Paging in Vista

[Andy]

I was at a friends Dell Vista Dimension E520 today with 512MB RAM and when I
went to control panel / system advanced it was reporting paging/virtual
memory as recommended 754mb but saying currently allocated 1024mb (or
something like that) so I set virtual memory manually system managed size
and restarted the PC and when it restarted it was still reporting the
allocated was more than the recommended why is the PC doing this?

Cheers,

Andy.

 

[Former captain of the Enterprise]

just put it on automatic....

Just make sure you dont have any viruses and spyware!

 

[Andy]

just put it on automatic....

Just make sure you dont have any viruses and spyware!

Yep, I did that by putting it on 'system managed size' but it still reports
allocated is more than recommended.

 

[Former captain of the Enterprise]

recomended... is only 1.5 times the amount of the ram you have...
They give that number so people wont put whatever numbers comes to them
randomly..
as a guidline!

if windows needs more paging file it enlarges it... why do you worry?

 

[Andy]

recomended... is only 1.5 times the amount of the ram you have...
They give that number so people wont put whatever numbers comes to them
randomly..
as a guidline!

if windows needs more paging file it enlarges it... why do you worry?

On my XP PC if I set it to system managed size it shows recommended and
allocated the same size which sound more like it should be doing.

Andy.

 

[Former captain of the Enterprise]

leave vista on automatic... and forget about it...

trying to understand vista.. is hard.. you have to put it on a couch and
start asking
it questions about its childhood.....

 

[Plato]

I was at a friends Dell Vista Dimension E520 today with 512MB RAM and when I
went to control panel / system advanced it was reporting paging/virtual
memory as recommended 754mb but saying currently allocated 1024mb (or
something like that) so I set virtual memory manually system managed size
and restarted the PC and when it restarted it was still reporting the
allocated was more than the recommended why is the PC doing this?

Obviously and very easy to see is that 512 RAM is no where near enough
to run Vista properly and the associated background apps. your friend
has loading up on startup. Adding more RAM to that Dell will certainly
speed things up very noticeably.

 

[Andy]

Obviously and very easy to see is that 512 RAM is no where near enough
to run Vista properly and the associated background apps. your friend
has loading up on startup. Adding more RAM to that Dell will certainly
speed things up very noticeably.

Thanks I should have checked what hungry apps were starting up with PC - if
I remove them maybe it will run faster with just 512mb RAM.

 

[Frank]

Thanks I should have checked what hungry apps were starting up with PC - if
I remove them maybe it will run faster with just 512mb RAM.

Ain't gona happen.
Get more RAM!
You'll be glad you did.
Frank

 

[Jim]

Thanks I should have checked what hungry apps were starting up with PC -
if I remove them maybe it will run faster with just 512mb RAM.

No, it isn't the ones that run at startup which make it run slow. Instead
it is the ones which users start, like Photoshop for example, which really
slow things down.

Jim

 

[Andy]

No, it isn't the ones that run at startup which make it run slow. Instead
it is the ones which users start, like Photoshop for example, which really
slow things down.

Jim

I checked the allocated memory just after vista started up and eventually
settled down without me opening up any programs so it must be just the apps
or vista system files that are hungry - there are a couple of apps in
startup / msconfig I could kill like Roxio drag to disk and some other
things and see what happen next time I restart.

Andy.

 

[Dale White]

If it makes you feel better I saw the same thing. I have 2GB of ram, and I
set the pagefile to 32 Meg and it still says it's using like 256MB. It seems
to say that no matter what I set it to and when I check the pagefile size
it's still at 32MB. If it's creating another pagefile somewhere I can't find
it.

I'm thinking it might not be a tottally accurate statement, maybe a bug or
something.

 

[Lang Murphy]

I checked the allocated memory just after vista started up and eventually
settled down without me opening up any programs so it must be just the
apps or vista system files that are hungry - there are a couple of apps in
startup / msconfig I could kill like Roxio drag to disk and some other
things and see what happen next time I restart.

Andy.

Another option is if your friend has a USB flash drive capable of supporting
ReadyBoost in Vista, he can have a whack at that. (Or if you have a drive he
can borrow to test...)

Here's a link:

http://blogs.msdn.com/tomarcher/archive/2006/06/02/615199.aspx

Good luck,

Lang