Confused? About virtual memory,what do I do?

[tigerlilly]

Hi, for awhile my computer kept saying low on virtual memory, increasing page file, some applications may be denied. Well so far my computer is working fine. I did maintanenece and when I analyzed to see if it needed defrag, it said not needed and that I had plenty of space left. I did disc cleaner and cleaned with the cc cleaner as well. so for awhile I didn't get these messages any more. Now!!! they are back, why? and what should I do??? Thanks in advance for any help. Tigerlilly

 

[Law]

Not sure why, but you should not let the system maintain your page file, you should set it manually (custom), it should be 1.5x the amount of your physical ram and the initialize size and maximum size should be the same. Make sure you click set after then click ok to exit. Restart the computer also.

 

[Tox1cThreat]

right click on mycomputer->properties->advanced->performace (the top option), click settings->Advanced (tab) theres a button almost to the bottom under virtual memory. its called change. click that ->

Increase the page file. you will have to select custom size instead of having the system automatically set the size..

To deermine the size, make sure its a good bit higher than the system set one, (what it is when you first see it) then decide how much space on your hard drive you want to give up..


Virtual Memory aka Page File (aka swap file in *nix systems) is basically a part of your hard drive that the OS can use as RAM, to save temporary data. Its reserved so the amount of space you set in the aformentioned panel will dissappear from the amount of free space on your hard drive

Ex.

My dad has a 20Gb Hard drive, he uses office, a webmail client, and excel. so he doesnt need all 20Gb. He does however only have 128 Mb of ram. So in his case, I gave him 1.5 Gb (to start at) and 2.5Gb (maximum) of page file space. Its a balance of how much you used the drive.


Hope this cleared it all up for you.

 

[Law]

You can set it as high as you want but not over your harddrive space, 1.5x the the amount of your physical ram is the least you can do. Just thought I mention that.

 

[MrCoffee]

Isn't 4gb the max size on a partition?

 

[Law]

That's only true for 32bit processor and OS.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/889654