My office PC frequently shows a message that the virtual memory is low. And, It is delaying in openinmg files?

Question

What to do? Can we make some modifications in PC and increase the speed? How can we increase the virtual memory?

Answer 1

Several things that we need to know

how many programs do you have open, what operating system, and what is the specs on the computer

Answer 2

Some of the people above seems to not understand the difference between virtual memory and real memory and free harddisk space.

FYI, Virtual Memory is actually your RAM memory + Harddisk swap space.

RAM Memory is the size of the RAM of the computer, while Harddisk swap space is the part of the harddisk that is used to store RAM data that might not be needed at the moment. While to increase the RAM memory you need to buy a new RAM, increasing Harddisk Swap Space is much easier, Go to Control Panel > System > Advanced > Settings (under Performance) > Advanced > Change (under Virtual Memory). There you can freely change the swap size, I don't recommend to let Windows manage it automatically since it creates a lot of fragmentation on harddisk, and may slow down system performance.

However, my reccomendation is like this: if your RAM is relatively small (i.e. for XP on normal usage < 512 MB) then you should buy a new RAM, as using harddisk for swap space TOO MUCH would decrease system performance A LOT.

If and only if your RAM is already sufficient, then you would just need to increase the harddisk swap space and you won't get any slow down, you could even get a slight increase in performance.

Answer 3

Right click on My Computer and select Properties. Go to the Advanced tab and click on the Settings button under Performance. From there another window will open and you'll have to click on the Advanced tab. At the bottom you'll find your settings for virtual memory and you'll have to increase it.

Other modifications to speed up a PC would be to install more RAM if your company allows it. But virutal memory is using your hard drive and not the RAM. The RAM increase will speed up the computer itself, however, I think the combination of more RAM and more virtual memory should do you just fine.

Answer 4

If this is happening often as you indicate, you need to have more ram added to your system. While you can increase the amount of hard disk space assigned for use as virtual memory, this is a stop gap solution! In a business environment, it is not good business sense to slow things down like this when it can be fixed for the cost of 1 or two ram sticks.

Answer 5

You need to free up hard drive space OR go to the System Properties in the control panel, click on the virtual memory button, then select the box that says, "Let Windows Manage my virtual memory." If this was already selected then the problem is there is not enough room on your hard disk.

Answer 6

The quick fix is to restart your system in Safe Mode. Then shut down and restart normally. This will force your system to rebuild the swap file (virtual memory). You may be running out of disk space. Also as another person suggested try buying new RAM for the system.

Answer 7

Virtual memory is basically a hard drive space that windows uses for programs to think that they are using real memory.

Free up some space on your hard drive(programs)..then manually allocate memory page file size using memory mgt. If it doesn't work, youv'e got spyware problems..

Good luck..

Answer 8

Generally, Windows controls the virtual memory and everything is good. I'll bet you have a ton of TSR's running...probably a bunch of spyware too.

You office IT guy should look at it...

Answer 9

Try getting rid of some stuff on your PC to free up some space. You may also want to upgrade the REAL memory (RAM) if you don't have enough.

Answer 10

You shold clear some space on that drive - if you don't know what i'm talnkig about -> you should erase some big files from the desktop or My documents.