Virtual Memory

[Vlad]

Hi,

This is a question from a computer technophobe I'm afraid...so be gentle.

My IBM Thinkpad laptop ever so often throws up a message saying that my system is low on Virtual Memory and to press Help for further info and press OK to continue....pressing Help does not bring anything up on Virtual Memory and pressing OK enables the computer to carry on from where it left off.

Question: Does the computer resolve low Virtual Memory by itself or do I have to consider getting this rectified in more detail and if so how or what do I do next????

Many thanks

PS: Running windows 2000 if that helps

 

[Shude]

You should aim to have as much VM as you have RAM. Taking into account the filesystem you might want to add about 10% onto that. For example if you have 128MB of RAM then about 140MB of VM should be about right. You shouldn't have much more than that though because excessive VM can also cause performance issues of it's own.

Under Win2k the VM stuff is under the performance section, you can find that if you right-click on my computer and have a dig around in there, I'm using an XP machine at work so I can't describe exactly and I can't remember!

 

[Vlad]

Just been having a dig around my computer.....couldn't find a performance section but found a systems section which provided the following info

Question is, does it mean anything...or does it give any pointers?

Total Physical Memory 163,184KB
Available Physical Memory 36,748KB

Total Virtual Memory 463,468KB
Available Virtual Mmemory 86,740 KB

Page File Space 300,284KB


Many thanks for your help so far

 

[Shude]

Total Physical Memory 163,184KB
Available Physical Memory 36,748KB

Err, ok, we'll come back to that in a minute

Total Virtual Memory 463,468KB
Available Virtual Memory 86,740 KB

Page File Space 300,284KB

What's with the 300MB page file?

Something has eaten loads of your RAM. If those figures were pulled with nothing running other than background tasks then you either run an app with a memory leak or you have some hefty background processes running.

Try getting that info right after a reboot and see if they're any different, don't even fire up your browser before getting the numbers as browsers eat loads of RAM these days too...

 

[PJH]

Win2K

Right click the My Computer icon gives the System Properties Box
Click Advanced tab, then Performance Options
Virtual Memory can be set for Applications or Background Tasks.

 

[Vlad]

Shude,

Many thanks......I'm afraid this is where I show complete ignorance of computers.

Re the 300MB page file. I have no understanding of what would effect this file and why it would be so large....I'll try the reboot and see what it shows.

PJH.

Followed your instructions.....what should I be running...as Applications or Background Tasks?

Thanks guys....much appreciated.

 

[PJH]

Shude,

PJH.

Followed your instructions.....what should I be running...as Applications or Background Tasks?

Thanks guys....much appreciated.

The settings on a PC at work are:-
Memory 261,616 Kb Ram
Virtual Memory
C: 384 - 768 Mb
Same settings for Applications & Background services on this PC.

The Start>Help suggests:-
For best performance, set the initial size to not less than the recommended size under Total paging file size for all drives. The recommended size is equivalent to 1.5 times the amount of RAM on your system.

 

[Vlad]

Shude,

Just rebooted my system without it being connected to my Broadband....only had anti virus etc running in the background and the scores on the doors were as follows;

Physical Memory 153,184KB
Total Physical Memory 36,736 KB

Virtual Memory 407,080kb
Total VM 139,000KB

Page File size 243,896KB

Does this give you any further pointers with what may be going on?

Many thanks once again.

 

[andy_k]

that looks pretty much normal for a machine with 192 mb of RAM in it.

Windoze is using the swap/paging file just to run itself my "quick fix" would be to max the RAM out in the machine, if it holds 512mb (like most laptops) then make sure that's what is in there.


you can adjust the swap file but I'd leave it as it is as Windows is currently managing it and making adjustments on the fly as and where it's needed which are the messages you are seeing.


HTH

Andy

 

[Vlad]

Phew......thanks everybody for your input.......much appreciated.

I'll leave as is and let it sort itself out.

Many thanks once again

 

[Shude]

in the meantime I can recommend trying this out:

http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/system/maxmem.htm

 

[Alfie]

that looks pretty much normal for a machine with 192 mb of RAM in it.

Windoze is using the swap/paging file just to run itself my "quick fix" would be to max the RAM out in the machine, if it holds 512mb (like most laptops) then make sure that's what is in there.


you can adjust the swap file but I'd leave it as it is as Windows is currently managing it and making adjustments on the fly as and where it's needed which are the messages you are seeing.


HTH

Andy

I would agree with this. There is no substitute for having as much memory as you can possibly afford/fit in. As ever it is always best in the interests of performance not to page or swap at all. Only enough memory for all your applications and O/S will ensure this.

The solution to your problem is to leave the O/s to do its job and put in some more memory!

 

[garystu1965]

Not one person here has mentioned disk space. Make sure there is enough disk space to fit the pagefile on it. As a rule for greatest performance set your pagefile to twice your physical memory and keep the min and max sizes the same. It's quicker because the pagefile doesn't need to keep shrinking and expanding. You must though have enough space on the disk to accommodate a reasonably sized swap file. There are other tweaks about where to place the swap file (ie different partitions, not on system partition etc) but this is beyond the scope of this lecture.

Gary Culpan
MCSE NT4

 

[andy_k]

fixed swap file sizes are fine if you have a load of RAM (IGB and over) but on systems where it's limited (such as this) a sub 400mb swap/paging file will be little or no help in the day to day running of any "serious" applications and even if it's fixed windows (XP and 2000) will expand it anyway if it needs more headroom. On machines with small amounts of physical RAM it's best to just let windows get on with it (in my opinion anyway)

Andy

 

[garystu1965]

My IBM Thinkpad laptop ever so often throws up a message saying that my system is low on Virtual Memory

Andy,

Virtual memory is the swap file. Nothing more, nothing less.

Gary

 

[andy_k]

yes I know that virtual memory is the swap file

but every now and again, Windoze can run out of it, in earlier versions when it ran out it simply stopped functioning but it no longer does that because it adjusts the allocated disk space to cater for the increased demand. Under XP this happens whether or not you have set it to 1.5 or 2 times the amount of physical RAM.

My argument against setting a limit on a system which only has 192mb of physical RAM is that a sub 400mb swap file will not really be much good. As Windows will have initially followed this principle when allocating disk space the message that was displayed will be quite a common occurence if you are running any "serious" software that relies heavily on RAM but I'd said that already

I still see that message occasionally on my machines which have 2GB of RAM in them so I know it can't be avoided altogether.

Andy

 

[Steve_Perry]

...I still see that message occasionally on my machines which have 2GB of RAM in them so I know it can't be avoided altogether...

You could try Linux












Joke, joke!!!

Sorry couldn't resist typing that

S.

 

[andy_k]

tee hee, I could do Steve but without some pretty major currently unavailable software ports and reinvestment on my behalf that ain't gonna happen - thanks for your concern though, now all we need is some smug Mac owner saying that we should all use the same machine as them

Andy

 

[garystu1965]

tee hee, I could do Steve but without some pretty major currently unavailable software ports and reinvestment on my behalf that ain't gonna happen - thanks for your concern though, now all we need is some smug Mac owner saying that we should all use the same machine as them

Andy

Smug Mac owner ? Well it depends if he works in I.T. so knows what he's talking about (perhaps) as opposed to someone who just uses the computer for his job, maybe knows what an INI file is, Registry (or pagefile) and thinks he's an expert. In my job in looking after XP infrastructure globally I meet people like this quite a lot.

 

[nfs_tgb]

most operateing systems can only ever find 512mb anymore it doesnt know its got unless you help it find it you have to know where to look win xp however can find a lot more. not sure about win 2k i guess it only finds 512mb wasnt ever a very popular choice for home pc use. its the only operateing system i never used as of what i was told it was no good but i used to expect a pc to play all the games about be internet capable and put dvds to cdr which really did take a lot of power only time ive known people getting the fastest cpu and maximum amount of ram they could get the pc to locate.