PC slowness "Virtual Memory"

[*Glenn* 854]

Recently we upgraded all our computers at work, my home computer and my laptop. I've not been happy with the operating speed of any of these. Especialy my new laptop which I use for my photography. I was told to delete cookies, defrag more regularly, remove my photo collection to external hard drive etc. etc.... not happy with all of this so I went searching. I'm no computer expert at all... I pay someone to do this for me. This is what I found:

Open control panel- Systems- Advanced- Performance- Settings- Advanced- Virtual memory- change.

My first computer I found, Initial size was set to 2,500, 4,000mb under recomended size of 6464mb

I reset Minimum size to 7,000mb and Maximum to 14,000mb

Press "set" then "OK" and restart the PC

WOW!!! what a difference in operating speed & loading pages. This I first did on our diagnostic computer. And now nothing crashes on us anymore. Especially when we have diagnostic info open and operating our bluetooth scanners along with other working pages open at the same time.

I've done this to all my work computers, they were all set way below minumum recommended size, in most cases half of the recommended size.

Well... I went home and found my new laptop was set to 3,000mb minimum and the recommended size was 9,548mb, I set minimum to 10,000mb & Maximum to 20,000mb

Again.... WOW!!! what a difference, loading and changing pages. And now my Nikon Capture NX2 is instant when I make changes to a photo... no more lagg and no more virtual memory errors. I reset the home PC as well. Overall... every computer is now working as they should do. When I now click on something... it moves.. instantly.

Just thought I would share this experience... it's worth checking your PC's... you might also not have the Virtual Memory sizes set properly in your PC's or laptops. It would also be wise to check how much free space you have on your hard drive first if you have an older PC. All of my work computers are 500gig and have over 50% free space on the hard drives. I had 60% free space on my laptop.

[antil33t 90]

Sounds like you're running a huge amount of very memory intensive applications.

You only get pagefile errors when your machine runs out of physical memory (RAM) and your pagefile.

about 1.5x your system ram is the sweet spot I reckon.

Speaking of free space... I have about 80gb free.... out of 3tb..

[DRTDVL 0]

We use 2x the installed amount of ram as a min for CAD work. We also set the max and min to the same value.

If you have 2 physical disc's in your machine (note: not two partitions on one physical disc) you can put your pagefile (virtual memory) onto the second physical disc. This will increase the performance of your operating system slightly.

How much Ram do you have in each machine? What OS are you running?

If your running Vista, and your programs allow it - change to Windows 7 as soon as possible. We have benchmarked a 10 - 12% increase in CAD performance from the change on the same hardware.

[pjay 8]

Do you find your PC is quickest after a restart? The apps you're running may have memory leaks Glenn.

[*Glenn* 854]

I'm using this with windows 7

* Latest Intel Core i7 720QM 8 x 1.60GHz (Hyper Threading), 45nm, 6MB

- with CPU Performance Level Up Technology, Turbo Boost up to 8x2.8GHz

* Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Pre-installed

* NVIDIA GeForce GT 230M w/ 1024MB Dedicated

* Factory 6GB RAM Dual Channel & 500GB 7200rpm Fastest HDD

* DVDRW Dual Layer Combo, +$199 upgd to Bluray Combo

* Dolby Home Theater, Altec Lansing Speakers

- A triple bass reflex subwoofer, and Dolby-simulated surround sound

* 17.4" Huge HD Crystal SuperBight Widescreen

- Highest definition 1600 x 900

* Built-in

- 1.3M Pixel Webcam

- 2x Built-in omni-directional MICs

- HDMI Port

- eSATA Port

- Latest Wi-Fi Wireless 802.11 A/G/N

- Gigabit Ethernet

- 5-in-1 Reader: SD, MS/Pro, MMC, XD

* I/O:

4x USB2.0 (inc Combo)

e-SATA / USB Combo

HDMI

VGA Out

ExpCard

Audio In

2x Audio Out

[bravo 34]

I usually get around to adjusting virtual memory settings, and usually put the page file on it's own partition to minimise fragging.

I'm buying a new notebook this week. Will see what it is set to from the shop.

[DRTDVL 0]

You need more ram. You will want a min of 8gb in a 64bit Dual Channel machine.

You need to pair your ram i.e. 2x4gb chips, 4x2gb chips, 4x4gb chips to get the best performance from the motherboard. We have noticed a markable performance hit using unmatched ram pairs in our CAD machines.

The newer motherboards run triple channel thus they need to be in groups of 3. i.e. 3gb, 6gb, 12gb of ram.

Also please note that a 64bit machine will run SLOWER than a 32bit machine for simple tasks on the same hardware. It's not until you get to larger computational requirements that the 64bit machine will run faster, the main reason we are pushing for 64bit at work is because of the memory requirements of some of our projects where we cannot open the files in a 32bit machine (4gb memory limit).

[DRTDVL 0]

I usually get around to adjusting virtual memory settings, and usually put the page file on it's own partition to minimise fragging.

I'm buying a new notebook this week. Will see what it is set to from the shop.

A different partition will not really improve much, the same physical drive is still needing to be accessed. The shop will just usually set it to system controlled as per windows defaults.

If you set the max and min value to be the same it will greatly reduce the possible fragmentation of the file as the size is static.

Edited July 12, 2010 by DRTDVL

[kerry 10]

i just tried this and it defiantly makes a difference, can it harm the computer in any way?

[DRTDVL 0]

* Latest Intel Core i7 720QM 8 x 1.60GHz (Hyper Threading), 45nm, 6MB

- with CPU Performance Level Up Technology, Turbo Boost up to 8x2.8GHz

The turbo boost is a little misleading with how it works. It doesn't actually boost the speed of all the cores on the machine, instead is shut's down cores and boosts the speeds of the remaining operational cores.

The speeds for your cpu Glenn.

i7-720QM - Base speed of 1.6GHz - 6MB L3 Cache

Peak Clock Speeds from Turbo Boost

- 4 Cores: 1.73GHz

- 3 Cores: 1.73GHz

- 2 Cores: 2.4GHz

- 1 Core: 2.8GHz

Glenn the i7-720 is a quad core cpu, do you have 2 physical cpu's in your machine?

Edited July 12, 2010 by DRTDVL

[5amchris 45]

You need more ram. You will want a min of 8gb in a 64bit Dual Channel machine.

You need to pair your ram i.e. 2x4gb chips, 4x2gb chips, 4x4gb chips to get the best performance from the motherboard. We have noticed a markable performance hit using unmatched ram pairs in our CAD machines.

The newer motherboards run triple channel thus they need to be in groups of 3. i.e. 3gb, 6gb, 12gb of ram.

Also please note that a 64bit machine will run SLOWER than a 32bit machine for simple tasks on the same hardware. It's not until you get to larger computational requirements that the 64bit machine will run faster, the main reason we are pushing for 64bit at work is because of the memory requirements of some of our projects where we cannot open the files in a 32bit machine (4gb memory limit).

Grr i was about to post at i7's run in triple channel =D wanted to look smart =/ and windows 7 dose not have a limit?[Could be wrong]

[DRTDVL 0]

It's not so much the cpu's but the motherboards that are restricting the triple channel, a lot of new motherboards are i7 compatible but are dual channel.

[pureboiracer 0]

just tried this with mine... it didnt like it much. ended up slower.. not that i ever had a problem with my laptop in the 1st place.

[DRTDVL 0]

Grr i was about to post at i7's run in triple channel =D wanted to look smart =/ and windows 7 dose not have a limit?[Could be wrong]

Its not the OS that limits the amount of RAM a system can use but the architecture it's built on. i.e. 32/64bit.

From wikipedia: the AMD64 architecture currently has a 52 bit limit on physical memory and only supports a 48-bit virtual address space.[3] This is 4 PB (4 × 10245 bytes) and 256 TB (256 × 10244 bytes), lrespectively.

So basically a 64bit OS could potentially handle up to 4PB of physical Ram.

[fuzyfrog 0]

I have 16GB of ram in the 27" iMac

Boot into windows and it sees 3.

Gotta love it.

[DRTDVL 0]

Fuzy, you'll be running a 32bit windows

[_ethrty-Andy_ 2122]

Ace! my Dell has Vista, 2x2.0GHz 4GB and 320GB. set to 3xxx from factory, so just put it up to 8000 max and min, and seems to run much faster! This isnt going to break anything? will it increase battery power consumption?

[fuzyfrog 0]

Yeah im still running XP.

Need to grab 7 and install it soon.

Only have Windows for Steam

[antil33t 90]

Glenn the i7-720 is a quad core cpu, do you have 2 physical cpu's in your machine?

It's hyperthreaded, it's been marketed slightly wrong.

It has 8 threads (logical) and 4 physical cores.

[DRTDVL 0]

yeah thats what i figured, there are some dual cpu laptops floating around tho.

Edited July 13, 2010 by DRTDVL

[*Glenn* 854]

Have a look at this Heath

http://www.hellophoto.co.nz/showthread.php...34949#post34949

[antil33t 90]

If you were getting page file errors, it's definately too small.

Also, I noticed my pagefile was half the size of my physical memory, GTAIV was crashing due to lack of RAM.

[kingkarl 136]

i just tried this and it defiantly makes a difference, can it harm the computer in any way?

Would also like to know this, can anyone shed some light?

thanks

[Cale 36]

I always thought that its better to add more memory, not increase virtual memory..? Besides, I need all the space on my hard drive I can get.

[my_e36 43]

Always put more RAM as you can afford, 4GB is pretty much minimum these days.

Even laptop comes with 4GB standard.

On a desktop, if you can afford it, get a SSD or 10000rpm drive as a operating drive (OS, apps, page file, etc...) and a high capacity drive as a storage drive. This practice comes in handy when it comes to maintain/upgrade time.