Huh?

I have 2GB RAM, and a 2GB pagefile. I just booted the system, I'm running practically nothing besides some default stuff. I'm nowhere near the limit of my memory usage. Yet I just got the "Virtual memory minimum too low" message.



Can someone explain that?

Is it actually running slow, or just claiming that you're hitting the edge of memory? What were you doing when your CPU Usage peaked?

If you're just running "practically nothing", then why do you have 930 MB used right now?  I'm running Picasa, IE with five tabs, and an assortment of background processes and only have 478 MB used.  Plus, this computer's been running for a while.

Almost a gig on a cold start isn't normal.

Looks like a driver memory leak. Does it build up slowly or is this from the get-go?

Notice from the commit charge peak that it was never anywhere near the limit. My system wasn't slow or thrashing at any point. Nor did it actually resize the page file (it's the still same size it always was), the message was just out of the blue.

My memory usage isn't usually this high after boot either. Can't really explain what the difference is now. I recently installed WDS3, it's still indexing, maybe that's it? Although the indexer's working set and private bytes aren't particularly high either.

Sven Groot wrote:

I recently installed WDS3, it's still indexing, maybe that's it? Although the indexer's working set and private bytes aren't particularly high either.

Uh oh....

/me slowly walks toward the door...



No, it shouldn't be a problem if you have a default install. Did you install some 3rd party IFilters?

Nope, just a default install.

There is nothing really really in task manager that explains the commit charge. The only things I have open right now are PowerDVD, IE7, and task manager (plus background stuff like WDS, McAfee, etc.). PDVD is using the most memory right now, with 97MB private bytes. Yet my commit charge is 743MB.

I've not seen this before, and I didn't upgrade or install any drivers recently either.

Plus, even if my commit charge is a little on the high side, it's nowhere near high enough to explain that resizing page file message.

I thought that message is talking about the initial size of the pagefile that you have set. Not the maximum. Have you been checking how big the actual pagefile is, on disk ?

I always set the minimum to the size of my RAM + ~10%. Actually, I like to have it all in one piece,  so after a clean install (new system), I'll typically set the pagefile to zero, reboot, DEFRAG, and then set the minimum.

Sometimes, especially if you don't have a large enough volume (partition), windows continues to split the initial pagefile into at fragments. In which case, I then try using [PageDefrag].

RichardRudek wrote:

I thought that message is talking about the initial size of the pagefile that you have set. Not the maximum. Have you been checking how big the actual pagefile is, on disk ?

It's 2GB. It's been 2GB since I installed Windows. And besides, the memory usage isn't even exceeding half my physical memory. I could be running with no pagefile and it still shouldn't be a problem.

I don't remember the calculation, but the needed virtual memory is associated with the amount of RAM you have. The more RAM the larger the VRAM.

The calculation should be out on google.

FDB

That can't be the problem. I've had 2GB of memory for more than 18 months. This problem has never occurred before, even under far higher loads.

Sven Groot wrote:


It's 2GB. It's been 2GB since I installed Windows. And besides, the memory usage isn't even exceeding half my physical memory. I could be running with no pagefile and it still shouldn't be a problem.

Hmm, maybe you've got a disk problem. Have you tried running a disk surface check ?

I use an old version of Western Digital's [Data Lifeguard Diagnostics for Windows], which doesn't require an installation. I beleive the current one does, though

This can be dangerous program, though. Don't use any destructive tests !!

AND BACKUP FIRST !!

It's nothing more than a waring that your page files is less than the recomended, windows expects ~1.5 x physical ram as a minimum.  The warning is nothing to do with how much has actually used.

Bump the page file up to 3Gb (or what windows recomends as a minimum), whats another Gb on modern PC

PerfectPhase wrote:

Bump the page file up to 3Gb (or what windows recomends as a minimum), whats another Gb on modern PC

One less gig to spend on unathorized backup copies of digital media.

Cryo wrote:



PerfectPhase wrote: Bump the page file up to 3Gb (or what windows recomends as a minimum), whats another Gb on modern PC

One less gig to spend on unathorized backup copies of digital media.

Guess I'm getting a bit jaded these days...

PerfectPhase wrote:

It's nothing more than a waring that your page files is less than the recomended, windows expects ~1.5 x physical ram as a minimum.  The warning is nothing to do with how much has actually used.

Bump the page file up to 3Gb (or what windows recomends as a minimum), whats another Gb on modern PC

Yes, I would normally agree. However the confounding factor is that his system apparently, shouldn't be needing to page that much. It's currently 2GB, on disk.

But then again, I'm assuming the quoted facts are correct - I'm not sure how accurate Task Manager's reporting is if, for instance, your not logged in as Administrator.

Similarly, I'm not sure how the VM manager behaves if there are bad blocks within the pagefile's disk region(s). I mean, I normally get a pile of errors in the event log, if the disk has bad blocks.

RichardRudek wrote:



PerfectPhase wrote: It's nothing more than a waring that your page files is less than the recomended, windows expects ~1.5 x physical ram as a minimum.  The warning is nothing to do with how much has actually used. Bump the page file up to 3Gb (or what windows recomends as a minimum), whats another Gb on modern PC

Yes, I would normally agree. However the confounding factor is that his system apparently, shouldn't be needing to page that much. It's currently 2GB, on disk.

But then again, I'm assuming the quoted facts are correct - I'm not sure how accurate Task Manager's reporting is if, for instance, your not logged in as Administrator.

Similarly, I'm not sure how the VM manager behaves if there are bad blocks within the pagefile's disk region(s). I mean, I normally get a pile of errors in the event log, if the disk has bad blocks.

But the warning is nothing to do with how much is being used it is only a warning that the page file minimum size does not meet the recommened minimum. 

PerfectPhase wrote:


But the warning is nothing to do with how much is being used it is only a warning that the page file minimum size does not meet the recommened minimum. 

Fair enough.

The only time I've seen this message was on an old Win2K "Server" that only had 256MB RAM running SUS. It had a 384MB initial pagefile, but SUS needed approximately 500MB, during sync's and approval.