Problem with the Page File Size

Well, my virtual memory was set to 22GB before. I have three hard drives, and 12GB of RAM.

Anyway I didn't want all of that space being used on my hard drive for virtual memory because its starting to get full so I set it to 6144MB in the System Properties on drive C and I have it disabled on drive D and E.

Well that helped a little, instead of the page file size being 22GB it dropped to 17.6GB, but I still want it at 6GB (or at least lower!). I have no idea why it is so high, I have it set to 6144MB or 6GB in virtual memory but somehow there is 11.6 more GB of pagefile coming from somewhere, and I don't know where.

And before anyone asks yes I restarted the computer, like I said it went from 22GB to 17.6.

Hello Helltech,

According to your screenshot, it shows that you have 6144MB "Currently allocated" for the page file on the C: drive.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/132201-virtual-memory-paging-file-change.html

What you could do is set it to have no page file for any drive for now, restart the computer, defrag all HDD's, then set your page file back to 6144MB for the C: drive. Afterwards, see if that reset the value in the dxdiag tool.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

I've had issues with Vista where I set the Paging file from system managed to Min and Max the same as you have. Only to reboot and it's back to system managed. Seems sometimes you have to click OK then on the previous dialog, click Apply. Then go back in and make sure it "sticks" before rebooting. Otherwise you're booting for nothing.

With 12 GB ram unless you run some large stuff, like spread sheets, I'd try running with no page at all. I have 64 bit Vista machine with 8 GB ram and never needed the page file.

The only problem without using a page file at all is that some programs may require a page file to run properly no matter how much RAM you have installed.

Brink said:

The only problem without using a page file at all is that some programs may require a page file to run properly no matter how much RAM you have installed.

Click to expand...

I'm making the assumption that if you use one of those programs something noticeable will happen, such as an error message. Why drag a page file around if you never use apps that need it? If you decide to use such programs it's trivial to turn paging back on.

I know MS always wants us all to use paging so that MS Office apps won't crap out. But the chances of me using MS Office apps are close to nil since I'm a programmer, not an office worker. If you need MS Office apps then by all means use pagefile.sys.

I've been running no swap on my Vista64 PC for 2 years and I've never had an out of memory error ever!

Just saying it should be mentioned if recommending to turn off the page file in case they do get a memory error down the road. This way they know why, and what to do to stop the error.

Brink said:

Just saying it should be mentioned if recommending to turn off the page file in case they do get a memory error down the road. This way they know why, and what to do to stop the error.

Click to expand...

Yep. It can be bewildering to a newb I guess. "I have 2000 GB of ram! Wadda' ya' mean I'm outa' memory?" heh heh

LOL, yep.

Thanks for all the help guys, sorry for the late reply long day of work on my end.

Anyway, I defragged the computer, restarted, defragged again. Nothing, it's still at 17.6GB. In the virtual memory settings it DID stick to my custom size of 6144MB.

I have no idea how the computer is allocating 11~GB of page file size from somewhere. I'm about to disable paging file, defrag again, and then restart, we'll see what happens.

EDIT-
Well, as you can assume what happened the paging file from the drive stayed at off, so 0GB where I input, however the system still has 11.6GB of Paging File size, which I'm actually ok with.

What I'm not ok with however is the fact that I may be a newbie here but I actually work in a computer repair shop so not knowing why this is happening or what is causing it is actually irking me greatly. So anymore help would be greatly appreciated it.

Might it have something to do with the 12GB of RAM in the computer? It seems coincidently to say the least that the RAM amount in my computer is very near the amount of paging file the system has allocated for itself.

Also I want to note that just from the computer itself running, with just some instant messengers and Google Chrome for making this post my ram has 1.9GB being used, and my Virtual Memory has 1.8GB being using... also very close together...

The whole thing sounds weird to me. Why not try DTaskManager and see what it says for paging file stats? It's a freebie. I've used it on Vista and w7.

Dimio's Tools

That says size 418,816k, usage 137,140k, peak 418,812k.

I did set it to 400~mb just so I would have some increase I needed it.

Pretty weird all around. At least it seems back to normal now.

Well everything except for that program is recording it wrong.

Helltech said:

Well everything except for that program is recording it wrong.

Click to expand...

I don't think I've ever run into this. I've run into not being able to disable swap, not being able to delete swap, but I've never run into not being able to detect the amount of swap. Maybe your memory is weird. 14 GB seems like an odd amount. Maybe it's seeing some high memory as swap?

Is there a forum particular to your manufacturer? Somebody else should be seeing the same phenomenon.

It's 12 GB, not 14, which is a pretty normal amount (4, 6, 8, 12) are all pretty average. I swapped my G.Skill ram out for some Corsair Dominator I had in the shop, didn't change anything.

I guess It's not a big deal since DTask Manager is recording it normally, but it's irking me why Windows is recording it incorrectly.