low virtual memory messages
I keep getting virtual memory messages, almost every day and sometimes I haven't been on that long. Does anyone know how I can fix this?1 person needs an answerI do too
October 31st, 2010 8:41pm

You can figure out what is going on and then you can determine the best way to fix it.Please provide additional information about your system:What is your system make and model?What is your XP Version and Service Pack?Describe your current antivirus and anti malware situation: McAfee, Norton, Spybot, AVG, Avira!, MSE, Defender, ZoneAlarm, PC Tools, Comodo, etc.Click Start, Run and in the box enter:msinfo32Click OK, and when the System Summary info appears, click Edit, Select All, Copy and then paste the results back here.There will be some personal information (like System Name and User Name), and whatever appears to be private information to you, just delete the personal information from the pasted information.If you mean you are seeing an informative message like this:Virtual Memory Minimum Too Low: Your system is low on virtual memory. Windows is increasing the size of your virtual memory paging file.That means Windows XP is letting you know it is doing it's job. The message is not an error message - it is an informational message.If XP thinks the size of the paging file (usually c:\pagefile.sys) is too small to accommodate your current operations it will adjust it to make it larger and display that message.Sometimes the message means somebody has been tampering with the paging file to try to solve some other problem that usually has nothing to do with their paging file.To see what your current paging file settings are, right click My Computer, Properties, Advanced, Performance Settings, Advanced tab, Virtual Memory, Change button.Unless you know more about managing memory that Windows XP, you should let XP handle the size of your virtual memory paging file.The best setting for Paging file size is usually going to be:System managed size Windows XP will try to allocate a paging file approximately 1.5 times the total amount of the RAM installed in your system. Letting Windows XP handle the paging file size is adequate for most configurations.If yours is not set to System managed size you need to determine how it got changed and why (usually some wrong reason), make a note of the current settings, change the setting to System managed size, click the Set button and Apply the changes (you will be asked to reboot). See how your system behaves when XP is managing your virtual memory. It still may need manual adjusting depending on what you are doing, but XP usually does a good job."Because somebody told me to" is not a good reason to just start making adjustments to the paging file size. You need to figure it out and fix it properly - not just start try things or you may negatively effect your system performance trying to make the informative message go away. You need to really fix it, not just adjust things so the message no longer appears. It may really need some manual adjusting, but you should at least try to know what you are doing and why you need to do it at all.After making the adjustments, reboot, then check the paging file settings again to make sure they stick, then test your system again and see if you still get the messages. If you are still seeing the message with System managed size, you should determine what applications you are running that are consuming so much of your virtual memory that Windows XP keeps needing to adjust it. Some antivirus applications are notorious for consuming large amounts of virtual memory (like the Spybot Teatimer - do you have that installed?).You can determine how applications are using your Virtual Memory using Task Manager.To do that:Right click the Taskbar, choose Task Manager and select the Processes tab.Click View, Select Columns, check the box that says: Virtual Memory Size. Expand the height and width of the Task Manager by dragging the corners and edges so you can see all the columns and processes in one window if possible.Double click a column heading in TM to sort by the column. For example, sort Task Manager by the CPU or Virtual Memory size column.What are the processes on top of the list using the most Virtual Memory? Do, or do not. There is no try.I need YOUR votes and points for helpful replies and Propose as Answers. I am saving up for a pony!
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October 31st, 2010 9:04pm

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