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Virtual Memory Min. low

Discussion in 'Windows XP' started by rgn, 2005/01/04.

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  1. 2005/01/04
    rgn

    rgn Inactive Thread Starter

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    My older computer gets this message once in while. The system is very slow in loading programs also. It's a Gateway P4, 1.5 gh, 256 ram. The error message is:
    "Windows- Virtual Memory Minimum Too Low:
    Your system is low on virtual memory. Windows is increasing the size of your Virtual paging file. During this process, memory requests for some applications may be denied "

    I'm about to put in 512 of Ram. I tried to clean up the start up. Somethings I'm just not sure of. I've done a google on most all of the items in the startup file. It's helped to speed it up somewhat. If I shut it down, it takes like 3 to 5 min. to get up to speed. I run Spy Sweeper. Adaware, and Norton Utilies. So, it's helped clean out some bugs. What do I need to do to speed things up?

    Thanks!
    Bob
     
    rgn,
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  2. 2005/01/04
    charlesvar

    charlesvar Inactive Alumni

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    Hello Bob,

    Here are resources for startup apps and XP processes:

    http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm

    http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspro/processlibrary/system/ Windows System Startups

    http://www.windowsstartup.com/wso/search.php

    http://www.blkviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm This is for XP Services

    Ask here if you don't find a particular startup entry.

    Have you defragged?

    Good idea to increase RAM.

    Go into System via the Control Panel > advanced tab> performance > settings > advanced tab > virtual memory and see what the settings are. The size if "managed" by the system is 1.5 x RAM with a minimum set.

    Regards - Charles
     
    Last edited: 2005/01/04
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  4. 2005/01/04
    rgn

    rgn Inactive Thread Starter

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    Thanks Charles!
    I'll give these a try when I get home tonight. I haven't defragged, lately. But, it said I didn't need to at this time. Should I do it anyways?
    Bob
     
    rgn,
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  5. 2005/01/04
    surferdude2

    surferdude2 Inactive

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    More RAM for XP is always a good idea. It makes a remarkable difference in speed of operation. They say 128Meg is the absolute minimum but i have tried systems with that and they really stink. I think 256 is marginally small. You'll see great improvement by going to 512.

    Of course cleaning up and disabling unneeded startups will decrease loading time for that process. XP handles memory very well so opening many programs isn't much of a problem except when initially booting up. I hate to wait at that point.
     
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  6. 2005/01/04
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    I agree with Charles on that one!

    When I installed XP-pro, I had 256 MB RAM and the installer set the pagefile to 384-768 MB. When I worked in MS Powerpoint and edited pictures in MS Photo Editor simultaneously, XP squealed like a pig for more Virtual Memory.

    After adding another stick of 256 MB, making it 512 MB, XP has been satisfied. The pagefile stayed at 384-768 MB but I subsequently reinstalled XP-pro and it then became 768-1536 MB (default = 1.5-3.0 x RAM at the time of the installation of XP-pro).

    If You have no plans to reinstall XP, You can resize the pagefile manually by entering the higher values. (If the min value is set higher than You'll need, then XP will never resize it.)

    I have never seen the XP defragger recommending the user to defrag. I don't know at what percentage the trigger level is set but a defrag never hurts. Do it anyway!

    Christer
     
    Christer,
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  7. 2005/01/04
    charlesvar

    charlesvar Inactive Alumni

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    Hi Christer,

    Speaking of defragging - after I made images of my two internal HD's on to the USB external drive, ran defragg analysis on that outboard drive. Both image files were a solid red, never saw anything like that, one for 2.50 gig, the other 3.50 gig. You bet, XP said the drive needed to be defragged.

    Regards - Charles
     
    charlesvar,
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  8. 2005/01/04
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    Charles,
    it may be quite normal but what ever You do ...... :eek: ...... don't defrag! That's the easiest way to increase chances for a corrupted image.

    It's strange, though, that both images are fragmented. Those are large files and it suffices to get them in two fragments for the defragger to consider it to be serious.
    If Ghost writes an image and approaches occupied space, such as the MFT, then it jumps the occupied space and continues after it.

    I attach a screen shot of my E-drive. It is dedicated to images, nothing else and was formated NTFS prior to creating the first image. All images are split at 650 MB to fit on any CD if I should feel the need to burn something.

    E-drive is 18 GB and holds 6 images of the system partition, split into 19 files and 6 small images of the data partition, used space = 11 GB.

    It can be seen that one file (649 MB) became fragmented when reaching the MFT and MFT zone and another (190 MB) became fragmented when the backup copy of the MFT metadata was reached. If the affected images hadn't been split, there would have been much more of that ugly red color.

    Christer
     
    Last edited: 2005/01/04
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  9. 2005/01/04
    charlesvar

    charlesvar Inactive Alumni

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    Hi Christer,

    Thanks for the warning on defragging of Image files. New at imaging.

    Regards - Charles
     
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  10. 2005/01/04
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    Charles,
    have You found any reason for the images being fragmented?

    Ghost doesn't create a fragmented image file, unless for the reason outlined in my post.

    Are any other data on that drive?

    Are they two single files of the mentioned sizes?

    How many fragments according to the report?

    Christer
    (sorry for derailing the topic but I can't resist this one ...... :eek: ......)
     
    Christer,
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  11. 2005/01/04
    charlesvar

    charlesvar Inactive Alumni

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    Hi Christer,

    have You found any reason for the images being fragmented?
    No, this was my first time. I did look at them and didn't see anything that was obviously wrong FWIW.

    Are any other data on that drive?
    Yes, backed up data files, a mixture of media, text, Data Base files, which BTW don't show any fragmenting.

    Are they two single files of the mentioned sizes?
    Yes.

    I took them off, so I can't tell you any more about the particulars, didn't save the Report. When I do it again, I'll do that and post it here with an uploaded image.

    Regards - Charles
     
    charlesvar,
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  12. 2005/01/04
    sparrow

    sparrow Inactive

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    Defrag?????

    Thought that a ghost image ia automatically unfragmented; if so, Ghost would be a good fast method of defraging, no?
     
    sparrow,
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  13. 2005/01/04
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    sparrow,

    That depends on the file system.

    FAT32 gets almost 100% defragmented if You create and restore an image. A fragmented swap file will not only become contigous but also relocated towards the front of the drive/partition.

    On NTFS, there is not a single file (above 4 kB size) that is unfragmented, no matter what the defrag/analyze says about it. Each file consists of one entry in the MFT and what doesn't fit in there, is stored elsewhere. However, when we talk about fragmentation on NTFS, we talk about the bit(s) outside the MFT. The bottom line is that a NTFS partition doesn't get defragmented in the same way, by creating and restoring an image since it would include a lot of rewriting the MFT. A fragmented pagefile will get the same treatment as a swap file on FAT32.

    Christer
     
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  14. 2005/01/07
    rgn

    rgn Inactive Thread Starter

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    Replying to my orginal post. I just install 512 of RAM. Before the new ram, I timed the bootup. It took a solid 5 min to get to the browser. Now, it barely took 2 mins. Quite a improvement, I would say. I haven't even cleaned out the startup yet. But, I will do that and I will post back. I maybe a couple of days for me to clean my slate, so hang in there. Thanks for all the help so far!!!
    Bob
     
    rgn,
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  15. 2005/01/07
    sparrow

    sparrow Inactive

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    Christer, That sounds like it's a waste of time to defrag NTFS? And FAT32 too, given that modern HDDs are designed with microsecond access times.

    rgn Thanks for the followup.
     
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  16. 2005/01/07
    WhitPhil

    WhitPhil Inactive

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    If it previously took you 5 minutes to boot with 256 you potentially have an amazing bloated startup and/or your machine is badly infested with malware/viruses/etc.

    If you haven't, do a run of SpyBot, an online virus check and then post back a HiJackThis log for review.
     
    WhitPhil,
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