Pagefile usage when physical ram free

  • Thread starter Thread starter Adam Netzel
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A

Adam Netzel

I am running a Dell Dimension 4500 w/P4 2Ghz, 512MB RAM, nVidia
GeForce 4 Titanium 4200 (64MB Video Memory). For whatever reason, my
DVD's and any high bit-rate videos are now playing improperly. The
audio and video both jump and skip. Here is what I have already done
in an attempt to fix:

- I initially attributed it to the DVD player, but when I tried
playing the Halo 2 "HUGE" trailer, it did the same thing.
- I have tried different versions of Windows Media Player to no avail.
- I thought it might be spyware, but there different pieces of
software (Spyware Blaster, SpyBot Search and Destory, Ad-Aware) and an
antivirus check (Norton, latest definitions) came up clean (except for
a minor DSO exploit that I'm constantly fixing).
- Checking the Processes under the System Manager revealed no foreign
or unfamiliar processes

BUT, finally, I checked the Performance tab, and, although I show
anywhere between 250 and 300 MB of available physical RAM - even when
playing the video, my pagefile usage ballooned up to 250MB! At system
idle, it currently uses 161MB of PAGEFILE, whil saying that 300MB of
physical RAM is available. I downloaded MemTurbo, but all it did was
free up more physical RAM without affecting pagefile size. Regular
system performance is unaffected - only video playback is a problem,
and then, only large video files with high bitrates. I don't get it,
and I don't know what else to do. Please help!

Adam
 
You may wish to install the latest NVIDIA drivers recently
released: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_61.77

Make sure to uninstall the old ones first.

After installing the new video adapter drivers, reboot your laptop,
then right-click on your Desktop and select Properties > Settings,
and change the Color Quality to "Highest (32 bit), then adjust the Screen
Resolution to your liking.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

Be Smart! Protect your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


|I am running a Dell Dimension 4500 w/P4 2Ghz, 512MB RAM, nVidia
| GeForce 4 Titanium 4200 (64MB Video Memory). For whatever reason, my
| DVD's and any high bit-rate videos are now playing improperly. The
| audio and video both jump and skip. Here is what I have already done
| in an attempt to fix:
|
| - I initially attributed it to the DVD player, but when I tried
| playing the Halo 2 "HUGE" trailer, it did the same thing.
| - I have tried different versions of Windows Media Player to no avail.
| - I thought it might be spyware, but there different pieces of
| software (Spyware Blaster, SpyBot Search and Destory, Ad-Aware) and an
| antivirus check (Norton, latest definitions) came up clean (except for
| a minor DSO exploit that I'm constantly fixing).
| - Checking the Processes under the System Manager revealed no foreign
| or unfamiliar processes
|
| BUT, finally, I checked the Performance tab, and, although I show
| anywhere between 250 and 300 MB of available physical RAM - even when
| playing the video, my pagefile usage ballooned up to 250MB! At system
| idle, it currently uses 161MB of PAGEFILE, whil saying that 300MB of
| physical RAM is available. I downloaded MemTurbo, but all it did was
| free up more physical RAM without affecting pagefile size. Regular
| system performance is unaffected - only video playback is a problem,
| and then, only large video files with high bitrates. I don't get it,
| and I don't know what else to do. Please help!
|
| Adam
 
I am running a Dell Dimension 4500 w/P4 2Ghz, 512MB RAM, nVidia
GeForce 4 Titanium 4200 (64MB Video Memory). For whatever reason, my
DVD's and any high bit-rate videos are now playing improperly. The
audio and video both jump and skip. Here is what I have already done
in an attempt to fix:

- I initially attributed it to the DVD player, but when I tried
playing the Halo 2 "HUGE" trailer, it did the same thing.
- I have tried different versions of Windows Media Player to no avail.
- I thought it might be spyware, but there different pieces of
software (Spyware Blaster, SpyBot Search and Destory, Ad-Aware) and an
antivirus check (Norton, latest definitions) came up clean (except for
a minor DSO exploit that I'm constantly fixing).
- Checking the Processes under the System Manager revealed no foreign
or unfamiliar processes

BUT, finally, I checked the Performance tab, and, although I show
anywhere between 250 and 300 MB of available physical RAM - even when
playing the video, my pagefile usage ballooned up to 250MB! At system
idle, it currently uses 161MB of PAGEFILE, whil saying that 300MB of
physical RAM is available. I downloaded MemTurbo, but all it did was
free up more physical RAM without affecting pagefile size. Regular
system performance is unaffected - only video playback is a problem,
and then, only large video files with high bitrates. I don't get it,
and I don't know what else to do. Please help!

Adam
Click to expand...

Memturbo ??????

I have no idea what that is but there is no such thing as a legitimate
"memory optimizer". Uninstall it and run Spybot
(http://www.spybot.info/en/index.html) to make sure there's no
spyware.

I'm not saying that's your problem, but it can't help.

How much data is in your pagefile is irrelevant and uninteresting.
The RATE you read and write to pagefile is interesting. Task Manager
or perfrom can show you this.

Run Task Manager to see what processes you are _really_ running. If
you see anything strange google it and you can find it described as
safe or spyware on any of several web sites.
 
Your figures are normal. My PF Usage right now is 244 MB and always higher
than 161 MB after boot-up. It depends on how much software you have
installed.

PF Usage is the Total Commit Charge, the total amount of physical and
virtual memory currently in use.


Brian
 
Your figures are normal. My PF Usage right now is 244 MB and always higher
than 161 MB after boot-up. It depends on how much software you have
installed.

PF Usage is the Total Commit Charge, the total amount of physical and
virtual memory currently in use.


Brian
Click to expand...

Did this machine come from Dell as it is, or did you add a DVD
drive ?

Is the DVD on a seperate IDE channel from the C drive ?

How much real RAM do you have on the system ?
 
I am running a Dell Dimension 4500 w/P4 2Ghz, 512MB RAM, nVidia
GeForce 4 Titanium 4200 (64MB Video Memory). For whatever reason, my
DVD's and any high bit-rate videos are now playing improperly. The
audio and video both jump and skip. Here is what I have already done
in an attempt to fix:

- I initially attributed it to the DVD player, but when I tried
playing the Halo 2 "HUGE" trailer, it did the same thing.
- I have tried different versions of Windows Media Player to no avail.
- I thought it might be spyware, but there different pieces of
software (Spyware Blaster, SpyBot Search and Destory, Ad-Aware) and an
antivirus check (Norton, latest definitions) came up clean (except for
a minor DSO exploit that I'm constantly fixing).
- Checking the Processes under the System Manager revealed no foreign
or unfamiliar processes

BUT, finally, I checked the Performance tab, and, although I show
anywhere between 250 and 300 MB of available physical RAM - even when
playing the video, my pagefile usage ballooned up to 250MB! At system
idle, it currently uses 161MB of PAGEFILE, whil saying that 300MB of
physical RAM is available. I downloaded MemTurbo, but all it did was
free up more physical RAM without affecting pagefile size. Regular
system performance is unaffected - only video playback is a problem,
and then, only large video files with high bitrates. I don't get it,
and I don't know what else to do. Please help!

Adam
Click to expand...


"Page File Usage" as reported by the Task Manager in Windows XP is a
somewhat misleading figure.

This is because of the fact that application programs, device drivers,
and Windows components all issue memory allocation requests that are
somewhat larger than they usually need under normal circumstances.
Windows must, by definition, identify memory address locations for all
of the requested memory, even the unused portions. What happens is
that Windows uses RAM for only that portion of the request that is
actually used and allocates space in the page file for the unused
portions. Note that this allocation of page file space for unused
requested memory requires no disk activity - just an entry in the
internal memory mapping tables maintained by the CPU.

However, Task Manager counts this mapping of the unused requested
memory to the page file as page file usage, and in a technical sense
this is correct. However there has been no disk activity resulting
from this.

A more realistic definition of page file usage is one that reports
only that portion of the page file that contains active memory content
that has been moved from physical RAM to the page file so as to allow
that RAM to be reused for other, more important purposes. There is a
free utility which will measure and report this information from the
page file. It was written by MVP Bill James and it can be downloaded
from http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm or from
http://billsway.com/notes_public/WinXP_Tweaks/

For example, on my own computer at this moment Task Monitor is report
Page File Usage of 313 mb. However the actual usage, as reported by
Bill James' utility, is only 54 mb. That means that at present there
has been a total of 259 mb of memory requested but never used. This
is quite typical.


MemTurbo is pure unadulterated crapware that is totally incapable of
performing any beneficial function for any computer under any
circumstances.


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."
 
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