john czarnuszewicz said:
I have 2 PCs, Both have 1 GIG of RAM. One is XP PRO, the other XP HOME
versions.
Seems that both do not want to use more than about 25% of installed RAM.
SWAP file on HD always seems to be busy.
I placed
CONSERVATIVESWAPFILEUSAGE=1 into SYSTEM.INI. What else can I do?
By contrast, my LINUX systems have no trouble using RAM first then SWAP
space.
Reason for all the ram is that both new boxes to become dual boot. Then I
will give the old boxes to some relative.
I seriously doubt that your Windows XP is actually using the paging
file to any degree while there is still a significant amount of unused
RAM.
There is a free utility that you can use to check for actual usage of
the paging file. Download it from
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm or from
http://billsway.com/notes_public/WinXP_Tweaks/ and use it to check how
much, if any, of the paging file consists of active memory pages
actually moved from RAM.
However the paging file in Windows XP also has another function, and
that is to satisfy the memory address space for the unused portions of
memory allocation requests. These requests are typically overstated
by both Windows components and application programs, often very
substantially so.
The XP Memory Manager will automatically assign the unused portions of
these requests to the paging file, leaving RAM for only those portions
that are actually used. Note that this does not require any actual
disk activity - just entries in the memory mapping tables maintained
by the CPU. And when some application or Windows component decides
that it needs to use some of the requested but previously unused
memory then it can be instanteously remapped to an available location
in RAM.
Hope this clarifies the situation.
Good luck
Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."