resource overview question

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tim Draper
  • Start date Start date
T

Tim Draper

in resource monitor (taskman>performance>resource monitor), is a 'hard
faults/sec' value.

what is this for?
is it a performance related peice of info, or an error rate?
if error rate, then on what terms...... ram buggered, or vista is
requesting data too fast for the ram, no data available, and vista is
recording it as a fault?

tim
 
Hello,

This has to do with memory management in Windows. Windows can move memory to
places such as your hard disk so that it can make more memory available for
other programs.

A soft fault is when a program requests a chunk of memory that that is not
directly available to that program, but is available somewhere in physical
memory. This causes a delay, but is nothing compared to a hard fault.

A hard fault is when a program requests a chunk of memory that has been
removed from physical memory and stored on your hard disk. This invovles a
signifigant delay, as the program has to wait while the operating system
loads this memory from the hard disk before it can proceed.
 
To add to Jimmy Brush's reply, if you are consistently seeing a non-zero
value for "Hard Faults/sec" over long periods of time, you could probably
get a significant performance improvement by adding more RAM to your
computer. Check the value of "Used Physical Memory"; if this is close to
100% this also indicates a shortage of RAM. In Windows Task Manager, on the
Performance tab if "Memory" is consistently a higher number than the amount
of RAM installed, this is also an indication that more RAM would be useful.

This does not mean there is anything wrong with your existing RAM, you just
don't have enough of it for the work you're asking the computer to do.

You may find the information at
http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/WindowsGeneralWeb/RAMVirtualMemoryPageFileEtc.htm
useful, particularly section 2.8 Monitoring RAM and Virtual Memory usage.

--
Bruce Sanderson (bsanders)
MVP Printing
http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders
(e-mail address removed)

It is perfectly useless to know the right answer to the wrong question.
 
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