Virtual Memory Problems.....Maybe a suggestion or two??? Please.
Sunday, September 5, 2004 by TN Brat! | Discussion: Stardock Software
First I should say that I am forever mulit-tasking...big time....
This is the error I get....
"Windows Virtual Memory Too Low
Your system is low in virtual memory.
Windows is increasing the size of your
virtual memory paging file. During this
process, memory requests for some application
may be denied."
I get that at least once a day and I don't know what to do....
Here are the specs for my system...
HP Pavilion
Intel (R)
Celeron (R) CPU 2.70 GHZ
2.69 GHZ
248 MB RAM
And I'm running...
Windows XP
Home Edition
Version 2002
Service Pack 1
It never locks up or anything when it says that....I've looked at the "Virtual Memory Paging File" but I don't know what I should do with it....
As for the multi-tasking that I do....I ALWAYS have PSP8 running...ALWAYS! But I don't think that the combination of other programs that I may be running wouldn't be any different from anyone elses around here....but that's why I'm asking here because I'm usually also running like Logon Studio or Skin Studio and of course I use WB, Cursor XP, Tablaunchpad...but I usually shut down the Beatnik and Rainlendar and Object Dock when I'm working....and have prety much stopped using Desktop X altogether...
Thanks!!
[Message Edited]
Reply #2 Sunday, September 5, 2004 7:48 AM
Reply #3 Sunday, September 5, 2004 11:00 AM
Then do as Halluci said.
If you have just 1 drive, set the pagefile size at a higher level.
Right Click My Computer, Properties, Advanced, Performance (settings button), Advanced, Virtual Memory (change button). Highlight the drive letter, and check the custom size button. Set the initial size and maximum size to the same number, then hit the Set button. You will probably have to reboot then.
The MS recommended size is 1.5 times your total physical ram. In your current case that would be 372MB which isn't a very large amount. You will have to experiment with it, but the goal here is to stop the low virtual mem messages. Make it higher if you wish.
Also, if you have a second hard drive, do not completely lose the paging file from drive C. If you do, you will lose the ability to perform the system restore. If you are not worried about that, then lose drive c page file and put it all on a separate Hard Disk.
Hope this helps
Reply #4 Sunday, September 5, 2004 11:23 AM
| do not completely lose the paging file from drive C. If you do, you will lose the ability to perform the system restore. |
I didn't know that, and it explains a problem I had in the past with System Restore.
I've read conflicting views on where the page should be, and I have no idea which view is actually correct. But I was told by someone quite knowledgeable that setting the page file on another drive doesn't really help.
But I do know one thing..... Phoon is correct about your physical RAM..... you need more. 
Reply #5 Sunday, September 5, 2004 2:47 PM
| I've read conflicting views on where the page should be, and I have no idea which view is actually correct. But I was told by someone quite knowledgeable that setting the page file on another drive doesn't really help. |
thats probably right, it most likely doesn't help, but the thing is, if you set it on ur secondary partition, especially with more than one harddrive, you spread out the usage among harddrives and thus in theory it should take less time to access both the page file and the windows files on the main harddrive
Reply #6 Sunday, September 5, 2004 4:30 PM
Type Local
File System FAT32
Capacity 7.00GB
Used 4.58 GB
Free 2.42 GB
I've not found where I can do any changing of it.
I do know I need to buy more RAM, I'll look into it.
I DO NOT want to loose the ability to perform the System Restore, because I've used it several times......especially when I'm trying to get the Stardock BootSkin utility working....it crashes my system everytime I try to install it.
Reply #7 Sunday, September 5, 2004 8:06 PM
Reply #8 Sunday, September 5, 2004 10:02 PM
How can I figure out if it's seperate?
And does anyone have a suggestion about what and where to get the RAM?
I tend to do a LOT of shopping on eBay..Good idea or bad?
And BTW...I really appreceite all the help...
Reply #9 Monday, September 6, 2004 1:29 AM
. Buy memory from a regular outlet that allows returns, in case you get a bad stick.Reply #10 Tuesday, September 7, 2004 11:12 AM
I've been looking into buying, but now I need to figure out about the whole...DDR, SDR, DIMM...
What's the deal there....I looked in the books that came with my pc, but it looks like I need to open the computer and look at the amount of pins to see which I need to buy...
I do hate to be such a pain....when it comes to doing a most computer things I know my way around, but that's with software type issues....hardware is a whole new ball game to me!
Reply #12 Tuesday, September 7, 2004 2:14 PM
Reply #13 Tuesday, September 7, 2004 9:38 PM
Reply #14 Wednesday, September 8, 2004 1:54 AM
Reply #15 Friday, September 17, 2004 5:10 PM
Reply #16 Friday, September 17, 2004 7:05 PM
I found this info today. The entire article can be found here http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php
Very informative reading.
Problems with Virtual Memory
It may sometimes happen that the system give ‘out of memory’ messages on trying to load a program, or give a message about Virtual memory space being low. Possible causes of this are:
The setting for Maximum Size of the page file is too low, or there is not enough disk space free to expand it to that size.
The page file has become corrupt, possibly at a bad shutdown. In the Virtual Memory settings, set to “No page file,” then exit System Properties, shut down the machine, and reboot. Delete PAGEFILE.SYS (on each drive, if more than just C:), set the page file up again and reboot to bring it into use.
The page file has been put on a different drive without leaving a minimal amount on C:.
There is trouble with third party software. In particular, if the message happens at shutdown, suspect a problem with Symantec’s Norton Live update, for which there is a fix posted here. It is also reported that spurious messages can arise if NAV 2004 is installed. If the problem happens at boot and the machine has an Intel chipset, the message may be caused by an early version (before version 2.1) of Intel’s “Application Accelerator.” Uninstall this and then get an up-to-date version from Intel’s site.
Possibly there is trouble with the drivers for IDE hard disks in Device Manager, remove the IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers (main controller) and reboot for Plug and Play to start over.
With an NTFS file system, the permissions for the page file’s drive’s root directory must give “Full Control” to SYSTEM. If not, there is likely to be a message at boot that the system is “unable to create a page file.”
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Reply #1 Sunday, September 5, 2004 7:46 AM
if you have two harddrives, or two partitions, first disable the virtual paging file on your primary harddrive (the one containing ur os)
then, create a new paging file on the harddrive/partition that DOES NOT contain your windows installation.
for the size settings, i usually set the minimum to be around 1.5 times the amount of ram I have, so in your case set it to maybe 384 mb. for the maximum, I set it to more than a gig... since you do not have as much physical ram, I would set it to maybe 1536mb, which is 1.5 gigs
then, you can adjust these to taste... if you still get virtual memory low, you can up the maximum even more, to 2 gigs, and so on, until u run out of harddrive space
hope this helps