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Windows XP: Windows Virtual Memory is too low--what's that all about?
- 8/7/09 1:17 PM
Virtual Memory too low
by Bkess - 8/5/09 5:48 PM In reply to: Windows Virtual Memory is too low--what's that all about? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
This message is usually the result of having too little main memory (RAM) as Windows regularly supplements the available RAM with space on the hard disk drive. It refers to this extra memory space as 'Virtual Memory. Therefore, if your RAM memory needs are increasing due to additional/larger program/file sizes it will 'commandeer' more virtual memory to satisfy its expected amount. The fact that you get the message on initial power on would seem to me to indicate a considerable shortfall but I don't know why you get the message repeatedly as once the extra hard disk is allocated as virtual memory it should remain so - unless you are also low on hard disk space. This could result in a seesaw battle between using hard disk for virtual memory or for regular storage.
So the first thing you should do is look at your main memory usage (use Windows Task Manager) and your available hard disk (use My Computer. You dont' say what version of Windows you use but you should have about 1GB for Windows XP and probably close to 2GB for Vista. Hard disk should have at least 25% available.
IE causes low virutal memory but firefox fixes that
by pualynn - 8/7/09 6:19 PM In reply to: Windows Virtual Memory is too low--what's that all about? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I kept having the problem. I stopped using Windows IE and moved to Mozilla Firefox and haven't had it happen since.
Working
by rthakur777 - 8/8/09 1:16 AM In reply to: Windows Virtual Memory is too low--what's that all about? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
We can work on it, this all not so simple.
Why not on a second hard disk ?
by drrasheed - 8/8/09 6:59 AM In reply to: Windows Virtual Memory is too low--what's that all about? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have two hard disks on my PC. After installing windows I used to install other applications on a drive on my second hard disk. I have assigned Virtual memory to still another drive on the second hard disk and I have alloted a size of 5GB for the drive.My initial size of VM is 1536 MB - and maximum is 4608. This works very good for me.
But please clarify the following doubts
1. Maximum permitted RAM for Win XP 32 bit is 3.5 GB(as seen in one of the suggestions. If I can install 8GB on my motherboard do I ever need a VM?
2. what is the maximum RAM permitted on a 64 bit system
8GB
by Olifrench - 8/8/09 7:58 AM In reply to: Why not on a second hard disk ? by drrasheed1. If you install 8GB on your 32-bit system you will waste 4.5GB because XP will only be able to use 4GB of memory space and about 1/5GB of memory space is needed for the hardware.
2. On a 64-bit system the address space is 2^64 = 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 and you won't find a motherboard on which you can put that much memory! (That's in the region of 18 million GB we're talking about here - roughly 4.5 million times 4GB). The system will still use 1/2GB for the hardware, though, but that will not decrease the amount of RAM it can use until you get to that maximum so to all intents and purposes there is no reduction in the RAM available. One could say 64-bit addressing is a waste, but there are other reasons to jump from 32 to 64.
Older people may remember when Windows was a 16-bit OS and could support only 64MB. Even further Bill Gates couldn't envisage that anyone would need more than 640KB of memory on their desktop and has regretted having said it ever since!
As for creating a separate partition on the second drive for the paging file, I think you actually could improve on this. Since you have a 5GB partition dedicated to it, why not set the minimum and maximum to 5GB? This way Windows will not have the bother of resizing it and you will not be wasting space on that dedicated partition. When the paging file is not on a dedicated drive it's a good idea to make it fixed size to avoid fragmentation.
GIANT RAM
by Randy Walter - 8/8/09 3:32 PM In reply to: 8GB by OlifrenchYep, Olifrench, that is about the size of it. I am not real sure what the current advantage of using a 64 bit system is. But I remember back in the late 60's when I was programming a CDC 3300 mainframe in assembler language it was possible to stack instructions into one word. This increased the efficiency of the CPU due to the mere fact that the processor could fetch multiple instructions in one fell swoop. Since this was an old BCD machine utilizing 36 bit words the processor was wired to accept 72 bit instructions and expand the instructions via delimiters.
Here's the link
by Dango517 - 8/8/09 7:35 AM In reply to: Windows Virtual Memory is too low--what's that all about? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/837869
For Vista, XP, 2000, ME and 98
Add RAM maybe hard drive. You must allow for 14% of drive space for defragmentation, any less then this is not good.
Myself, I like the "get to the answer quick", approach.
Next!
Quick answers are not always good answers
by Olifrench - 8/8/09 8:15 AM In reply to: Here's the link by Dango517If you've already got the maximum amount of RAM your system supports, adding RAM is not the solution, of course.
The immediate fix for the problem is to have a page file of a maximum size big enough for your needs or to reduce your needs.
Just run a search.
by nimd4 - 8/8/09 7:03 PM In reply to: Windows Virtual Memory is too low--what's that all about? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Google will tell you, http://www.google.com/search?q=Windows+Virtual+Memory+is+too+low+your+system+is+low+on+virtual+memory
+ some variation of that search query; It's quite simple (w/o reading peoples' miles of text :)). xd
how is the correct paging file size determined?
by dg27 - 8/8/09 8:33 PM In reply to: Just run a search. by nimd4This is very useful, but I've seen different ratios given for page file size to RAM. Is there a definitive magic number? Unless I missed it, I don't think the Microsoft KB article specifies it.
I see it's on the VM pane
by dg27 - 8/8/09 8:35 PM In reply to: how is the correct paging file size determined? by dg27Should have gone there first.
re Windows Virtual Memory is too low--what's that all about?
by svanerp - 8/9/09 9:13 AM In reply to: Windows Virtual Memory is too low--what's that all about? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Marilyn H:
Since shutting off all my systems in msconfig and hoping the necessary ones will enable at restart up, I would like to decide what is necessary and what isn't. This is a really helpful, user friendly article you might want to start with - sure helped me!
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-10165_7-5554402-1.html
Sandra
Minnesota
Just few simple steps
by nfs_nitin - 8/9/09 9:47 AM In reply to: Windows Virtual Memory is too low--what's that all about? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Go to my computer< System Properties < Advanced < Performance (Settings )< Advanced < change yr virtual memory amount
ITS DONE
Even better than VM is READYBOOST
by Randy Walter - 8/9/09 9:02 PM In reply to: Windows Virtual Memory is too low--what's that all about? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Since CPU and RAM speeds are much faster than HD access VISTA includes a new intermediate cache feature logically positioned between RAM and disks called READYBOOST. Basically, this strategy consists of inserting a flash memory device such as a USB key. READYBOOST examines the flash memory for certain size and performance characteristics and stores them in the registry. You can use up to 4G of the flash memory. The ECACHE.SYS device driver compresses the data 2:1 so the 4G file can effectively contain up to 8G of data. ECACHE.SYS intercepts all writes to the disk device and copies it to the flash memory cache. Reads to the disks are first checked to see if they are in the cache. If found there, the cached data is used instead, thus circumventing a physical disk read. This shortens the IO interrupt because flash memory access time is about ten times faster than disk IO.
Not better, different
by Olifrench - 8/10/09 5:43 AM In reply to: Even better than VM is READYBOOST by Randy WalterReadyboost won't do anything for you if you need more memory than you have, which is what virtual memory does. It will speed up disk operations, which is a good thing but not a replacement for virtual memory.
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