Virtual memory?

[Shane]

I just had a pop up balloon on my computer from the bottom task bar that said my virtual memory is to low and that it needs to be fixed?

Does anyone no what that means? Can you explain to me how to fix it in simple understandable computer english.

Can you tell me how that happens to begin with in the same simple english?

 

[abomb]

I can sell you some for cheap.

Simply put, virtual memory is part of your hard drive that is used when the system runs out of physical memory (RAM). It is good because it allows Windows to keep functioning when you are running a lot of programs. It sucks because it is much slower than RAM.

Fixing the issue is usually as simple as increasing the amount of virtual memory (hard drive) you want to allow Windows to use. Are you using XP?

The bigger question is, do you have a lot of programs running? If you hold down control and shift and press escape and click on the processes tab, you can click on the "Mem Usage" column. This will show you what programs are using the most memory (RAM and/or virtual memory). Maybe you can list the "image names" with the highest mem usage and we can try to figure out what is hogging all your resources.

 

[Griffin]

I can sell you some for cheap.

Simply put, virtual memory is part of your hard drive that is used when the system runs out of physical memory (RAM). It is good because it allows Windows to keep functioning when you are running a lot of programs. It sucks because it is much slower than RAM.

Fixing the issue is usually as simple as increasing the amount of virtual memory (hard drive) you want to allow Windows to use. Are you using XP?

Technically, virtual memory refers to all the memory available to the system, be it physical (RAM) or on disk (swap file). Thus, if you have a lot of RAM installed, you can disable the swap file altogether.

Most often the error occurs when you are running some buggy software that does not properly release the memory it is using. So try to identify what program is using the most memory when you get the error message again.

 

[Shane]

Thx for the help guys.

 

[abomb]

Technically, virtual memory refers to all the memory available to the system, be it physical (RAM) or on disk (swap file). Thus, if you have a lot of RAM installed, you can disable the swap file altogether.

Interesting.

 

[Sandan]

Technically you could but whatever you do don't disable it.

if you right click on your "My computer" icon and select properties the initial tab will show you haw much physical memory you have.

The advanced tab has a button for performance settings, click that and you see VM options.

On XP its usually best to have "Have Windows Select what's best for my computer". If you ask this question then that is certainly the case.

What was described earlier is called a "memory leak" and the name is descriptive as it bring us visions of memory leaking out of a bucket and is lost. If this is the case a reboot will fix it.

Memory leaks in Windows Apps are not that uncommon