out of that then out of dual channel mode.
Your running a 2.4 P4... i'm gonna assume that is a 2.4b, which has a 533mhz FSB... which is a quad 133 base bus speed. actually (that's how intel rates there chips... long explanation behind it). Running RAM at a FSB that is a multiple of your processors FSB will in a lot of cases actually help speed low useage applications up. Like what you do. If you ran PC2100 in dual channel mode (that's a FSB of 266mhz, but a 133 base bus speed... making timing exactly the same) you'd probably see better performance. That's why you'll notice the most expensive P4's on the line out there for gaming rigs had 800mhz (quad 200 base)FSB speeds to match the PC3200's 400mhz FSB (200 base).
...
Really though, a gig of RAM should really be doing what you need it too.
Instead what do you have for a video card? That could probably give you a bigger performance boost then another gig of RAM. If your just using onboard, go right out and get yourself a cheapy video card (like an FX series from Nvidia), it will boost performance a lot because your processor no longer really has to process the visuals going on.
Especially make sure you have a card if your using a VIA chipset. I like Via and all, but usually mobo's with via chipsets use Via's video chip which is rather dismall.
....
damn it, this thing is kinda broken up a lot... got a bad phone call. Time to hunt down a drug addict and rob his ass of 5 bills. YEY!
I'd like to add though, in my garage I run a 1 gig with a 2.8ghz. The system runs hot and uses a crap video card, I get dogged a lot if using iTunes, photoshop, Visual Studio, firefox, and the sort for long periods of time. The system isn't timed well though, the FSB differs a lot from my RAM and the processor isn't 'SUPPOSED' to run at 2.8ghz (making the big difference between RAM speeds. But the damn VIA northbridge won't let me run the processor at it's real speed. The system just freezes.
The same rig USED to have a 2.4 ghz in it with a gig of RAM that was clocked adequately (PC2100 and a 533mhz FSB on the P4). The machine performed a lot better back then, but I traded out the processor for this 'SUPPOSEDLY' slower processor because my parents needed it. Alas it OC'd really poorly and knocked my tuning off, so it craps out on me now... I can't even run it with it's cover on or it overheats.
funniest bit about the whole issue... the chipset it has isn't supposed to support anything over 2.53ghz
Wow, all you people and your Intel issues.
If you can get to formatting the system, it'd help a lot. I use a custom, modified version of XP with a lot removed, but even a vanilla install will be best. Make sure your drivers are up to date, and that your drives are defragmented.
A video card won't make a huge difference in XP, as all graphics are bitmaps processed by the CPU and just sent to the card to output. Only Vector OSes like Mac OS X and Vista will see a benefit in general apps.
If you can get to formatting the system, it'd help a lot. I use a custom, modified version of XP with a lot removed, but even a vanilla install will be best. Make sure your drivers are up to date, and that your drives are defragmented.
A video card won't make a huge difference in XP, as all graphics are bitmaps processed by the CPU and just sent to the card to output. Only Vector OSes like Mac OS X and Vista will see a benefit in general apps.
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lordofduct
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- Location: West Palm Beach
I thought the same thing... but seriousily everytime I use a vid card over onboard (especially with VIA chipsets, hence why I brought up VIA) I gain a lot of speed.opethfan wrote:Wow, all you people and your Intel issues.
If you can get to formatting the system, it'd help a lot. I use a custom, modified version of XP with a lot removed, but even a vanilla install will be best. Make sure your drivers are up to date, and that your drives are defragmented.
A video card won't make a huge difference in XP, as all graphics are bitmaps processed by the CPU and just sent to the card to output. Only Vector OSes like Mac OS X and Vista will see a benefit in general apps.
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lordofduct
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- Joined: Sat Apr 01, 2006 12:57 pm
- Location: West Palm Beach
even the FX series will increase speed in your system... in the dev machine I use in my garage, I gain tons of speed from the FX series geforce I use out there. best 35 dollars I ever spent in my life.
Seriousily, I devolpe 3D games on the little piece of shit and get good framerates from it. You must understand, I do not develope in 3D though, I develope in code (programmer, not and artist here) so most of my work is in code, not in rendering. But even when I render, it does a lot better then what you'd expect from the shit system I use.
excuse me, I'm a little drunk right now. Spent like 200 dollars tonight at the Jackyl & Hyde show... and half my tab was comped to me... THANK YOU Theresa, Chris and Kelly!
from left to right, James my best friend, Melissa the crazy lesbian, my girlfriend Cheryl, and ME!!!!
Seriousily, I devolpe 3D games on the little piece of shit and get good framerates from it. You must understand, I do not develope in 3D though, I develope in code (programmer, not and artist here) so most of my work is in code, not in rendering. But even when I render, it does a lot better then what you'd expect from the shit system I use.
excuse me, I'm a little drunk right now. Spent like 200 dollars tonight at the Jackyl & Hyde show... and half my tab was comped to me... THANK YOU Theresa, Chris and Kelly!
from left to right, James my best friend, Melissa the crazy lesbian, my girlfriend Cheryl, and ME!!!!