Low Virtual Memory warning...and PC sometimes very slow or hanging.

[Ruud]

I posted this request earlier, but I could not found it in this Newsgroup
After reinstalling WindowsXP, my PC gives more times a message
that the virtual memory is low. I never had that before.

All the same programs are installed.
Only MacAfee.0 A-virus/Firewall is New, will that be the problem?

Looking in the news-groups, there were more questions about this item, but
no good solution. Virtual memory is checked manually 384 -768 (Drive E
Hoping for an answer
Ruud

Info: Pent4, 1.8Ghz, 256mb, with 4 hard drives Win98 is on C: XP on E:

 

[cquirke]

You should set this option to "system managed size" as it
would appear you aren't to sure of what you are doing.

How does that work in XP? It was generally the best idea for
Win9x to manage swap size, especially in Win98+, but I'm not
sure whether NT works the same way.

This is shown by your small amount of RAM. 256 is simply
not enough in today's environment. For XP 512MB of RAM
should be the minimum.

Sorry, but that's nonsense - it depends on what apps you
are using. Even 128M is tolerable if your apps are old
and small, though 256M is obviously nicer.

So if in fact you are running some graphic intense programs
for instance, you may in fact not have enought pagefile set
for the system to use.

That makes sense - but then, that's a matter of what the app
needs. Generally I boost pagefile size to 512M with XP Home
running 128M or 256M physical RAM.

The amount of memory (RAM + pagefile) you use depends on what
you are doing, not how much physical RAM you have - IOW you
don't magically need less pagefile because you have less RAM!

So if you use (say) 450M memory, you'd want 330M pagefile with
128M RAM and 200M pagefile with 256M RAM.

The exception to this logic arises where the system crashes,
and needs to do a memory dump - as that is also written to
the pagefile. This is where the "pagefile must be bigger than
physical RAM" logic comes from, else the dump won't fit.

 

[Alex Nichol]

How does that work in XP? It was generally the best idea for
Win9x to manage swap size, especially in Win98+, but I'm not
sure whether NT works the same way.

It doesn't. Nor does it work quite as NT or even Win2000 did


May I suggest a read of my page on the subject at
www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm