"insufficient system resources" error message

[nikko]

I have occasionally been getting error messages that esentially say something like "the operation could not be completed due to insufficient system resources". I have a gig of RAM and this typically happens when I only have a couple of programs open, e.g. Firefox and MS Word. I just got the message again this morning and did a reboot. I checked my memory usage in task manager and it says I'm using a over 500 MB of RAM, even though I had no programs open. I don't think there's anyway my background apps are using anywhere near that much. This is a relatively recent install of XP Pro (less than a month).

I never had these problems before the reinstall. The only difference between the old install and the new one is that I now use Perfect Disk to defrag my drives. Have no idea if that might be the culprit.

Any ideas on what might be going on? Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

 

[mzkhadir]

check to see if you have a virtual memory leak. Go into the task manager and show the colum for virtual memory and see how big it is getting and where you are seeing the problem.

The other thing you can do is to check your event viewer to see if you see any problems

 

[nikko]

Originally posted by: mzkhadir
check to see if you have a virtual memory leak. Go into the task manager and show the colum for virtual memory and see how big it is getting and where you are seeing the problem.

The other thing you can do is to check your event viewer to see if you see any problems

Thanks for the response. That's over my head, I'm afraid. I checked the VM Size column. Is that what you mean? I don't know what to look for, though. Same goes for the Event Viewer. Not sure what to be looking for there.