Is this normal?

[lynchknot]

I just rebooted and system is, relatively, idle. memory used almost 1GB? swap file is 2.4GB (1.6 free)?

[Rex Mundi]

You've got some serious stuff running on the desktop in the background just by looking at how much memory explorer.exe uses. The amount of memory svchost uses is also a bit high, maybe you are running redundant windows processes. You can check in control panel -> administrative tools -> services. (my svchost uses about 18MB which is still quite a lot really). You better check you pagefile settings under system in control panel. Then click on tab advanced and go to 'settings' under performance and check the defined size for your pagefile under advanced. I have 512MB ram and my page file is set between 768MB and 1536MB but it usually is only about 500MB in size. It'll be larger if you have more memory i believe. But you might as well turn off the pagefile with 1GB of ram or more unless you play computer games.

[rik]

Those are pretty high usage...Might wanna try running FreeRam XP. See what that does for ya.

[lynchknot]

I don't know why explorer.exe was running high. It's back to normal but still, there is only 267mb free. I have windows determine page file size on slave drive.

I have 512MB ram and my page file is set between 768MB and 1536MB

I have a gig so I suppose it's correct. Most advise against turning off page file, in fact - even though you turn off page file, windows will still use a page file - from what I understand.

[Rex Mundi]

...in fact - even though you turn off page file, windows will still use a page file - from what I understand.

Thats not true. Windows will really not use a pagefile if you turn it off, just hardcore physical RAM I know because i turned it off once on a old, slow computer i had. My harddisk was swapping too much. Anyway, everything was fine until i started playing a 3d game. Windows started complaining it didnt have enough memory and the game crashed.

How about a screenshot of windows task manager? That would be more reliable.

[Tinker]

Have you loaded any apps latley? Could be a memory leak...

[lynchknot]

Author Perris at http://forum.osnn.net

First off, let us get a couple of things out of the way
XP is a Virtual Memory Operating system
There is nothing you can do to prevent virtual memory
There is nothing you can do to prevent paging in the NT kernel
No matter your configuration, with any given amount of ram, you can not reduce the amount of paging by adjusting any user interface in these virtual memory operating systems... you can redirect operating system paging, and you can circumvent virtual memory strategy, but you cannot reduce the amount of paging in the NT family of kernel.

To elaborate;

We have to realize that paging is how everything gets brought into memory in the first place!... it's quite obvious that anything in memory either came from your disc, or will become part of your disc when your work is done.... to quote the Microsoft knowledge base:


No matter what your system configuration is, Windows NT will create and use a paging file... Windows NT REQUIRES "backing storage" for EVERYTHING it keeps in RAM. If Windows NT requires more space in RAM, it must be able to swap out code and data to either the paging file or the original executable file.

Here's what actually happens:

Once information is brought into memory, (it must be paged in), the operating system will choose for that process the memory reclamation strategy... one form of this memory reclamation (or paging, so to be clear)... the kernel can mark to release or unload data without a hard write, the os will retrieve said information directly from the .exe or the .dll that the information came from if it's referenced again.

Accomplished by simply "unloading" portions of the .dll or .exe, and reloading that portion when needed again... nice.

Note: For the most part, this paging does not take place in the pagefile, this form of paging takes place within the direct location of the .exe or .the dll

The "paging file" is another form of paging... this form of paging is, on that point, to provide space for whatever portion of virtual memory has been modified since it was initially allocated... for instance, IF it's not in RAM at the moment, AND it isn't backed up by any other file, then it's in the pagefile. (other data can be in the page file as well, but these dati in particular)

See this?...modified information cannot have backing store to the original file or .exe's SINCE it's modified* ...this is obvious once told isn't it.

Different types of things are paged to different files. You can't page "private writable committed" memory to exe or .dll files, and you don't page code to the paging file.*

With this understanding we realize:

HAVING A PAGEFILE THAT DOESN'T MATCH THE RAM YOU HAVE IN USE WILL AT TIMES INHIBIT THE PAGING OF PRIVATE WRITABLE VIRTUAL ADDRESS SPACE AND FORCE THE UNNECCSARY UNLOADING OF POSSIBLY RECENTLY ACCESSED .DLLS AND .EXES!

[Rex Mundi]

I know nothing about the windows kernel. If windows has back up virtual memory in the form of a file i dont know either but i think it is referring to 'kernel memory' in the task manager. In the pic below you can see that is not a lot and thus doesnt have to do with pagefile.sys. All i know is that if you turn off the pagefile, the file 'pagefile.sys' (which is hidden btw) no longer exists in the root directory where windows is installed. Without the file, you will get the message that there is not enough memory when opening lots of memory intensive apps. You can verify in the task manager if you still have a pagefile under 'page file usage' i believe.

In the virtual memory window i see under 'paging file size (MB)' the set size of my pagefile limited to my c:\ drive. I read somewhere that it is better to have only 1 pagefile instead of several on each partition / drive.

Well that is all i know. It used to be a big deal for me because my old computer had a harddrive that would only run in PIO mode, so i turned off the pagefile and programmes would load much faster (no disk swapping) but i also ran out of memory quickly as i explained in my previous post.