low virtual memory message using XP

I recently purchased an HP 760n PC with 512 mb ddr sdram and 120gb drive. I have been plagued with an error message that states "windows virtual memory miniumum too low ". This happens regardless of how many applications I have open and whether or not I'm online. It slows down the whole system and is very annoying. I have called the HP support line 5 times and have done the following at their suggestion: Changed the number of programs that are initialized upon startup, cleaned up the hard drive, and logged on as an administrator and changed the virtual memory settings (initial and maximum) several times. The first two things helped a little, but I keep getting the error message regardless of what numbers I input in the virtual memory settings. I've tried 733 & 3536 respectively, 256 in both, and 964 in both. The latest techie I talked to said that there was an .swp file missing and I may have to do a reinstall of xp. Before I do that I wanted to see if anyone has had a similar problem and if so, how they fixed it. Thanks.

 

If that tech specifically told you to look for *.swp, discount anything else he/she may have told you. The file in question is usually located in c:\ or may be split onto multiple drives. But the name is pagefile.sys.

You may not see it from WE (windows explorer) since it is a hidden system file and you won't see those unless you force WE to display them.

There is a win386.swp that acts as the page file but on 9X/ME systems. Never on XP.

First a little tech stuff. The file you are dealing with (and the same applies to pagefile.sys for NT systems and win386.swp for 9X/ME systems) is an overflow file for physical memory.

Physical memory is fast - much faster than a hard drive - but you can easily run low. A work-around that Microsoft came up with is to reserve a section of your hard drive for data that should be stored in memory but may not fit at times. Space that you block off for this cannot be used for anything else.

By default, you will be set to let windows handle the size of the file. It will shrink and expand as needed. It will also be cleared of all contents when you reboot.

This pagefile/swap file is often called "virtual memory ".

To do a little research on your own and see if the problem has anything to do with virtual memory, try the following:

1. Set your pagefile size to a fixed amount with the same minimum and maximum You have plenty of space so use 1024Mb as the amount.

2. If you have only one large partition (everything is on C:\) put the entire file there. Otherwise you will get better performance if most of it is on another partition so maybe 2Mb on C:\ and the remainder on D:\ or whatever your other hard drive partition is named.

3. Reboot.

4. Do a CTRL-ALT-DEL to bring up the windows task manager and click on the performance tab. There will be a window there called PF Useage showing how much of the pagefile is use at the moment. Another window just to it's right will give a graph showing how much has been in use for the past couple of minutes.

5. Set the Options on task manager to "always on top" so you can see the window and do your usual work. Keep an eye on the amount of PF Useage. With your system having 512Mb of physical memory, I doubt if you will use a great deal of pagefile but you will use some. The system will keep some physical memory free at all times.

My guess is that you won't see a problem. But you certainly could.

If so, my next guess is that you are dealing with a program with a bad memory leak (that is when a program calls for and is allocated memory, quits using it but doesn't mark it as released, calls for more, etc.). That will be harder to track down but certainly can be done. Task manager won't help with this one though because the display of processes and the amount of memory they are currently using only shows what the program is using and ignores blocks that are unused but unreleased.

 

thanks much for the info. I'll give it a try.

 

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