The number of "handles" running in the task manager continuously goes up

[mevan]

Hello,

The problem - After my computer is on about 4-5 hours it experiences a "fatal error" and shuts down windows. 

What I have found out so far - In the task manager there are 44 processes running (this stays about constant) and 480 threads running (this stays about constant).  However, the number of handles running starts about 9000 (when first booting up) and continuously rises about 5 a second.  This means the available memory continuously goes down.  The commit charge starts about 300M/1224M.  When the total commit charge reaches the limit commit charge the computer shuts down windows.  It takes about 4 hours or so after tuning it on and the number of handles has reached 72000 by this point. 

The CPU Usuage stays low.  It's currently 10% as I type this.  I have tried manually ending different processes.  My thinking is that maybe one of them is making the handles go up but no matter what I close the handle number is still rising. 

Computer info:
Dell
Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80 GHz
Windows XP, Professional, Version 2002, Service Pack 2
504 M RAM
37 GB hard drive with 8GB free


How the problem seemed to start about a month ago.  I ran out of hard drive space so I deleted years worth of photos.  The problem seemed to be there afterwards.  May be coincidence - not sure.  I don't really know much about this.

Any ideas, advice, or things to try would be appreciated!

Thanks,

Barb

[Dias de verano]

virus check would be a good plan.

[drmsucks]

Wow - what a great analysis! Kudos

Sounds like a program or service with bad memory management. Does Task Manager show any programs running while the Handles count increases? If so, which programs?

See if you still have a swap file set up after "running out of hard drive space"
 - Start>Control Panel>System>Advanced tab>Performance-settings>Advanced tab>Virtual Memory-change>Choose "Let Windows manage" or "System manage" ->Set, then "Okay" out. Re-boot.

See what happens to the Handles count if you boot into Safe Mode. Likewise, in 'Normal" mode, try this: Start>Run> type msconfig, enter>on the General tab, select the 'Diagnostic Startup' option, "okay" and re-boot.

Advise back.

EDIT: Dias and I posted at the same time - start with an av scan, if you haven't already.