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Virtual memory minimum too low?
Help please. My laptop is running so slow just lately. I've defragmented, deleted temp files, run Spybot, and am now out of ideas.
I keep getting a pop up saying "virtual memory minimum too low", but I'm clueless what that means.
Any help much appreciated, but in terms as simple as possible please.
(I was going to say as if you were talking to a child, but on reflection, a child would probably know more than I do about computers) x
I keep getting a pop up saying "virtual memory minimum too low", but I'm clueless what that means.
Any help much appreciated, but in terms as simple as possible please.
(I was going to say as if you were talking to a child, but on reflection, a child would probably know more than I do about computers) x
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I would say straight off that your computer is probably very low on REAL memory and if you add more REAL memory your problems will probably go away (or at least reduce).
So if you have say 512Mb of real memory then double it to 1Gb.
Without getting too technical when a computer runs out of REAL memory it starts to use space on your hard disk that it calls VIRTUAL memory.
If a computer has to use a lot of VIRTUAL memory then it slows the computer down. You can reduce the amount of VIRTUAL memory it uses by adding more REAL memory (as I said above).
It may also be that you hard disk is filling up and so there is no room to store this VIRTUAL memory, hence the message you are getting above.
There are ways of adjusting your virtual memory which I wont go into, but to keep it simple I will just say:
1) Get some more REAL memory
2) Try to clear some space on your hard drive
So if you have say 512Mb of real memory then double it to 1Gb.
Without getting too technical when a computer runs out of REAL memory it starts to use space on your hard disk that it calls VIRTUAL memory.
If a computer has to use a lot of VIRTUAL memory then it slows the computer down. You can reduce the amount of VIRTUAL memory it uses by adding more REAL memory (as I said above).
It may also be that you hard disk is filling up and so there is no room to store this VIRTUAL memory, hence the message you are getting above.
There are ways of adjusting your virtual memory which I wont go into, but to keep it simple I will just say:
1) Get some more REAL memory
2) Try to clear some space on your hard drive
If you are runing XP or Vista you can check the amount of real memory you have fairly easily.
XP (and maybe Vista) have an option called System Information (it is hidden away under the menus somewhere)
Run this program and it will tell you your real memory.
Once you have it then let us know what it is (512Mb, 1Gb, 2Gb and so on) and also the version of Windows you are running.
XP (and maybe Vista) have an option called System Information (it is hidden away under the menus somewhere)
Run this program and it will tell you your real memory.
Once you have it then let us know what it is (512Mb, 1Gb, 2Gb and so on) and also the version of Windows you are running.
It would also help us to know the size of your hard disk and how full it is.
On XP open My Computer and RIGHT click on the icon for hard Drive (C:). From the menu select Properties and a little pie chart shows you how full your hard disk is.
Used space is in Blue, Free space is in Mauve. The window will look like this:
http://sis.berkeley.edu/SIS/sis-training/graph ics/hdd-space.gif
Give us the size of the used space and free space (11.3Gb and 27.9Gb for example)
On XP open My Computer and RIGHT click on the icon for hard Drive (C:). From the menu select Properties and a little pie chart shows you how full your hard disk is.
Used space is in Blue, Free space is in Mauve. The window will look like this:
http://sis.berkeley.edu/SIS/sis-training/graph ics/hdd-space.gif
Give us the size of the used space and free space (11.3Gb and 27.9Gb for example)
It may not be your computer at fault - it could be an application you are running. An excellent article here:
http://tinyurl.com/rptnu
In my experience, AnswerBank will cause this message to come up if I don't log out of it every few hours. I've given up finding a permanent solution to my particular problem, and just shut it down now and again.
http://tinyurl.com/rptnu
In my experience, AnswerBank will cause this message to come up if I don't log out of it every few hours. I've given up finding a permanent solution to my particular problem, and just shut it down now and again.
Bathseba
how much real memory?....
(right click my computer | properties - read the last couple of lines)
I suspect it's partly because your HDD is quite small
(the error message is actually telling you exactly what is wrong .... not enough space to create the pagefile).
try defragging - windows likes contigeous space ... (it won't help much ... but you have nothing to loose!)
(the books say you need <20% free disc space to cope with all the temp files required by windows - with so little you are on the edge)
the page file will take 1 - 1.5 times your total ram so in a case like this - if you upgrade to 1Gb you will make the situation worse.
256Mb is ample for most people ...
and almost certainly with a 20Gb drive ... your processor (p2-p3?) is probably not capeable of seeing more than 768Mb total anyhow (could be 384!!)
(a win98 machine doing a XP job;-(
You should also try reducing IE's cache size
(tools | Internet options | History | settings)
tick everytime I visit
and reduce the discspace to use - to 200Mb
(slower - but should improve things)
finally ... use ccleaner ... it gets to all those important little places (bettter than cleanup)
http://www.ccleaner.com/download
how much real memory?....
(right click my computer | properties - read the last couple of lines)
I suspect it's partly because your HDD is quite small
(the error message is actually telling you exactly what is wrong .... not enough space to create the pagefile).
try defragging - windows likes contigeous space ... (it won't help much ... but you have nothing to loose!)
(the books say you need <20% free disc space to cope with all the temp files required by windows - with so little you are on the edge)
the page file will take 1 - 1.5 times your total ram so in a case like this - if you upgrade to 1Gb you will make the situation worse.
256Mb is ample for most people ...
and almost certainly with a 20Gb drive ... your processor (p2-p3?) is probably not capeable of seeing more than 768Mb total anyhow (could be 384!!)
(a win98 machine doing a XP job;-(
You should also try reducing IE's cache size
(tools | Internet options | History | settings)
tick everytime I visit
and reduce the discspace to use - to 200Mb
(slower - but should improve things)
finally ... use ccleaner ... it gets to all those important little places (bettter than cleanup)
http://www.ccleaner.com/download
Hello again,helpful people.
Ok, so I've reduced the discspace to use to 200, as suggested, + I've signed out of AB (something I've never done before, Ethel!).
Apparently I've got Windows XP Professional version 2002, Service pack 2
Computer is Mobile Intel(R) Celeron (TM) CPU 1200MHz
1.08GHz 256MB of RAM.
Hope this gives you some ideas x
Ok, so I've reduced the discspace to use to 200, as suggested, + I've signed out of AB (something I've never done before, Ethel!).
Apparently I've got Windows XP Professional version 2002, Service pack 2
Computer is Mobile Intel(R) Celeron (TM) CPU 1200MHz
1.08GHz 256MB of RAM.
Hope this gives you some ideas x
You say you have 256Mb of memory and are running Windows XP.
To be honest that is just about the minimum for running Windows XP (particularly if your graphics card is using some of that 256Mb of memory which is the case on many laptops).
As I said earlier, the problem is that if you start up a number of programs then your 256Mb of memory is going to fill up fairly quickly.
Once it gets full Windows starts to put some of it out onto hard disk in your Virtual memory, and if it starts doing that a lot then it is going to slow your laptop down.
You showed us earlier that you have 5Gb of free space on your hard disk, and that should be ample to hold your Virtual memory (pagefile) if it grows large.
I think the easiest and cheapest thing to do is double your memory from 256Mb to 512Mb. This is very easy to do.
Go to this website and select "Scan my system" and it should tell you what memory you have and how much you can add (you do not have to buy it from that web site).
You could probably either leave the 256Mb in there and buy another 256Mb, or leave the 256Mb in there and buy a 512Mb.
Increasing your memory from 256Mb to 512Mb will give you a performance improvement.
To be honest that is just about the minimum for running Windows XP (particularly if your graphics card is using some of that 256Mb of memory which is the case on many laptops).
As I said earlier, the problem is that if you start up a number of programs then your 256Mb of memory is going to fill up fairly quickly.
Once it gets full Windows starts to put some of it out onto hard disk in your Virtual memory, and if it starts doing that a lot then it is going to slow your laptop down.
You showed us earlier that you have 5Gb of free space on your hard disk, and that should be ample to hold your Virtual memory (pagefile) if it grows large.
I think the easiest and cheapest thing to do is double your memory from 256Mb to 512Mb. This is very easy to do.
Go to this website and select "Scan my system" and it should tell you what memory you have and how much you can add (you do not have to buy it from that web site).
You could probably either leave the 256Mb in there and buy another 256Mb, or leave the 256Mb in there and buy a 512Mb.
Increasing your memory from 256Mb to 512Mb will give you a performance improvement.
The reason people have asked what Operating System you currently have, and was it on there originally, is as follows.
Before Windows XP came out the current version of Windows was Windows ME.
My GUESS (and it is only a guess) is that your computer originally came out with Windows ME on it. Your laptop is probably fine for running Windows ME.
Windows XP came out in about 2001 and my guess is the person upgraded the laptop to Windows XP (maybe with an illegal copy).
The problem is that Windows XP is a much more powerful and complex operating system than Windows ME and requires a more powerful computer.
So your problem is that you are trying to run Windows XP on a computer built for Windows ME. This is why it struggles.
(In fact you may be able to check which version of Windows came on the computer by seeing if there is a small label on the base of the laptop).
So as I said, if you double the memory from 256Mb to 512Mb you will see a performance improvement, and hopefully you are less likely to get messages about Virtual memory.
Before Windows XP came out the current version of Windows was Windows ME.
My GUESS (and it is only a guess) is that your computer originally came out with Windows ME on it. Your laptop is probably fine for running Windows ME.
Windows XP came out in about 2001 and my guess is the person upgraded the laptop to Windows XP (maybe with an illegal copy).
The problem is that Windows XP is a much more powerful and complex operating system than Windows ME and requires a more powerful computer.
So your problem is that you are trying to run Windows XP on a computer built for Windows ME. This is why it struggles.
(In fact you may be able to check which version of Windows came on the computer by seeing if there is a small label on the base of the laptop).
So as I said, if you double the memory from 256Mb to 512Mb you will see a performance improvement, and hopefully you are less likely to get messages about Virtual memory.
Whoops, forgot to enter the name of the website
http://www.crucial.com/
As I said, you do not need to buy it from them, but if you write down what you need you may be able to buy it from a site like ebuyer or scan.
http://www.crucial.com/
As I said, you do not need to buy it from them, but if you write down what you need you may be able to buy it from a site like ebuyer or scan.
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