Virtual memory low

[Marcy]

Well this popped up in the bottom tray and has done so on 2 of my 7 year old
PC's/ I guess that explains why the pcs have been so slow lately.

The balloon that popped up says that the virtual memory is low so windows is
going to do something with the page filing system (like increase it)
Is there anything that i can change myself to increase performance on my
lagging pc.
*Note that you can outrule malware, and a small 256 ram that i have on the
pc which is nothing to systems that are made nowadays.

Windows xp home edition OEM

 

[JS]

Check free disk space on C: drive
If there is 15% or less free space it's time to do
some house keeping.

And 256MB of memory is too little, especially
if you have "Integrated" video.

 

[Don Phillipson]

Well this popped up in the bottom tray and has done so on 2 of my 7 year old
PC's/ I guess that explains why the pcs have been so slow lately.

The balloon that popped up says that the virtual memory is low so windows is
going to do something with the page filing system (like increase it)
Is there anything that i can change myself to increase performance on my
lagging pc.
*Note that you can outrule malware, and a small 256 ram that i have on the
pc which is nothing to systems that are made nowadays.

Windows xp home edition OEM

1. This error message is anomalous. "Virtual memory" is your
swap file on the hard drive, handled by Windows so as to grow
and shrink depending on current needs. If in doubt you should
reset it to "Let Windows Manage It."

2. The quickest way to get better performance is to double
RAM to 512 Mb. which should cost $15 to $30 depending on
where you live.

 

[DL]

It could be that you are running low on free disk space. I would assume,
unless you've messed with the setup that the page file is set to win
managed, and with that little ram it would be about 384mb, which might be
insufficient for whatever apps you are running
IMO winxp requires 512mb of ram for any meaningfull performance

 

[Gerry]

Marcy

The best solution is to add 256 mb RAM. Increasing the pagefile size to
a minimum = maximum of say 768 mb may eliiminate popups but will not
speed up system performance. Adding RAM does not help if the CPU
capacity is low and the system prformance bottleneck. Maintaining
frequently accessed files on a USB hard drive will also result in slow
system performance.

You may help system performance by changing programmes from starting
during the boot process to loading on demand. Minimising multi-tasking
will help. Putting shortcuts like Show Desktop, Internet Explorer,
Outlook Express and Windows Explorer in the Quick Launch Tray may help
to encourage you to close these applications after use as it is easy to
reopen them when required.

Minimising the use of Add-Ons with Internet Explorer will help.

Avoid seciuity software which generates excessive demands for memory.
McAfee and Norton products are notably among those to be avoided.

Avoid using facilities which run in the background when they can be run
when the computer is not being used. An example is Diskeeper which can
continuously defragment when it can be set to run on demand.

--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Jim]

Well this popped up in the bottom tray and has done so on 2 of my 7 year
old
PC's/ I guess that explains why the pcs have been so slow lately.

The balloon that popped up says that the virtual memory is low so windows
is
going to do something with the page filing system (like increase it)
Is there anything that i can change myself to increase performance on my
lagging pc.
*Note that you can outrule malware, and a small 256 ram that i have on the
pc which is nothing to systems that are made nowadays.

Windows xp home edition OEM

It is going to increase the size of pagefile.sys. You should insure that
the pagefile can be increased (i. e. needs some free space on the disk).
You can help the computer a lot by increasing the amount of RAM to 512 KB.

Jim

 

[Twayne]

Well this popped up in the bottom tray and has done so on 2 of my 7
year old PC's/ I guess that explains why the pcs have been so slow
lately.
The balloon that popped up says that the virtual memory is low so
windows is going to do something with the page filing system (like
increase it) Is there anything that i can change myself to increase
performance on
my lagging pc.
*Note that you can outrule malware, and a small 256 ram that i have
on the pc which is nothing to systems that are made nowadays.

Windows xp home edition OEM

It sounds like you have a set size for virtual memory. Try setting that
to System Managed size and I think the message will go away.

Control Panel, System; Advanced tab. In the Performance box, click the
Settings button.
In the new window, click Advanced, in the Virtual Memory box, click the
Change Button.
Be sure the boot drive is selected, click System Managed Size, click
SET.
OK your way out, Restart, and see if the message is gone. I feel pretty
sure it will be.
HTH,

Twayne`

 

[Azy]

My 40 GB HD is about 50% used ( i have 20.5 gb free space)
I understand everyone saying that I could use more ram than the 256 I
currently have. But knowing that i only have the 256, what chould i set my
virtual paging file size to be for all drives? RIGHT now its set to 484 MB.
ALso, I checked the box to "Compress drive to save disk space"...what will
this do and is it a goo thing to do? It was unchecked before.

 

[JS]

See Twayne's post on System Managed pagefile.

You might want to read this:
How to configure paging files for optimization and recovery in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314482/en-us

How to move the paging file in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307886/

The second article (Step #9) discusses how to
determine the size of your pagefile on the C: drive

 

[JS]

"Compress drive to save disk space"...what will this do and is it a goo
thing to do?

Windows will compress (squeeze) files that are not frequently accessed.
Example: C:\WINDOWS\$NtUninstallKB950974$ and similar named folders.

If you do not use any file or folders that are compressed
(typically Blue in color) there is no harm and you save (free up)
disk space. However if you need to access a compressed file then
Windows needs to "uncompress" the file before it can be accessed
and this will have a hit (slow down) on performance.

Files and folder like: C:\WINDOWS\$NtUninstallKB950974$
are never accessed unless you need to uninstall a specific
Windows Update so they are safe to leave compressed.

 

[jinxy]

"Compress drive to save disk space"...what will this do and is it a goo
thing to do?

Windows will compress (squeeze) files that are not frequently accessed.
Example: C:\WINDOWS\$NtUninstallKB950974$ and similar named folders.

If you do not use any file or folders that are compressed
(typically Blue in color) there is no harm and you save (free up)
disk space. However if you need to access a compressed file then
Windows needs to "uncompress" the file before it can be accessed
and this will have a hit (slow down) on performance.

Files and folder like: C:\WINDOWS\$NtUninstallKB950974$
are never accessed unless you need to uninstall a specific
Windows Update so they are safe to leave compressed.

--
JShttp://www.pagestart.comhttp://pagestart.blogspot.com/







- Show quoted text -

On an older system, I would say to max the ram, and use an external
drive, for things that you want to save. Now purge all of the things
that you don't need or use anymore. Run your disk clean up and defrag.
tools. Clean up the drive. This will help to speed things up. -J

 

[Twayne]

My 40 GB HD is about 50% used ( i have 20.5 gb free space)
I understand everyone saying that I could use more ram than the 256 I
currently have. But knowing that i only have the 256, what chould i
set my virtual paging file size to be for all drives? RIGHT now its
set to 484 MB. ALso, I checked the box to "Compress drive to save
disk space"...what will this do and is it a goo thing to do? It was
unchecked before.

Set it to System Managed. 484 Meg isn't nearly enough for your system;
it needs to be abel to assign it as it's needed.

Til then you're swimming upriver.

Twayne`

 

[Shenan Stanley]

My 40 GB HD is about 50% used ( i have 20.5 gb free space)
I understand everyone saying that I could use more ram than the
256 I currently have. But knowing that i only have the 256, what
chould i set my virtual paging file size to be for all drives?
RIGHT now its set to 484 MB. ALso, I checked the box to "Compress
drive to save disk space"...what will this do and is it a goo thing
to do? It was unchecked before.

Thread hijack.

Leave it at "System Managed Size" --> purchase more memory and install it.
Try to bring your machine to 1GB.

http://www.crucial.com/
Use the "Crucial Memory Advisor™ tool" and/or "Crucial System Scanner tool"
to figure out what you need/can get.

Ignore/disable the compression thing - you don't need to do it (you still
have 50% of your drive free) and it might be noticable (decrease in
performance) on a system such as yours.

 

[Gerry]

Shenan

Adding RAM does not help if the CPU capacity is low and the system
performance bottleneck. We don't know in this case what the CPU is.


--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Shenan Stanley]

My 40 GB HD is about 50% used ( i have 20.5 gb free space)
I understand everyone saying that I could use more ram than the
256 I currently have. But knowing that i only have the 256, what
chould i set my virtual paging file size to be for all drives?
RIGHT now its set to 484 MB. ALso, I checked the box to "Compress
drive to save disk space"...what will this do and is it a goo thing
to do? It was unchecked before.

Thread hijack.

Leave it at "System Managed Size" --> purchase more memory and
install it. Try to bring your machine to 1GB.

http://www.crucial.com/
Use the "Crucial Memory AdvisorT tool" and/or "Crucial System
Scanner tool" to figure out what you need/can get.

Ignore/disable the compression thing - you don't need to do it (you
still have 50% of your drive free) and it might be noticable
(decrease in performance) on a system such as yours.

Adding RAM does not help if the CPU capacity is low and the system
performance bottleneck. We don't know in this case what the CPU is.

If the system is able to run Windows XP now and there is only 256MB now -
there is a 99% chance they *would* see an increase in performance if they
increase their total amount of memory, reguardless of the CPU power.

Yes - they could also increase their overall performance if they increased
CPU - but the least expensive, easiest hardware upgrade they could perform
that would have the highest likelihood of improving performance is an
increase in physical memory - they will get nothing out of what they are
trying to do.

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

Shenan

Adding RAM does not help if the CPU capacity is low and the system
performance bottleneck. We don't know in this case what the CPU is.


--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thread hijack.

Leave it at "System Managed Size" --> purchase more memory and
install it. Try to bring your machine to 1GB.

http://www.crucial.com/
Use the "Crucial Memory AdvisorT tool" and/or "Crucial System Scanner
tool" to figure out what you need/can get.

Ignore/disable the compression thing - you don't need to do it (you
still have 50% of your drive free) and it might be noticable
(decrease in performance) on a system such as yours.

Gerry

There is a very good chance that the machine has an integrated video card,
in which case only 192mb will be available for whatever is going down..

It is almost impossible to find older processors which one could trust, but
easy to find and fit extra memory. Pagefile usage will be cut by half, and
the whole machine will feel more sprightly..

 

[JS]

Can't agree more.
I just fixed a PC for a friend that only
had 256MB of memory and Integrated video.
To make matters even worse the hard drive was
a 5400RPM with a transfer rate of 25MB/s so
it was horribly slow. It has a 2.2GHz processor
but my old Dell 933MHz with 512MB memory
and Video card could outperform it.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com

 

[Gerry]

Shenan

I was just trying to make the point that adding RAM is not always the
best solution. If the CPU is not up to the task then it can be a better
decision to replace the computer. At some point the user has to evaluate
whether it is better to build on what they have or to start again.
Replacing the CPU can be done by replacing the motherboard but my
experiemce has been that you can also end up replacing other components
like power supply units etc as well.

In your response you could be wrongly assuming that "the system is able
to run Windows XP". This is a 7 year old computer. The computer was not
designed
for the programmes of today. Windows XP SP3 is much more demanding than
Windows XP SP1. Adding RAM is not the only way to reduce over reliance
on the pagefile. Adding RAM to eliminate low Virtual memory messages is
not what the exercise should be about. We all agree that 256 mb of RAM
is insufficient for most users to have a saisfactory experience when
running Windows XP. What I was questioning was whether adding RAM was
going to offer the best longer term solution.

Mike has mentioned hard drives. If this computer has a slower drive then
you could spend money and replace the drive. My position is that where
you have a 7 year old computer you have to look at all potentional
bottlenecks before spending more money on a computer near the end of
it's useful life.

--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Gerry]

Shenan

It was not Mike that made the point about hard drives. It was JS. Mike
mentioned graphics. Their points just emphasise the importance of
looking at the whole machine and not just availability of RAM when
contemplating a hardware upgrade.

--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Twayne]

Shenan

Adding RAM does not help if the CPU capacity is low and the system
performance bottleneck. We don't know in this case what the CPU is.


--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~





Gerry

There is a very good chance that the machine has an integrated video
card, in which case only 192mb will be available for whatever is
going down..
It is almost impossible to find older processors which one could
trust, but easy to find and fit extra memory. Pagefile usage will be
cut by half, and the whole machine will feel more sprightly..

With that tiny amount of RAM and knowing it's running XP there's almost
no way it could be otherwise. I'll bet virtual ram is pretty high; it
has to be.