Low on Virtual Memory

Hey guys,

My mom has this laptop that's slowly dwindling since the day she bought it. I have the specs below, although I don't know how much help that will be. Along with the sluggish-ness of shutting down/restarting the computer, there is a pop-up in the bottom right corner that keeps saying something about the computer being low on virtual memory. What is that?

Don't tell me the computer needs more memory, since all that is installed on the computer is the internet, e-mail software, and a couple of other junky programs along with yahoo messenger.

I figure the only way I can think of getting around this is a complete flush, since I ran all the spybot and adaware programs on it today, and nothing has really changed.

Here are the specs: (Laptop)

AMD Sempron 3000+ ~1.8Ghz
594Mb RAM
Windows XP SP2 2002
80Gb HD (don't know manufacturer)
15.4" LCD P&P monitor, DVD-ROM.

The laptop was purchased 1.5 years ago, and is "manufactured" by Acer.

What I don't understand is this "Virtual memory" problem. I cut down on the background programs, but still nothing.

Regards,
Dan

 

If you are low in virtual memory go here.

Start>control panel>System>advanced>settings (performance)>Settings>advanced>Change (virtual memory)

Click custom size and make the inital and max size larger.

Please let me know if this works for you

 

Might be your mums puter is full of accumulated junk which the anti mal/spyware progs are not designed to fix. Download and install Crapcleaner (free and probably available here at MG) run it and see if that improves things. If so run it often like every couple of days or so to keep the gunk under control.
Cheers
Robert

 

Thanks Pinkman,
I had the same problem and you just fixed it.
Thanks,
Dan

 

When you have less than 1 gig of RAM the usual recommendation is to set the VM to 1.5 x RAM. With more than 1 gig, a setting of 1.5 gigs of VM is usually a waste of disk space unless you are a serious gamer, or running lots of programs at once.

I have 2 gigs of RAM, and the multiplier of 1.5 times 2 gigs (3gig VM) would be overkill.

Use System Information for Windows from http://www.gtopala.com/
Not available from MG unfortunately. :cry

Initially set your VM to 1.5 x RAM.
Load SIW at startup and run it for a couple of days keeping an eye on Max Used and In Use figures compared with Swap File figures (see attachment).
You can then easily see how your 3 figures relate to each other, and adjust accordingly.

I have my VM set to 300 megs (not 3gigs ) and don't use all of it.
The attachment understates my usage as I have just loaded it.
It does grow, but nowhere needs a 3 gig setting. Bazza

 

As Bigbazza says, more memory needs less paging/virtual memory, and will run faster on the ram, than in virtual memory.
Another way to improve running if not a lot of ram, is to periodically, go to virtual memory, and click no paging file, shut down, restart, and go back to virtual memory, and rest the parameters, as this will clear the junk accumalated in older computers.