Windows 7 Memory Bug Could be a 'Feature'
Not quite a showstopper, but Microsoft is paying attention.
No matter how ready for primetime any operating system may be, it's never impervious to bugs. This applies to Windows 7, which is now in the can and released to manufacturing.
Apparently, a critical bug has been found in Windows 7 that could crash the computer when running Windows Chkdsk. According to reports, the crash occurs when chkdsk is ran with the /r switch, which is used to locate and repair bad sectors. When ran, the system reportedly consumes memory to 90 percent or more, eventually crashing the computer.
ZDNet blogger Ed Bott ran some tests and concluded that the bug, isn't completely reproducible or as critical as some make it out to be.
Microsoft Windows president Steven Sinofsky replied to the original report detailing the bug with a response that points out that maximum memory usage is actually a "feature" to speed up the chkdsk process. Here's an excerpt from his reply:
"In this case, we haven’t reproduced the crash and we’re not seeing any crashes with chkdsk on teh stack reported in any measurable number that we could find. We had one beta report on the memory usage, but that was resolved by design since we actually did design it to use more memory. But the design was to use more memory on purpose to speed things up, but never unbounded — we requset the available memory and operate within that leaving at least 50M of physical memory. Our assumption was that using /r means your disk is such that you would prefer to get the repair done and over with rather than keep working.
"While we appreciate the drama of 'critical bug' and then the pickup of 'showstopper' that I’ve seen, we might take a step back and realize that this might not have that defcon level. Bugs that are so severe as to require immediate patches and attention would have to have no workarounds and would generally be such that a large set of people would run across them in the normal course of using their PC."
Sinosky added that the Windows team is running an overnight stress test with 40 machines. Read his full reply here.
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hence the old joke
"teh stack"
I bet he thinks he's so 1337...
There may actually be a bug but I suspect it is in reality systems that are unstable for one reason or another (drivers, heat, unstable overclocks, etc). Some sites used extremely poor journalism to report this issue. I am glad to see this site giving a fair report.
After emailing back and forth with the VP Sinofsky, it was found that the chkdsk /r tool is not at fault here. It was simply a chipset controller issue. Please update you chipset drivers to the current driver from your motherboard manufacturer. I did mine, and this fixed the issue. Yes it still uses alot of physical memory, because your checking for physical damage, and errors on the Harddrive your testing. I’m currently completed the chkdsk scan with no BSOD’s or computer sluggishness. Feel free to do this and try it for yourselves. Again, there is no Bug.
Thanks all.
http://www.chris123nt.com/2009/08/ [...] ment-11466
"teh stack"I bet he thinks he's so 1337...
LOL! My first reaction too.
Not to mention that chkdsk is hardly critical to normal everyday activity on one's computer.
Bug, oh no my friend. It's a feature that lets you quickly and conveniently restart your computer ^_^
"is ran" "when ran". Head...Exploding...
They set us up teh CHKDSK bomb!
I don't know about CHKDSK (Wikipedia says '/r' requires a disk-level lock, so yeah), but whenever I ran ScanDisk and tried to use my computer, any disk access would reset ScanDisk. I quickly learned to NOT run other things while scanning/repairing a disk. Since CHKDSK /r is not able to run with other things writing to the drive, this means CHKDSK can use as much memory as it needs, what else would be running that needs that memory?
well, i will have to try and reproduce this, seems i have 8GB of memory, lets see if it will use it all
and now one will ever get that error because people are to lazy to actually run a chkdsk anymore. Many have never heard of it and don't even know what it is for.
BOOM!
I don't know about CHKDSK (Wikipedia says '/r' requires a disk-level lock, so yeah), but whenever I ran ScanDisk and tried to use my computer, any disk access would reset ScanDisk. I quickly learned to NOT run other things while scanning/repairing a disk. Since CHKDSK /r is not able to run with other things writing to the drive, this means CHKDSK can use as much memory as it needs, what else would be running that needs that memory?
Your system drive is the only one that cannot be run with a /r from within the OS. It will require a reboot, but other drives that are hooked up just work (as long as there are no active handles to them).
If its the former, I'd suspect that chkdsk going out of bounds of the available RAM after the reboot regardless of the fact nothing else is running. However if it is another drive or a flash drive or something, Windows may be devoting a ton of RAM to chkdsk and slowing down the viewing of pr0n and the pwning of the nubs by those that do not know that if you need to run it with /r...you should to start it and then stand ten feet away and stare at it and consider becoming religious in hopes that the data is not gone.
The question is... will they ever fix my "0x0000004E" error? I always Bsod hen I browse the web.
The question is... will they ever fix my "0x0000004E" error? I always Bsod hen I browse the web.
you probably have bad ram...doesn't happen to me
check your OC and your RAM
three words, third party utilities.
99% of the time, if there's a functionality built into windows someone else has done it better.
The only bug I care about that I hope is fixed in RTM is the issue Im having with Explorer. About 75% of the time I right click on an icon(even the recycle bin) Windows Explorer stops working and restarts itself. I had this problem with the beta and rc1.
Ran CHKDSK on my Ultimate 64 edition. Fast and no problems
Is this bug related to when I mount a disc image such as game and install it, my memory will slowly climb to 98% ram being used out of 4gb.
I experience the exact same thing, the memory climb up to 90% and more while installing from an image, making the computer (Quad + 4Gb) unresponsive or too slow. i searched in google but nobody seems to mention this problem which was weirder. That bug is present in the beta and even 7600 build , and i still need to verify the RTM. so what could be the problem ? any of you guys experienced it besides Volks1470 ?
you probably have bad ram...doesn't happen to me check your OC and your RAM
Indeed, tap your ram voltage up one notch, see if that cures the sniffle.
"No matter how ready for primetime any operating system may be, it's never impervious to bugs."
Wow. That is a brutal sentence. You completely mangled the english language. There are at least 2 major grammatical flaws in this, the first sentence of your article! Shame on you!
How about: No matter how 'ready for primetime' an operating system may seem, it is never impervious to bugs.
how about somebody comment on the bug i noticed instead of a grammar lesson, it seems i'm not alone and it's pretty serious as i'm obliged to restart the computer to restore the memory consumption level to normal.
Actually upon further consideration I guess that sentence wasn't bad. "It's" was actually used correctly there. My bad. How that sentence still seems awkward to me...
As for the bug, Windows 7 will probably have a major update as soon as you install the final retail version... did you expect any pre-release versions to really be anything more than public beta tests?
that obvious is easy to notice and to reproduce, a major bug like the one i'm talking about should be wiped out right after the beta, i can't believe MS would release windows 7 with this ! and how come nobody ever talked about it ! for awhile i thought i was the only one having this problem...
How about, (this is a big ask), we have a headcount on this one with a simple yes/no vote.
Someone crashed the system when over 90% of RAM was used in a scandisk. When attempting to replicate or reproduce the error the results were inconclusive. The above information said that this was deliberate as they want as much ram used to speed up the process. "We requset the available memory and operate within that leaving at least 50M of physical memory"
Who gives a shit? Honestly, I couldn't give a monkeys. What impact is this going to have on Mr Johnny PC World, I have dealt with people who have owned a PC for 10 years and when I ask them if they ever defrag or scandisk they say "what's that?"
When SSD's become the norm and they all have automatic wear-leveling, no need for defragging, the need to scandisk will evaporate and we will wonder what the big fuss was.
Next. Story.
the bug is a good thing?!
rofl!
Windows 7 probably expect system with >4GB ram.. lol
i did the same test successfully on both W7 RTM x64bit and XPSP2 x64 Bit
result: no crash.
W7 consume 7 GB out of 8 GB, test took 70 minutes and the system was unresponsive.
XPSp2 consume a maximum of 13 MB and most of the time it was 9 MB and took 68 minutes.and i was opening a firefox with 26 tabs .
conclusion:
Windows 7 looks very nice, but why 7 GB for this utility with no improvement?
no problem here, and yeah, this is far from a major issue. as another poster said, there are better and more thorough 3rd party utilities.