Virtual Memory Problem on XP

[yohon125]

Ok. my pc has been working fine. I had it off for a few days and now today since i booted it back up I have been having slow-down issues while running only a few programs that i always do. an icon pops up in my system tray and says windows is fixing the virtual memory paging file. This has happened several time, but never makes any diff. So, i went into my settings for virtual memory and switched it from manual to system managed. This did not help either. right now my total paging file for both drives (a 40gig and a 30gig-only music) is 766mb. This sounds like a ton to me, but I still get these slow-down problems. what should i try to fix this?

[Jeordiewhite]

Do you have lots of unneeded services/tastbar icons running?
How much memory do you have?
Windows likes to make a page file of one and a half times what your memory is, I have 1GB of memory so windows feels the need to give me 1.5GB, I however use only much less and have it set as a nonstatic page file with the availabilty of 1GB even tho it never really gets over 256MB like it's set at.
It sounds like you might be using all your memory elsewhere, check to see if there is a run away process that is filling up your memory with a buffer overflow.
How much memory is being used when your computer is idle?

[yohon125]

here is all i have in my system tray: winpatrol, printer icon, hotsync, and nvidia settings.

i only have 256mb of memeory on my pc, but have never had this problem before. i have had this pc for about a year and a half now.

my PF usage as shown in task manager is 146mb when idle. however it shoots up for no aparent reason and things slow down. i am not sure what is causing this. just shot up to 935mb ( which is near the top) while simpily typing this. my cpu usage is still always below 10%

[rpertusio]

Do you have any large amount of network activity? (Copying files.. or *cough* downloading large files?)

- rp

[Xtreeme]

Err. How about spyware apps. Try running lavasoft adaware.

[yohon125]

well, i am on the school network and i am running outlook and aim right now. i will try unplugging. i havent been dl-ing any files either. i do have adaware and run it frequently, but ill run it again now for the hell of it. i went and changed my virtual memory settings again making the min 150 and the max 250. seems to help a little, but things are not like they were. hopefully i can just play with that and figure it out.

btw, thanks for all the help everyone

[pgriffet]

take a look here : very good article about vm

http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

[Jeordiewhite]

Well if you understand how the services are, you can disable any unneeded ones, go into task manager and see how many processes there are running total, 256MB isn't a huge ammount but it sounds like it is plenty in your situation.
If you are running any extra services or anything else that should be there like spyware then remove it, do you know how to stop programs from starting up that are not needed as well as services?

Go to administrative tools under the control panel and go to the services page, if you are unsure, don't touch it, shut off windows time sync and windows update as they are spyware as well as pretty much useless things to have.
As for programs starting up go to start > hit run > type: msconfig > don't touch any of the other settings except for what is in the start up tab.
Uncheck those you are sure aren't needed, as you probably have too many processes running taking up all your memory as if your using that much of your page file then that could easily be the problem as they are using the page file and the page file is slow and likely dragging down your system.

[yohon125]

i really dont think is a vm problem at all. i installed xp on a lil 6gig hd for now just to get school work done, but xp on the other drive is still a problem. it runs great for 5 min, but then wham it just gets unbarable. i have run numerous virus scan. trenmico, nortin04 w/updates and still nothing found. registry also looks clean. there are no other programs running to slow things down. the cpu usage is relatively low, but the vm usage is at 900mb acording to taks manager. uggh. i think im going to end up buying a new large hd and getting a clean start.