Advice sought re memory

[Robin McInnes]

Hi,

I wonder is anyone can help me with what I believe to be a memory
problem. My PC seems to be running very slowly, with lots of disc access
activity involved in even the most apparently simple processes, such as
opening an application. I suspected a shortage of memory.

I am running Win XP Pro SP1 on a machine fitted with a 1.00GHz Intel
Celeron processor, 128MB of RAM and an 18.6GB hard drive.

However, I've just done a system information check on the memory with
the following results, which seem a bit on the low side to me:

Total physical memory = 128.00MB (which is as expected)
Available physical memory = 15.32MB (which is a WHOLE LOT LESS than I
expected)
Total virtual memory = 441.98MB
Available virtual memory = 157.45MB
Pagefile size = 315.5MB (although properties of c:\pagefile.sys says it
is only 200MB)

The figure which alarms me the most is the available physical one. The
check was done with no application running, only system idle processes,
and yet something seems to be eating up over 112MB.

Is such a small available fraction of the total normal? Is there
anything I can do to improve it? Or am I just resigned to going out and
buying some more memory modules?

Thanks in advance.

 

[NoNoBadDog!]

Robin;

Based upon your system specs, you can expect Windows to have a lot of
disc activity. Your processor is a Celeron, which means that many of the
features of the Pentium 4 that enhance computing and memory usage are either
limited or disabled. You have 128 MB of RAM, and although Windows will
install and boot on this amount, it is really quite inadequate for anything
but checking email.
Third, an 18.6 GB hard drive is small by today's standard. With a full
installation of Windows, whatever other software you have, the prefetch
folder, the pagefile, Temporary Internet Files, the System Restore files,
and well..yourdisk is probably almost full. Add to this the tendency not to
defrag the hard drive, and well...you get the picture.

I am sure there are some things that you can do to gain a small amount of
productivity back, but with your computer system you cannot expect a high
level of performance. You system, while it does meet or exceed the minimum
requirements of Windows, it is by no means a "powerful" machine.

Bobby

 

[steve]

Hi,

I wonder is anyone can help me with what I believe to be a memory
problem. My PC seems to be running very slowly, with lots of disc access
activity involved in even the most apparently simple processes, such as
opening an application. I suspected a shortage of memory.

I am running Win XP Pro SP1 on a machine fitted with a 1.00GHz Intel
Celeron processor, 128MB of RAM and an 18.6GB hard drive.

XP runs very badly with only 128MB. Any activity will result in
virtual memory disc accesses.

Increase your PC memory size to 512MB and your application performance
problems will just fade away.


Steve

 

[Al Dykes]

XP runs very badly with only 128MB. Any activity will result in
virtual memory disc accesses.

Increase your PC memory size to 512MB and your application performance
problems will just fade away.
Steve

If you just run the basic applications (MSIE, some email, and MS
Office) 256MB is fine. If you run something heavy, like some games
you should find out about how many memory chips and what size your
motherboard can take, bo buy a usefull amount of memory without having
to discard memory simms because they are not filling a slot to full
capacity. (www.crucial.com is a good resource for this.)

 

[Sharon F]

Is such a small available fraction of the total normal? Is there
anything I can do to improve it? Or am I just resigned to going out and
buying some more memory modules?

Yes, it's normal. If you upped your RAM to 256MB or more, Windows would
still put as much as possible into available physical memory. The RAM may
not be actively used but is held in readiness for possible activity.

RAM+pagefile=virtual memory. Most memory operations will take place in the
temporary space provided by RAM. If more space is needed for active tasks,
Windows "parks" data that is not currently being used into the pagefile on
the hard drive.

If performing a task that fills up RAM entirely (video editing, for
example), the operations may span both RAM and pagefile. The task will go
slower in these circumstances. Reading back and forth between drive and RAM
simply takes more time than when all activities can be handled by RAM only.
This is where more RAM on the system would help.

If there is sufficient free space on the hard drive and Virtual Memory
settings have not been restricted, all of this happens behind the scenes.
You might see a message about "increasing" the pagefile if your usual tasks
consistently need more space than the amount of drive space allotted to the
pagefile. This explains your pagefile readings.

More about virtual memory can be found here:
http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

 

[Robin McInnes]

Okay, thanks everyone, I get the message. I need to go and spend some
money and get more RAM, don't I...

It is actually my late father's PC, which he only bought in 2002, and
which came pre-loaded with XP HE. I'm a bit miffed that he appears to
have been sold something with less memory than XP really needs.

Anyway, thanks again.

 

[Ben]

How do I do a "system information check" to get this kind of information
about my computer.

Thanks,
Ben

 

[Robin McInnes]

Hi Ben,

Well the one I did was via the System Tools folder in my Start menu. (I
have customised my start menu tree, so stating the path I used will not
help you.)

I think that the default System Tools location is
Start>Programs>Accessories, but I may be wrong there...

Anyway, when you get there there's one option called 'System
Information' and all the stuff about memory is in its root folder. Just
click on System Information to open the window, and then wait while it
refreshes all the current values.

Hope that helps.