PoolMon on Win2k locks up - any alternatives?

[Guest tbone]

If I run poolmon right after login, it seems ok for a while. Then as I

start up my usual applications, eventually it seems to freeze the

system up, i.e. TaskMon and PerfMon both stop updating and the mouse

barely responds. After experimenting, I've found that I can kill the

console window it's running in (with careful and deliberate mouse

movement) and the system returns to normal.

 

I'm trying to track down something that seems to use up some resource

after about a day or so. Usually, Kerio (my firewall) starts

complaining of an insufficient resource, and soon after everything

else goes down the drain too. Sometimes if I close everything fast

enough, I can restart gracefully.

 

I was getting BSODs until I uninstalled WireShark/WinPCap; now I'm

back to running out of resources. I've updated my NetGear GA311 NIC

drivers, switched NICs (back to onboard 100Mbps), applied an update to

NetBT.sys, removed a 1GB memory add-on, all to no avail. I run TaskMon

and PerfMon all the time, and I don't see anything unusual (but I'm

not an expert in this; I just like to have my finger on the machine's

pulse).

 

I used gflags to turn on just pool tagging.

 

Once before when I tried poolmon, it started up but the console window

went totally black after the barest blip of the white on blue column

headings.

 

So, any ideas/suggestions?

 

Thanks

tbone

[Guest tbone]

Re: PoolMon on Win2k locks up - any alternatives?

 

More info below...

 

On Thu, 30 Aug 2007 16:03:37 -0400, tbone <noneedto@email.me> wrote:

>If I run poolmon right after login, it seems ok for a while. Then as I

>start up my usual applications, eventually it seems to freeze the

>system up, i.e. TaskMon and PerfMon both stop updating and the mouse

>barely responds. After experimenting, I've found that I can kill the

>console window it's running in (with careful and deliberate mouse

>movement) and the system returns to normal.

>

>I'm trying to track down something that seems to use up some resource

>after about a day or so. Usually, Kerio (my firewall) starts

>complaining of an insufficient resource, and soon after everything

>else goes down the drain too. Sometimes if I close everything fast

>enough, I can restart gracefully.

>

>I was getting BSODs until I uninstalled WireShark/WinPCap; now I'm

>back to running out of resources. I've updated my NetGear GA311 NIC

>drivers, switched NICs (back to onboard 100Mbps), applied an update to

>NetBT.sys, removed a 1GB memory add-on, all to no avail. I run TaskMon

>and PerfMon all the time, and I don't see anything unusual (but I'm

>not an expert in this; I just like to have my finger on the machine's

>pulse).

>

>I used gflags to turn on just pool tagging.

>

>Once before when I tried poolmon, it started up but the console window

>went totally black after the barest blip of the white on blue column

>headings.

>

>So, any ideas/suggestions?

>

>Thanks

>tbone

 

Some further experimentation and information:

 

If I set the console window to LOW priority in TaskMon before I run

PoolMon, then it doesn't lock up the system, but it still doesn't

work. I neglected to mention earlier that the headings come out; just

the details don't show. I'm now thinking there are too many items for

PoolMon to grapple with.

 

One program I was running seemed to be creeping up in Non-paged Pool

allocations. I only watched it for a few minutes, but it didn't look

like it was backing down at all, just slowly going up, so I shut it

down. The NP count in PoolMon (the next time I started it) did not go

down any, while paged pool was up some. Here are the current totals:

 

Memory: 2096600K Avail: 1157520K PageFlts:10326576 ...

... InRam Krnl:19692K P:16879

Commit: 842684K Limit:4394136K Peak: 849848K...

...Pool N:32208K P:175700K

 

I have 2GB RAM; is 32MB of NP and 174MB of paged excessive? I

typically have 20+ apps open at a time.

 

I believe I have tried not running the program in previous

experiments, without that making any difference, but perhaps there

were confusing factors. I will continue running without it and

watching the NP pool...

 

tbone

[Guest John John]

Re: PoolMon on Win2k locks up - any alternatives?

 

tbone wrote:

> More info below...

>

> On Thu, 30 Aug 2007 16:03:37 -0400, tbone <noneedto@email.me> wrote:

>

>

>>If I run poolmon right after login, it seems ok for a while. Then as I

>>start up my usual applications, eventually it seems to freeze the

>>system up, i.e. TaskMon and PerfMon both stop updating and the mouse

>>barely responds. After experimenting, I've found that I can kill the

>>console window it's running in (with careful and deliberate mouse

>>movement) and the system returns to normal.

>>

>>I'm trying to track down something that seems to use up some resource

>>after about a day or so. Usually, Kerio (my firewall) starts

>>complaining of an insufficient resource, and soon after everything

>>else goes down the drain too. Sometimes if I close everything fast

>>enough, I can restart gracefully.

>>

>>I was getting BSODs until I uninstalled WireShark/WinPCap; now I'm

>>back to running out of resources. I've updated my NetGear GA311 NIC

>>drivers, switched NICs (back to onboard 100Mbps), applied an update to

>>NetBT.sys, removed a 1GB memory add-on, all to no avail. I run TaskMon

>>and PerfMon all the time, and I don't see anything unusual (but I'm

>>not an expert in this; I just like to have my finger on the machine's

>>pulse).

>>

>>I used gflags to turn on just pool tagging.

>>

>>Once before when I tried poolmon, it started up but the console window

>>went totally black after the barest blip of the white on blue column

>>headings.

>>

>>So, any ideas/suggestions?

>>

>>Thanks

>>tbone

>

>

> Some further experimentation and information:

>

> If I set the console window to LOW priority in TaskMon before I run

> PoolMon, then it doesn't lock up the system, but it still doesn't

> work. I neglected to mention earlier that the headings come out; just

> the details don't show. I'm now thinking there are too many items for

> PoolMon to grapple with.

>

> One program I was running seemed to be creeping up in Non-paged Pool

> allocations. I only watched it for a few minutes, but it didn't look

> like it was backing down at all, just slowly going up, so I shut it

> down. The NP count in PoolMon (the next time I started it) did not go

> down any, while paged pool was up some. Here are the current totals:

>

> Memory: 2096600K Avail: 1157520K PageFlts:10326576 ...

> ... InRam Krnl:19692K P:16879

> Commit: 842684K Limit:4394136K Peak: 849848K...

> ...Pool N:32208K P:175700K

>

> I have 2GB RAM; is 32MB of NP and 174MB of paged excessive? I

> typically have 20+ apps open at a time.

>

> I believe I have tried not running the program in previous

> experiments, without that making any difference, but perhaps there

> were confusing factors. I will continue running without it and

> watching the NP pool...

 

Taskmon is a Windows 9x utility. Ditch it, many of the utilities

designed to work on W9x don't work properly on NT systems.

 

John