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why the large swap file

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4 replies

by pchlp

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Thanks for taking the time to have a look at this.

The issue is as follows: I have 2 Gb of ram on my computer and WinXp is continuously using swap space rather than all available ram memory. Not only is it slow, but it just %#$&* me off. (I'm obviously not an XP fan). The screen shot I'm attaching clearly shows that the computer has more than 1 GB of RAM (Physical Memory), yet 714 MB is being put to the Page file (ie Swap).

Question: Is there a way of using all the RAM without going to Swap space. Is there a registry entry that controls this???

Thanks

Mark

PS I have dual hyperthreaded processors that's why the cpu is only showing 40%.
Does anyone have any ideas on this one.
Thanks in advance

4 replies

by house

This might sound like a very stupid question judging by your tech points...Have you customized your paging file? It can be set as low as 2mb.

Windows does not wait for the phys mem to be completely full before it performs swapping with the virtual. If someone knows the solution, I am interested too.

by blackcurrant

Hi

Did you also know that if you have more than 1GB RAM, you can turn the swap file off? It depends on what you use your computer for, but in most cases, this will not affect system performance. If you render movies on your system then you will run into problems.

I have 1.5GB RAM in my system and disabling the swap file actually enhanced the performance of my machine slightly. You will need to check whether any of the apps you use require a swap file before you disable it completely.

Create a restore point and play with the settings. Right click My computer, select Properties, click the Advanced tab, then the settings button under Performance, then click the advanced button and click the Change button. Now select No paging file, or reduce the amount of hard disk space you wish to allocate to the swap file.

Good luck

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