How can I find out what driver uses the tag “Ddk” because it
has a memory leak that I would like to get fixed, or remove the driver
if I do not require it. I have WinDbg installed on the machine, but
so far have found no way to tell what calls are using the memory tag
(pooltag=“Ddk”)(I am connecting to local computer with the debugger
which limits some o the output of the debugger). Running Windows XP
Machine:
Dual Core Dell XPS 400, 2.8 GHz,
Intel(R) Pro/1000 PL Network Connection
NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS
Little history, I leave my machine up 24x7 hrs, after a couple of
days, windows would kind of get ill, things would not launch, I couldn’t
even bring up Task manager. I investigated with “Performance monitor”
and determined that something was eating up memory(“Nonpaged Pool” memory).
I looked at task manager, and could not see any processes that were eating
up Nonpage Pool memory, at which time I started to suspect O/S or driver.
I installed “Support Tools” off the XP CD, used the utility called
“poolmon.exe” (after turning on memory tagging with “gflags”) and
determined that something with the pool tag “Ddk” was eating up all the
“NonPaged Pool” memory. I did some research, and found out that Ddk is
the default memory tag allocation that windows device developer kit uses.
Hmmmm.
Researched a little more, and found the windows debugger “WinDbg” off
the windows web site. Installed it, and turned on “DEBUG” boot options, and
was able to connect the debugger to my local machine. Unfortunately, at this
point by running local WinDbg on my machine, I have been unable to convert
the memory POOLTAG=“Ddk” to a binary/DLL so I can determine what is the
cause of my problems.
Any Help/Advice would be appreciated.
Kithana
> How can I find out what driver uses the tag “Ddk” because it
has a memory leak
The tag “Ddk” is the default tag, and does make it hard to figure out an
owner.
You might try turning on driver verifier, and then disable drivers one at a
time in device manager. Verifier will trap (i.e into windbg) leaked memory
on driver unload. You would have to look, but the command “!verifier 3”
might dump out owners of allocated blocks on a live system. I know “!verifer
3 theDriver.sys” will dump out the blocks that have leaked, but don’t know
if that works before driver unload.
Some of the system-level software installed on the machine is dirtily
written and does not provide its own tags, using the defaults instead.
Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP
StorageCraft Corporation
xxxxx@storagecraft.com
http://www.storagecraft.com
----- Original Message -----
From:
To: “Windows System Software Devs Interest List”
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 3:54 AM
Subject: [ntdev] Memory Leak pooltag=“Ddk”, windows xp media center 2004, what
driver is this?
> How can I find out what driver uses the tag “Ddk” because it
> has a memory leak that I would like to get fixed, or remove the driver
> if I do not require it. I have WinDbg installed on the machine, but
> so far have found no way to tell what calls are using the memory tag
> (pooltag=“Ddk”)(I am connecting to local computer with the debugger
> which limits some o the output of the debugger). Running Windows XP
>
> Machine:
> Dual Core Dell XPS 400, 2.8 GHz,
> Intel(R) Pro/1000 PL Network Connection
> NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS
>
>
> Little history, I leave my machine up 24x7 hrs, after a couple of
> days, windows would kind of get ill, things would not launch, I couldn’t
> even bring up Task manager. I investigated with “Performance monitor”
> and determined that something was eating up memory(“Nonpaged Pool” memory).
> I looked at task manager, and could not see any processes that were eating
> up Nonpage Pool memory, at which time I started to suspect O/S or driver.
>
> I installed “Support Tools” off the XP CD, used the utility called
> “poolmon.exe” (after turning on memory tagging with “gflags”) and
> determined that something with the pool tag “Ddk” was eating up all the
> “NonPaged Pool” memory. I did some research, and found out that Ddk is
> the default memory tag allocation that windows device developer kit uses.
> Hmmmm.
>
> Researched a little more, and found the windows debugger “WinDbg” off
> the windows web site. Installed it, and turned on “DEBUG” boot options, and
> was able to connect the debugger to my local machine. Unfortunately, at this
> point by running local WinDbg on my machine, I have been unable to convert
> the memory POOLTAG=“Ddk” to a binary/DLL so I can determine what is the
> cause of my problems.
>
> Any Help/Advice would be appreciated.
> Kithana
>
> —
> Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
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