Virtual Memory Low In XP Machine. How Do I Rectify?

[Techno22]

Receive messages saying that XP Machine is low on Virtual Memory.
Not sure what to do.
Machine has 60GB Hard Drive and 1024 MB of Memory.
Would appreciate any help. Thanks.

[gerbil]

Hi, go to Task Manager's Performance tab. Urk, it needs a bit of interpretation. So, to start, the figure at the foot of the PF Usage chart is in MB, other figures are in KB, and the conversion factor is 1024.
PF Usage is a misnomer in Task Manager : the figure at the foot of the Page File Usage graphical monitor is the Commit Charge, which is actually the sum of RAM in use + Page File in use.
Commit Charge [KB] = curent total memory usage [of both RAM + PF][KB]. It is just the amount of virtual memory the OS has committed to the running programs.
Limit CC = Most of installed RAM + Page File size. Most of RAM? XP always keeps a variable amount of RAM in reserve. If you disable your page file you will see that CC Limit is less than Total Phys MEM [RAM] by about 50KB or so, the reserve. This rises rapidly as you have more processes running, probably because the OS calculates that there is a bigger chance of an emergency memory call occurring.
At bottom of TM you see that PF Usage number repeated as Commit Charge [Total]. The second figure there is Commit Charge Limit, now in MB ...[x 1024 to get KB].
You have 1024MB of RAM; compare the size of your "PF Usage" to the size of your Page File and you can see how much the sys is using. Of course, XP is not going to be using all of your RAM before it switches some allocations over to the page file. The upshot of all this is, you probably need to increase the size of your page file - the more applications you run, the more processes active, usually the more PF you require. With two hard drives running, I have a small pagefile beside my C: drive [just 50MB], and a larger on the second disk [up to 1.5GB, I think], with 2 GB of RAM. Peak usage of my pfs is 49MB and about 95MB today. Interestingly, the sys often gets by without using the second disk's pf and so allows it to shut down. A small app you can run to see what your sys is using is Pagefile Usage Monitor by Bill James, if you can find it... there are others, of course, but that particular one is very neat.
Post back with your typical CC, current PF size.
Okay, tracked it down for you... http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/XP_PageFileMon.zip

[rch1231]

he computer.

To change the virtual memory file size use the following:

1. Right Click My Computer and select Properties from the list.
2. Click the tab at the top labeled Advanced and the dialog box will change to show three groups.
3. Click the settings button under performance
4. Select the tab at the top labeled Advanced and you should see a group called Virtual Memeorn at the bottom of the dialog box
5. Click Change and a new window will open with options for the location and size of the paging file.
6. The size of your virtual memory shuld be at least 1024MB no matter how much memory you have and no more than 3072MB as a max. This is my personal opinion and not a microsoft or standard setting.
7. Change the setting and select ok to each of the dialog boxes as you go out. then reboot.

[Techno22]

Thanks gerbil.
The commit charge is;
1265/2166.
Processes 47.
CPU usage 5 to 22%.

[Techno22]

rch1231.
Thanks for that.
Just got in from a snowstorm, but I will
check it out at the first opportunity and let you know how
it goes.

[gerbil]

Sorry, techno, that commit charge makes no sense to me... surely it is not so low with 47 processes running? Lessee, from TM, under Commit Charge, post the 3 figures for Total, Limit, and Peak. Just a snapshot will do, no need to average em mentally or suchlike.
Knowing that you have 1G of RAM, the Limit figure will indicate the size of your PF. [it is RAM + PF - Kernal usage]. Or just post a pic of your TM.

[mamedesign]

1.Check out your harddrive, it mean clean up/delete an usefull file.
2.If your harddrive you make partition, get some another space from logical drive to c:/
3.Unsinstal your unnescery program.

cherrs :)

[Techno22]

1.Check out your harddrive, it mean clean up/delete an usefull file.
2.If your harddrive you make partition, get some another space from logical drive to c:/
3.Unsinstal your unnescery program.

cherrs :)

Many thanks.
I did do most of that already - except the partition.

[Techno22]

Sorry, techno, that commit charge makes no sense to me... surely it is not so low with 47 processes running? Lessee, from TM, under Commit Charge, post the 3 figures for Total, Limit, and Peak. Just a snapshot will do, no need to average em mentally or suchlike.
Knowing that you have 1G of RAM, the Limit figure will indicate the size of your PF. [it is RAM + PF - Kernal usage]. Or just post a pic of your TM.

Thanks gerbil.
Checked Task Manager again.
Figures at the moment are;
Processes 47 CPU usage 16% Commit Charge 1872M/2166M.
The first of the CC figures keeps changing, but not by very much.
Now 1885.
Due to lack of knowledge I regret that I am unable to send a snapshot.
Nor, regretfully, am I able to send a pic.
Hope that the enclosed information is of help.
Figures are definitely correct.

[gerbil]

Firstly, taking/posting snapshots [screenshots]: you might have a key labelled Printscreeen? Press, then open Paint[via Pgms > Accessories, paste using Edit; crop as desired and save as a jpg. In Daniweb, use Advanced, choose to add files and browse to your jpg, Open and post once it uploads. The last is the same for any other filetype in the accepted files list. And if the type is not there you simply zip it and upload that.
Your Commit Charge 1872M/2166M.... [they correspond to Total 1916928 and Limit 2217984 from the CC [K] block under the Performance tab] does show that your sys is, at that point, within 15% of total available RAM + PF size. You do need to increase the size of your PF for the process/applications you have running. Using the process described above by rch increase your PF to 1500MB [currently it is 1200MB?] as a minimum; to the point, you might choose Custom Size, min = 1000, max = 1500.
If problem surfaces again jump max size up to 1800MB. 1500MB should do....
I don't know what applications you are running, but that is a reasonably large PF usage.

[Techno22]

Firefox would be the biggest user at around 300,000 K, with a lot of tabs open.
sychost.exe uses 14,000.
MsMpEng.exe uses 30,000.
AAWService.exe uses 25,000
They are the biggest users.

In Virtual Memory;
Space Available is 32175 MB
System Managed Size is ticked
Total Paging File;
Min Allowed 2MB
Recommended 1341 MB
Currently Allocated 1586 MB

[gerbil]

Are those the VM [actually Page File] figures from before the change? You have 32GB available [free on disk]... which because of the system management choice is theoretically all available to the PF. I don't understand why you are getting the warning. No process should have that large a memory leak!.
I prefer to use the Custom Size setting; because your Currently Allocated figure is 1586 MB, you could set min 1000MB, max 3000MB.
To keep the PF contiguous on disk you would set min=max=3000MB.
Up to you.
In TM in the Processes, under View tab you could check Virtual Memory Size; see if any process is using an exorbitant amount of memory.

[Techno22]

Have made changes, and all seems to be running very well.
Thanks for that.
No major usage other than those listed in previous reply.
Am happy to close this thread in view of the fact that all
now seems well.
I will just hold off for the moment in case there are any
other questions or comments.
Sincere thanks to all who replied, especially you gerbil.
You are always willing to help.

[gerbil]

You're welcome, Techno. good luck.