> It's got 64 mb ram
> Paging file useage 95.5 mbyte

  The good thing about virtual memory is that not all of a process (program
+ data) needs to be in physical RAM at the same time.  Studies have found
that most programs can run almost as fast if a "working set" of data and
currently active routines are in physical RAM, with the rest reloaded from
disk as needed.  The overall system performance will be fine as long as the
sum of the current load's working sets will all fit into RAM at once.
  The paging file is used to save parts of the process (almost always data)
that may change during the life of the process.  Code rarely needs to be
saved there -- it doesn't change, so it can be reloaded from the .exe or
.dll file as needed.
  So it's possible that the sum of the working sets for the processes in
your current application mix is exceeding your available physical RAM.  So
your programs are spending a whole bunch of extra time playing a sort of
"musical shairs", each one trying to get enough of itself into RAM to do
anything before it gets paged out to serve some other process.

  Another possibility is that you may be running with a dynamic, fragmented
paging file.  If you are letting Windows manage the swap file, it will grow
the file each time a program starts (and sometimes while it's running), and
shrink it again when the program ends.  And if the drive has much
fragmentation, this will aggravate it....
  For best performance, you want a static, contiguous (unfragmented) paging
file -- if possible, on a different controller/drive from your program files
and data.  At minimum, putting it on a separate partition may help you
create it without fragments.

  Defragmenting your data files might be useful, too.  Fragmentation causes
additional disk activity which affects performance more and more as months
go by.

  If the problem really is that your working sets have gotten too large, the
only thing that will really fix it is to add more RAM -- in today's
environment, 64MB is a bit on the small side.
  But defragmenting and changing to a statically-allocated paging file are
things you can do to try and wring better performance out of your existing
hardware, and they *might* be sufficient to let you put off shelling out
more cash for a while longer.

David Gillett


On 24 Mar 2003, at 10:30, Paul Jordan wrote:

> I am having real problems with my computer. It's got 64 mb ram, Cyrix P200+
> chip plus a 33.6 k modem (internal). 40 gig hdd Seagate I think.
>
> This beast has got slower and slower over the last few months. Most
> especially noticeable on the net. The hdd keeps thrashing and while it is
> doing that nothing else happens. Web pages won't load, applications won't
> open, mouse basically freezes or jerks across the screen. Have tried
> memcache but no appreciable difference. When first started it generally
> shows 11.9 mbytes free ram, Paging file useage 95.5 mbyte. When going
> through the options in memcache it shows (average) physical memory free 10/
> physical memory usage 52/ user resources free 42/ GDI resources free 64.
> Have used memcache wizards to try to get a good optimum but no luck. I
> really think my problems lie in the hdd thrashing so much and don't know how
> to stop it. Any ideas here please?

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