What is Virtual Memory? I keep getting a popup message saying "Virtual memory low"?

Question

After a short while a popup notice saying "Vitual Memory very low, windows will ........"etc, appears. What causes this, and how can I fix it? My desktop also turns off and reboots on its own since these popups appeared. I've just downloaded and installed SP3 for windows XP. Could this have anything to do with it? I have 27GB hard drive, ( 58% free), and 512MB RM Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

Virtual memory is disk space your computer uses as memory.

512 MB of real memory isn't much. You should increase your Virtual Memory disk space.

http://www.informit.com/articles/article...

Answer 2

Virtual memory is space on your Hard drive that acts l ike RAM

512MB physical RAM is low.

Either choose Windows to manage your Virtual Memory or Increase your settings to resolve Virtual MEmory.

To Increase: Right click My Computer - Properties - Advanced, click SETTINGS in the Performance Block, then click Advanced. Towards the bottom you'll see a block VIRTUAL MEMORY. Click the 'change it' button & increase the size.

Answer 3

Adjust your virtual memory settings.

To change the size of the virtual memory paging file

You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the Administrators group in order to complete this procedure. If your computer is connected to a network, network policy settings might also prevent you from completing this procedure.

Open System in Control Panel.

On the Advanced tab, under Performance, click Settings.

On the Advanced tab, under Virtual memory, click Change.

Under Drive [Volume Label], click the drive that contains the paging file you want to change.

Under Paging file size for selected drive, click Custom size, and type a new paging file size in megabytes in the Initial size (MB) or Maximum size (MB) box, and then click Set.

If you decrease the size of either the initial or maximum page file settings, you must restart your computer to see the effects of those changes. Increases typically do not require a restart.

Answer 4

I get that every time I run Java. Maybe you could do with a bit more memory. Your hard disk space seems to be fine.

Answer 5

Virtual Memory is RAM. I have 512 MB of RAM too, but I'm running SP2. There are two options that I see here. The first one is to buy more RAM. Assuming that you are running a desktop, I would buy at least one 1GB stick of RAM, which will cost about $50 to $100. Then you should install them according to your computer's specifications.

The other option is to create a Pagefile. The way to do this is to go to the Control Panel from the Start Menu, click on System (you may have to browse through some categories to get there) click on the "Advanced" tab, then, under Performance, click "Settings". Then, under the "Advanced" tab, at the bottom, there is a Virtual Memory Section. There, it will display the size of your Pagefile. Click the "Change" button. There, you can set the size of your Pagefile. A pagefile is a section of your hard drive (which is much bigger than my 5 GB hard drive) that the computer can use just like RAM. I would recommend making the pagefile at least 1 GB (1024 MB) since you have the disk space. You will have to restart your computer for the change to take effect, and the section that you allocated can not be used for data storage.

I hope this helps

Answer 6

Virtual memory is memory that your computer 'borrows' from your hard disk when the actual memory (RAM) is maxed out. Your computer will have a set amount of hard disk space reserved for virtual memory. When that also is maxed out, you will get the error message that's been appearing. Click on the article below for how to increase your virtual memory size:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308417

I would go through the steps myself, but I've been on Vista for over a year now and cannot remember how to navigate through XP anymore!

Remember that virtual memory is no decent substitute for RAM, no matter how much you increase the size. Frequent memory error messages suggests that you need to install more RAM - 512MB of RAM is really not very much by today's standards, even for XP. Some users would get by fine with it, but you're obviously doing things that are memory-intensive and you'd have a much better experience if you increased your RAM.