Windows desktop stops updating correctly, seems to coincide w/SAS peak memory usage

[lansharked]

Hi there,

I'm seeing a very strange issue on three clients' machines that I maintain. Windows desktop stops updating correctly, and it seems to coincide at times with SAS peak memory usage. It also seems to have started soon after I upgraded them to SAS v4.45.1000.

After several hours of a logged-in session, (when my client typically works with Google Apps in Firefox (3.6.12), MS Office Applications (Office Pro 2007), pdf docs in Adobe Reader (9.4.0), Quickbooks (2010) and various other applications in use), the Windows desktop will seemingly stop updating properly. Application windows, taskbar items, icons and dialog boxes will blank out or show straight color lines along their edges, but all text will be gone/blank. This is occasionally associated with various resource errors.

Two weeks or so ago the problem first appeared and happened only sporadically on one of the machines, but steadily worsened to the point of occurring within 15 minutes or so of a reboot. That machine I had to reformat and re-install the O/S on after exhausting every fix I could find. Now the problem has appeared on the other machines and is worsening. After being fine for a week or so, the rebuilt machine has it's first re-occurrence at the end of the workday last Friday (four days ago).

Two of the computers are 1-year-old Dell Vostro 220 Desktops with 3GB of RAM, separate O/S and document HDs and Intel Core2 Quad Q8300 procs running Windows XP Professional with SP3 and all available Windows and Microsoft updates, as well as updated application versions for virtually all installed software. One of these Desktops also acts as a document file-sharing machine and houses the shared QB company file.

I use Avira Antivir Personal Free Edition (currently 10.0.0.592 on these machines) SpywareBlaster 4.4 (not auto-updating) and SAS Professional as the security applications. I also routinely use CCleaner for registry and temp file cleanup.

As mentioned in some other posts, both Avira and SAS are set to real-time protection/scanning.

I've also installed a memory-optimizing application which helps mitigate memory leaks in specific applications, and it has successfully lowered the average memory footprint throughout the day, especially in regards to Firefox. The footprints now averages under 1gb of the installed 3GB, and the 1.5 GB pagefile hardly gets hit. However, the desktop updating issue is still occurring. BTW, All of the machines are coming up clean with complete scans by Avira, SAS, MalwareBytes and TrendMicro Housecall.

The symptoms seem very similar to those experienced with GDI leak issues such as this one described for 64-bit Vista clients, (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932406/en-us) but these are 32-bit Windows XP Pro O/Ses, and SP 3 included several updates relating specifically to this issue.

I've included a screenshot of the SAS peak memory usage (of 260 MB) from one of the machines, but not coincident with the issue. I haven't been able to capture a screenshot of it as the computers are unusable at that point and have to undergo a hard shutdown.

I also have several reports from other clients with the same security applications that are very similar that I haven't been able to see yet first-hand, so I suspect it's becoming more widespread.

I'm really at a loss as to what to do at this point.

[siliconman01]

Does this problem occur if you remove the memory optimization module?

The peak memory usage that is shown in your attached pic is mostly likely occurring during an SAS scan. Once the scan is completed, the high memory usage is released back to normal levels. I'm just wondering if the memory optimizer is the culprit.

[lansharked]

Yes..it actually seems to happen sooner if I disable it. Also, the problem was happening BEFORE I ever installed the memory optimizer; I went looking for it because the symptoms felt like what might happen with a particularly bad memory leak. Last night I was able to capture the issue happening with my phone, I've attached a screenshot

.

[siliconman01]

Yes..it actually seems to happen sooner if I disable it. Also, the problem was happening BEFORE I ever installed the memory optimizer; I went looking for it because the symptoms felt like what might happen with a particularly bad memory leak. Last night I was able to capture the issue happening with my phone, I've attached a screenshot

.

And the problem goes away if you uninstall SAS? Are there any errors showing up in the system Event Viewer?

[kalest]

I would take a closer look at Avira. I put on version 10 recently and it apparently has memory leak problem which caused windows to lose icons, slow down & stop. Bizarrly, the 'turn off computer' window also goes transparent when this happens.

After scrubbing my hard drive and reinstalling Windows, Firefox, Avira & Spybot problems still happened.

Check out Avria's forums.

[lansharked]

I would take a closer look at Avira. I put on version 10 recently and it apparently has memory leak problem which caused windows to lose icons, slow down & stop. Bizarrly, the 'turn off computer' window also goes transparent when this happens.

After scrubbing my hard drive and reinstalling Windows, Firefox, Avira & Spybot problems still happened.

Check out Avria's forums.

Will do. Thanks for the tip. I still have the Avira v9 install executable. Maybe that one won't leak.

[lansharked]

Will do. Thanks for the tip. I still have the Avira v9 install executable. Maybe that one won't leak.

BTW, this is a very live issue on Avira support forums (thx, kalest).

http://forum.avira.com/wbb/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=122767