rx1955 Memory Issue

[friedshrimp]

Don't know if there is a fix for this, but here goes. I have an rx1955. After booting all programs I have about 8 meg RAM free. Everyday, I see the RAM dropping little by little until after a week, I have only about 2 meg free and at that point, I soft boot and then I'm back to 8 meg to start the whole process over. Two questions here. First, what causes this mem release problem (some program not giving up taken ram after closing)? Secondly, does anyone know how to make ActiveSync stop starting itself? I will close it (not connected to laptop but AS still running on 1955) and then an hour later, it's started itself back up. I try to run as clean as possible due to the 1955 doesn't have that much memory to begin with. Thanks for any help that anyone can provide.

[Nurhisham Hussein]

I'm not sure about your activesync problem, but I believe it's been covered here before.

For your memory issue, unfortunately that's pretty normal behaviour. It's not so much programs not releasing memory, as the OS itself is caching resources. Since by default Windows Mobile never closes programs unless neccessary, that was a reasonable design decision. Since everybody else would prefer to close programs instead, it's an annoyance we all have to live with.

[friedshrimp]

I'll take it there's no 3rd party software like "End It All" (for the PC) to release those resourses?

[haesslich]

Not really. You can make sure you're killing tasks by using something like Magic Button, SPB PocketPlus, or Wisbar Advance. SKTools does come with a 'attempt to free up RAM' option for WM5 which can work pretty well (it sends a call to the OS to unload things which aren't needed due to low resources), but that's still a temporary solution and won't stop the need for occasional soft resets.

[friedshrimp]

I am using SPB P+ which is a great program, but I guess even it can't overcome Microsoft's abnormalities! Thanks though.

[Darius Wey]

I am using SPB P+ which is a great program, but I guess even it can't overcome Microsoft's abnormalities! Thanks though.

Just out of interest, which plug-ins do you have enabled on your Today screen?

Back to the issue of killing ActiveSync, it's a little more complex with v4.x. New to v4.x is the five-minute sync interval and the constant wakeups, which are the causes of all the issues you're experiencing. I suggest you read Bev Howard's guide here. (http://www.bevhoward.com/ASync.htm#WCESCOMM)

[friedshrimp]

Just out of interest, which plug-ins do you have enabled on your Today screen?

The programs I am running in background are SPB Pocket+, MortPlayer, Notepad, and Themeking. On the Today screen is the Calendar, the Power meters, and the program icons.

[haesslich]

Uh... you did read the reviews and comment threads on the rx1950 series, right? You're running WAY too many programs in the background at once for the 1950 to handle without memory problems (I don't know ThemeKing, but between this and PocketPlus, I can see some issues with RAM developing fairly quickly). Between that and the power meters in SPB Pocket+, I'm not surprised your RAM's disappearing - your GWES.EXE cache must be huge after a day or two's operation.

I'd suggest keeping ThemeKing offline for a week or two, and that you disable the meters in Pocket+, and see if that improves your memory situation any.

[friedshrimp]

Uh... you did read the reviews and comment threads on the rx1950 series, right? You're running WAY too many programs in the background at once for the 1950 to handle without memory problems

1. Yes, I read some of the reviews and comment threads once I knew I was getting the 1955. Actually, though many (all) talked about the lack of RAM on the 1955, none of them (that I read) talked about a max number of programs you could have open.

2. I didn't have an option on the 1955. It was a Christmas present from my sister and she purchased it online from eBay so no way to take it back/exchange it for an upgrade.

3. I need/use these programs on a daily basis, so the only program I could cut back on would be Themeking, but I LIKE rotating my themes ( I really like the one with the girl in Army camoflage and nothing else..... sorry, I digress :D )

4. I appriciate the input. If it's the GWES cache that's building up, I'd like to find out how to flush it without soft booting. If there is no way, then I'll just live with the situation until I can get a more powerful unit (maybe a 2495?) Again, thanks for the help.

[Nurhisham Hussein]

There's no way I know of flushing GWES.exe short of a soft reset. As for point 1, the reason why is that the number of programs your PDA can handle is highly dependent on the programs in question - but anything involving meters tends to take a high toll on processor cycles and battery life.

[haesslich]

There's no 'maximum number of programs', really - but if you're running two or three apps, you've pretty much killed the 8-10MB of RAM which is available following a soft reset. The situation gets worse because, according to a test Memneisys ran, SPB Pocket+ takes about 1400-1600KB of RAM by itself, without any of the launchers being set up, with just the meters installed. That's over about 20% of your RAM gone right there, just for a few RAM and battery meters, along with the IE multi-tab and launcher support.

GWES usage will balloon more if you're mucking about with the themes often, or have any graphical elements on the screen - the more things like meters you've got, the faster it'll expand to suck up all of your available RAM... so you can choose to either look good and soft-reset on a daily basis, or else choose to have more RAM. Pick one.

SKTool's "Free Up RAM" feature helps me somewhat... but even then, I usually recover maybe 1500-2000KB of RAM in total, which in your case would disappear as quickly as ThemeKing changed your themes. But basically, you're pretty much stuck so far as the soft-reset situation goes, unless you cut back on the extra toys, since the 1955 was apparently not meant to look 'pretty', to judge by the severe lack of RAM the unit suffers from.