Furhter computer advice required.

[Bristol Pete]

In reference to my post the other day, the problem message I am getting states that my 'virtual memory is too low.'

As such, how can I rectify this? (pleeeeeeeaseee help)

Rather odd, as my machine has literally slowed right down and everything takes an age to open now where as before pretty quick.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Pete

[Dom996]

The computer uses part of the hard drive as a virtual memory. Look at how full your hard drive is. Delete useless files immediately.

[spocktra]

More than likely low on ram.Xp is a ram muncher on its own let alone other processes you might have running.How much ram do you have pete?

[Nick_UK]

Originally Posted by spocktra

More than likely low on ram.Xp is a ram muncher on its own let alone other processes you might have running.How much ram do you have pete?

No, virtual memory is hard disk space.

[Bristol Pete]

No, virtual memory is hard disk space

All very odd then as PC at home has 80gig drive and not much on it?

Defrag it perhaps and go from there?

Pete.

[Nick_UK]

Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > System

Then click on Advanced tab, and then hit the Settings button under Performance

Click the advanced tab again, and you can set the amount of virtual memory. The norm is between 1.5 and 3 GB.

A defrag certainly would not hurt.

[spocktra]

Originally Posted by Nick_UK

No, virtual memory is hard disk space.

Strange ,when i started playing a few game on my pc with only 256mb of ram,it kept freezing and saying the vm was low.I put a stick of 512 in and it cured the problem.

[IronGiant]

I may not have this quite right, but the more physical memory you have, the less is the need to access virtual memory on the hard drive, so by upping to 512K RAM your vm low messages may well have gone away.

[Nick_UK]

Originally Posted by Regmarch

I may not have this quite right, but the more physical memory you have, the less is the need to access virtual memory on the hard drive, so by upping to 512K RAM your vm low messages may well have gone away.

That's true up to a point. I have 2GB of RAM in this PC, but it still accesses the hard drive, because Windows still uses virtual ram for temporary file storage. The reason why you can't just switch the PC off without going through the shut-down procedure is because it has to dump files onto the hard drive, so Windows knows where it left off.

[Seth Gecko]

Spot on Nick. The VM file is normally based on how much RAM you have, by adding more RAM you've cured the issue but not because you actually fixed the error - so to speak.

XP can either manage the swap file itself or you can dictate a size. It could have been that the size dictated was not realistically large enough, hence the error - by increasing it, the error would go away (if you increase it enough of course).