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Virtual Memory
Dear Sir/Madam
I have; Total Virtual Memory2.00 GB Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB Page File Space 618.22 MB Today while writng a letter, my pc ran slow and falteringly and a warning came up about my Virtual Memory. I thought I had adequate VM. Could someone please explain to a computer illiterate Thankyou justjohnnygo |
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#2
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Virtual Memory
I think your a bit confused, virtual memory and the page file are the same
thing, you can't have 2GB virtual memory and a 618MB page file. "justjohnnygo" wrote in message ... Dear Sir/Madam I have; Total Virtual Memory2.00 GB Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB Page File Space 618.22 MB Today while writng a letter, my pc ran slow and falteringly and a warning came up about my Virtual Memory. I thought I had adequate VM. Could someone please explain to a computer illiterate Thankyou justjohnnygo -- justjohnnygo |
#3
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Virtual Memory
This message appears in two instances more often than not..
One is where more RAM is installed, and the system managed pagefile size associated with the amount of RAM installed is too large for the amount of usable free space on the hard drive.. ... But generally it is because the hard drive just has too much saved to it. You have options.. clean out unnecessary files and programs.. use Disk Cleanup to dump temp files et al.. remove all hidden uninstall files for XP updates.. get a larger drive and clone your present installation to it.. You should be looking to have 25% clear space on your drive for decent performance to be maintained.. -- Mike Hall MS-MVP Windows Shell/User "justjohnnygo" wrote in message ... Dear Sir/Madam I have; Total Virtual Memory2.00 GB Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB Page File Space 618.22 MB Today while writng a letter, my pc ran slow and falteringly and a warning came up about my Virtual Memory. I thought I had adequate VM. Could someone please explain to a computer illiterate Thankyou justjohnnygo -- justjohnnygo |
#4
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Virtual Memory
I'm not sure how accurate all this is but:
I have my settings for Virtual Memory from 128MB to 197MB, once Windows goes over this amount, it will put up a message that it is auto-resizing the PageFile.sys. You may more that enough room on you hard disk, but it depends on the Control Panel | System | Advanced ... Performance settings. However, I would be more concerned that you have 2GB RAM (correct) and you system needs to expand the pagefile.sys That should no happend unless you have exhausted the 2GB. "justjohnnygo" wrote in message ... Dear Sir/Madam I have; Total Virtual Memory2.00 GB Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB Page File Space 618.22 MB Today while writng a letter, my pc ran slow and falteringly and a warning came up about my Virtual Memory. I thought I had adequate VM. Could someone please explain to a computer illiterate Thankyou justjohnnygo -- justjohnnygo |
#5
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Virtual Memory
Please state how much, "RAM", your system has installed.
"justjohnnygo" wrote in message ... Dear Sir/Madam I have; Total Virtual Memory2.00 GB Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB Page File Space 618.22 MB Today while writng a letter, my pc ran slow and falteringly and a warning came up about my Virtual Memory. I thought I had adequate VM. Could someone please explain to a computer illiterate Thankyou justjohnnygo -- justjohnnygo |
#6
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Virtual Memory
Dave B. wrote:
I think your a bit confused, virtual memory and the page file are the same thing, you can't have 2GB virtual memory and a 618MB page file. I imagine the OP means 618Meg of the 2 Gig pf are in use. Many misinterpret that. Pop` "justjohnnygo" wrote in message ... Dear Sir/Madam I have; Total Virtual Memory2.00 GB Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB Page File Space 618.22 MB Today while writng a letter, my pc ran slow and falteringly and a warning came up about my Virtual Memory. I thought I had adequate VM. Could someone please explain to a computer illiterate Thankyou justjohnnygo -- justjohnnygo |
#7
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Virtual Memory
The numbers you gave below make sense, albeit that's a large amount of VM.
It's confusing to explain, but the total of the last two lines equals the amount you gave in the first line. The numbers don't seem to match exactly because, in reality, 1,000 bytes is actually 1,024 in computerese, so the numbers can sometimes get confusing. Those lines are simply how much you have, how much is free, and how much is used, of your virtual memory. Do you get those numbers before, or after you get the message that you're low on virtual memory? If after, those numbers are pretty much meaningless. If before, then the numbers seem pretty large for what I'm assuming a relative newbie would have to have. Try letting windows determine the size of virtual memory; that will be your best choice unless you have a good reason to have it otherwise such as special software programs that need a LOT of room. Click Start; Settings; Control Panel Click System and highlight the Advanced tab. Under the Performance box, click Settings Click the Advanced tab Toward the bottom you'll see Virtual Memory; click on Change Choose drive C, Be sure there's a check in Let Windows Manage... Click Set OK your way back out and close all windows. See if you still get that error message. How much free space do you have on your hard drive? If it's less than 15%, the problem is that you're running out of disk space. Let us know how you're making out. Lots of knowledgeable people here, many more experienced than I am. HTH Pop` justjohnnygo wrote: Dear Sir/Madam I have; Total Virtual Memory2.00 GB Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB Page File Space 618.22 MB Today while writng a letter, my pc ran slow and falteringly and a warning came up about my Virtual Memory. I thought I had adequate VM. Could someone please explain to a computer illiterate Thankyou justjohnnygo |
#8
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Dear Dave
Thankyou for your reply. I rechecked my system information and it still states: Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB Page File Space 618.22 MB Therefore your reply has confused me even more. i have only written what my system information states. Even more confused justjohnnygo Quote:
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#9
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Dear Pop
I carried out the operation Click Start; Settings; Control Panel Click System and highlight the Advanced tab. Under the Performance box, click Settings Click the Advanced tab Toward the bottom you'll see Virtual Memory; click on Change Choose drive C, Be sure there's a check in Let Windows Manage... Click Set OK your way back out and close all windows. There was no "Let Windows Manage" However, there was "System managed size" into which I put a dot/check. Ihave 256RAM Sum of hard disks C Total Capacity 37.28GB Used 8.01GB Free 29.26GB Local Disk C Usage 22% (low) Total paging file size for all drives 383MB Minimum Allowed 2MB Recommended 382MB Currently Allocated 383MB Does this help explain why I had problems. Quote:
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#10
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Dear Shaun
I have 256MB RAM Many have offered advice. This is what I have done so far. I carried out the operation Click Start; Settings; Control Panel Click System and highlight the Advanced tab. Under the Performance box, click Settings Click the Advanced tab Toward the bottom you'll see Virtual Memory; click on Change Choose drive C, Be sure there's a check in Let Windows Manage... Click Set OK your way back out and close all windows. There was no "Let Windows Manage" However, there was "System managed size" into which I put a dot/check. I have 256MB RAM Sum of hard disks C Total Capacity 37.28GB Used 8.01GB Free 29.26GB Local Disk C Usage 22% (low) Total paging file size for all drives 383MB Minimum Allowed 2MB Recommended 382MB Currently Allocated 383MB Does this help explain why I had problems? Quote:
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#11
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Dear Mike
Recently, I cleaned out a lot of photos, files and redundant programmes. However, other people have offered advice and this is what I have done so far I carried out the operation Click Start; Settings; Control Panel Click System and highlight the Advanced tab. Under the Performance box, click Settings Click the Advanced tab Toward the bottom you'll see Virtual Memory; click on Change Choose drive C, Be sure there's a check in Let Windows Manage... Click Set OK your way back out and close all windows. There was no "Let Windows Manage" However, there was "System managed size" into which I put a dot/check. I have 256MB RAM Sum of hard disks C Total Capacity 37.28GB Used 8.01GB Free 29.26GB Local Disk C Usage 22% (low) Total paging file size for all drives 383MB Minimum Allowed 2MB Recommended 382MB Currently Allocated 383MB Does this help explain why I had problems? Yours Truly justjohnnygo QUOTE=Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User]This message appears in two instances more often than not.. One is where more RAM is installed, and the system managed pagefile size associated with the amount of RAM installed is too large for the amount of usable free space on the hard drive.. ... But generally it is because the hard drive just has too much saved to it. You have options.. clean out unnecessary files and programs.. use Disk Cleanup to dump temp files et al.. remove all hidden uninstall files for XP updates.. get a larger drive and clone your present installation to it.. You should be looking to have 25% clear space on your drive for decent performance to be maintained.. -- Mike Hall MS-MVP Windows Shell/User "justjohnnygo" wrote in message ... Dear Sir/Madam I have; Total Virtual Memory2.00 GB Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB Page File Space 618.22 MB Today while writng a letter, my pc ran slow and falteringly and a warning came up about my Virtual Memory. I thought I had adequate VM. Could someone please explain to a computer illiterate Thankyou justjohnnygo -- justjohnnygo [/quote] |
#12
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Dear New Science
How do you set your VM from 128MB to 197MB??? Following various advice this is my present state: Recently, I cleaned out a lot of photos, files and redundant programmes. However, other people have offered advice and this is what I have done so far I carried out the operation Click Start; Settings; Control Panel Click System and highlight the Advanced tab. Under the Performance box, click Settings Click the Advanced tab Toward the bottom you'll see Virtual Memory; click on Change Choose drive C, Be sure there's a check in Let Windows Manage... Click Set OK your way back out and close all windows. There was no "Let Windows Manage" However, there was "System managed size" into which I put a dot/check. I have 256MB RAM Sum of hard disks C Total Capacity 37.28GB Used 8.01GB Free 29.26GB Local Disk C Usage 22% (low) Total paging file size for all drives 383MB Minimum Allowed 2MB Recommended 382MB Currently Allocated 383MB Does this help explain why I had problems? Yours Truly justjohnnygo Quote:
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#13
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Virtual Memory
One thing I forgot to mention was to do a Restart after making those
changes; I don't remember if windows reminds the user of that or not, but it's an important step. You said " Does this help explain why I had problems." Empahisis on "HAD", psat tense. Does that imply that you no longer have those problems now? You're no longer getting the error message? If so, good. If not, let us know. And if so, the answer to your question is "yes" g. Your assumption on which box to check was correct. Now that Windows is managing the size of virtual memory, the numbers you posted make sense. The pagefile can now grow or shrink, as needed, which also gives the advantage of a little more available disk space for other uses. I suspect that somewhere along the line, you or someone tried to make things run a little better by increasing the size of the pagefile to a max of 2 Gig, which in fact CAN cause problems with your setup. It's much better in your situation to allow Windows to manage the size of the pagefile, which is what you accomplised by following the instructions I gave you. Assuming that fixed it, of course :-). You are light on RAM. XP would really be a lot happier in 512 Meg of RAM if you can afford it. You'll find it would speed some things up quite a bit too. I know MS says XP will run on less RAM but the practical minimum for XP's RAM is really 512 Meg, a Gig if you're running highly intensive applications, which it does not sound like you are doing. In fact, from your numbers, I suspect you don't yet have many applications ins talled period, other than XP and its Service Pack (SP2). Be sure you keep it updated by using Windows Update. Your hard drive size is just "OK", and should suffice for the time being. In general you need at least 15%, ideally 20%, of your hard drive free to assure storage of your Restore Points, room for defrag operations, etc.. Thus, if/when you get down to about 8 Gig of free space left, expect to be seeing problems starting to happen and resourse error messages. Below 6 Gig, Defrag won't work right any longer, and other things may start to go wrong. Since you only have 8 Gig of your drive used right now it's fairly obvious you aren't running many applications yet, so you're OK. However, as you start to add more applications, disk space will start to get more important. When you get to that point, 80 Gig is the realistic min for a single hard drive system, with 160 Gig even better. You'll find XP really wants a processor speed of at least about 1 GHz, so whether you're going to want more RAM and a hard drive or a new computer in the future is a decision to realize you may have to make eventually but like I said, for the moment your system looks OK. Lastly, you should have a firewall, antivirus and at least 3 anti-spyware programs installed to protect the system while you are on the internet. If you have XP SP2 you have a basic firewall already and the antivirus and spyware stuff can all be found as free downloads. HTH Pop` justjohnnygo wrote: Dear Pop I carried out the operation Click Start; Settings; Control Panel Click System and highlight the Advanced tab. Under the Performance box, click Settings Click the Advanced tab Toward the bottom you'll see Virtual Memory; click on Change Choose drive C, Be sure there's a check in Let Windows Manage... Click Set OK your way back out and close all windows. There was no "Let Windows Manage" However, there was "System managed size" into which I put a dot/check. Ihave 256RAM Sum of hard disks C Total Capacity 37.28GB Used 8.01GB Free 29.26GB Local Disk C Usage 22% (low) Total paging file size for all drives 383MB Minimum Allowed 2MB Recommended 382MB Currently Allocated 383MB Does this help explain why I had problems. Pop` Wrote: The numbers you gave below make sense, albeit that's a large amount of VM. It's confusing to explain, but the total of the last two lines equals the amount you gave in the first line. The numbers don't seem to match exactly because, in reality, 1,000 bytes is actually 1,024 in computerese, so the numbers can sometimes get confusing. Those lines are simply how much you have, how much is free, and how much is used, of your virtual memory. Do you get those numbers before, or after you get the message that you're low on virtual memory? If after, those numbers are pretty much meaningless. If before, then the numbers seem pretty large for what I'm assuming a relative newbie would have to have. Try letting windows determine the size of virtual memory; that will be your best choice unless you have a good reason to have it otherwise such as special software programs that need a LOT of room. Click Start; Settings; Control Panel Click System and highlight the Advanced tab. Under the Performance box, click Settings Click the Advanced tab Toward the bottom you'll see Virtual Memory; click on Change Choose drive C, Be sure there's a check in Let Windows Manage... Click Set OK your way back out and close all windows. See if you still get that error message. How much free space do you have on your hard drive? If it's less than 15%, the problem is that you're running out of disk space. Let us know how you're making out. Lots of knowledgeable people here, many more experienced than I am. HTH Pop` justjohnnygo wrote:- Dear Sir/Madam I have; Total Virtual Memory2.00 GB Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB Page File Space 618.22 MB Today while writng a letter, my pc ran slow and falteringly and a warning came up about my Virtual Memory. I thought I had adequate VM. Could someone please explain to a computer illiterate Thankyou justjohnnygo- |
#14
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hi Pop
. Your suggestion concerning my MSI (Micro Star) MS-6330 V5.0 (K7T Turbo2) Motherboard was that 256 RAM was not enough and that maybe 512 would be better . If so, how do I upgrade? I believe part CT64M64S4D75 is compatible and also CT64M64S4D7E Both cost around 100 dollars. Also, you said, Xp likes a processor speed of 1GHz . I have a AMD Athlon(tm)XP 1500+ Version: 86 Family 6 Model Stepping 2 Speed: 1328Mhz How would I upgrade that? Any help or advice would be appreciated. Yours Truly justjohnnygo One thing I forgot to mention was to do a Restart after making those changes; I don't remember if windows reminds the user of that or not, but it's an important step. You said " Does this help explain why I had problems." Empahisis on "HAD", psat tense. Does that imply that you no longer have those problems now? You're no longer getting the error message? If so, good. If not, let us know. And if so, the answer to your question is "yes" g. Your assumption on which box to check was correct. Now that Windows is managing the size of virtual memory, the numbers you posted make sense. The pagefile can now grow or shrink, as needed, which also gives the advantage of a little more available disk space for other uses. I suspect that somewhere along the line, you or someone tried to make things run a little better by increasing the size of the pagefile to a max of 2 Gig, which in fact CAN cause problems with your setup. It's much better in your situation to allow Windows to manage the size of the pagefile, which is what you accomplised by following the instructions I gave you. Assuming that fixed it, of course :-). You are light on RAM. XP would really be a lot happier in 512 Meg of RAM if you can afford it. You'll find it would speed some things up quite a bit too. I know MS says XP will run on less RAM but the practical minimum for XP's RAM is really 512 Meg, a Gig if you're running highly intensive applications, which it does not sound like you are doing. In fact, from your numbers, I suspect you don't yet have many applications ins talled period, other than XP and its Service Pack (SP2). Be sure you keep it updated by using Windows Update. Your hard drive size is just "OK", and should suffice for the time being. In general you need at least 15%, ideally 20%, of your hard drive free to assure storage of your Restore Points, room for defrag operations, etc.. Thus, if/when you get down to about 8 Gig of free space left, expect to be seeing problems starting to happen and resourse error messages. Below 6 Gig, Defrag won't work right any longer, and other things may start to go wrong. Since you only have 8 Gig of your drive used right now it's fairly obvious you aren't running many applications yet, so you're OK. However, as you start to add more applications, disk space will start to get more important. When you get to that point, 80 Gig is the realistic min for a single hard drive system, with 160 Gig even better. You'll find XP really wants a processor speed of at least about 1 GHz, so whether you're going to want more RAM and a hard drive or a new computer in the future is a decision to realize you may have to make eventually but like I said, for the moment your system looks OK. Lastly, you should have a firewall, antivirus and at least 3 anti-spyware programs installed to protect the system while you are on the internet. If you have XP SP2 you have a basic firewall already and the antivirus and spyware stuff can all be found as free downloads. HTH Pop` justjohnnygo wrote: Dear Pop I carried out the operation Click Start; Settings; Control Panel Click System and highlight the Advanced tab. Under the Performance box, click Settings Click the Advanced tab Toward the bottom you'll see Virtual Memory; click on Change Choose drive C, Be sure there's a check in Let Windows Manage... Click Set OK your way back out and close all windows. There was no "Let Windows Manage" However, there was "System managed size" into which I put a dot/check. Ihave 256RAM Sum of hard disks C Total Capacity 37.28GB Used 8.01GB Free 29.26GB Local Disk C Usage 22% (low) Total paging file size for all drives 383MB Minimum Allowed 2MB Recommended 382MB Currently Allocated 383MB Does this help explain why I had problems. Pop` Wrote: The numbers you gave below make sense, albeit that's a large amount of VM. It's confusing to explain, but the total of the last two lines equals the amount you gave in the first line. The numbers don't seem to match exactly because, in reality, 1,000 bytes is actually 1,024 in computerese, so the numbers can sometimes get confusing. Those lines are simply how much you have, how much is free, and how much is used, of your virtual memory. Do you get those numbers before, or after you get the message that you're low on virtual memory? If after, those numbers are pretty much meaningless. If before, then the numbers seem pretty large for what I'm assuming a relative newbie would have to have. Try letting windows determine the size of virtual memory; that will be your best choice unless you have a good reason to have it otherwise such as special software programs that need a LOT of room. Click Start; Settings; Control Panel Click System and highlight the Advanced tab. Under the Performance box, click Settings Click the Advanced tab Toward the bottom you'll see Virtual Memory; click on Change Choose drive C, Be sure there's a check in Let Windows Manage... Click Set OK your way back out and close all windows. See if you still get that error message. How much free space do you have on your hard drive? If it's less than 15%, the problem is that you're running out of disk space. Let us know how you're making out. Lots of knowledgeable people here, many more experienced than I am. HTH Pop` justjohnnygo wrote:- Dear Sir/Madam I have; Total Virtual Memory2.00 GB Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB Page File Space 618.22 MB Today while writng a letter, my pc ran slow and falteringly and a warning came up about my Virtual Memory. I thought I had adequate VM. Could someone please explain to a computer illiterate Thankyou justjohnnygo-[/quote] |
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