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XP SP2 and my overly large pagefile issue

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boostdfd3s

Disabled
Joined
Nov 9, 2004
hey every1,
i have 1GB of RAM, and i wanted to turn the PF off. Okay, go through the menus and hit no paging. Click out of the window and XP says "increasing ur page file size" :mad: Manually set it to be 50-100MB, reboot, and windows is constantly at 350-400mb no matter how low i set it. My ram never gets used past 40%, even when encoding/decoding a DVD.

Has anyone defeated the page file?!
-Zach
 
I ran across this same thing myself recently and laughed at my oversight afterwards. You MUST hit the SET button on the right before hitting the OK button at the bottom. If you just hit the OK button even after making a change, the change doesn't stay/take effect.
 
triple checked those things. Hit set, even went into the registry and deleted the settings in there....nada
 
yup, did that on all drives and then windows promptly showed me a bubble that said "page file too small, windows is increasing it"
 
boostdfd3s said:
"page file too small, windows is increasing it"

If you have 1Gb of ram and the system says that a page file size of 0 is too small, then to me that indicates your memory must be really loaded up and you are having to use the page file (virtual memory to us old school folks). Go to task manager and find out how much your memory is in use and what your cpu utilization is. After that, go the processes tab to determine what is chewing up so much of your memory and/or cpu cycles.
 
Close, stop, or whatever it is to end out of folding just to see what happens(I don't fold and please don't pm me asking me to). In other words, just have the normal programs running such as antivirus. Check your usage then and then attempt to change your page file to 0. I am running no page file. I have 1Gb of ram. I assume you have a real graphics card such as an agp or pci express card. If you are running onboard video, then I can see how that might be causing a problem.
 
have a Geforce3 AGP. the normal programs like AIM, explorer, IE, and iTunes are taking 27,000-19,000 going down.
 
No matter HOW much ram you have, windows will move inactive programs to the page file and free more ram. So, create a 400mb ram drive and put you page file on that... Windows is happy and you're happy.
 
That's true Cyrix, but still doesn't explain why he can't change the size of his page file or eliminate it as I and many others have done.
 
Prot said:
That's true Cyrix, but still doesn't explain why he can't change the size of his page file or eliminate it as I and many others have done.
He's running a Micro$oft product on his rig, isn't that enough to explain why?

Honestly, Windows is retarded. I can't really disable the pagefile on my rig either... I tried once. Soon as I started photoshop, windows said it was increasing the pagefile size. :mad:
 
The page-file should not be defeated completely in case a kmode exception happens and windows cannot write a dump file.Have you tried a 22-40 MB static page-file on the c: drive? This should keep windows from increasing the size on it's own while satisfying it's need for a dump file location.I don't beleive that the minimum of 34 mb's can be bypassed as windows will create one even if it is set for no page file.
 
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I had the same problem, and ended just giving up. XP flat out refuses to run page-file-less. Reguardless of what it is set to, it runs 305MB'ish, while I have 600MB+ of ram free.
 
congrads on the realisation that xp is stupid. once again microsfot managed to chew up more resources, eat through more ram, and take the power farther away from the users. SP3 will be "your system is no longer functional, go out and buy a G4"

Damn them.
 
The following quote is taken from the MSKB article I've linked to below...
The optimal solution is to create one paging file that is, by default, stored on the boot partition, and then create one paging file on another, less frequently accessed partition. Additionally, it is optimal to create the second paging file so that it exists on its own partition, with no data or operating-system-specific files. By design, Windows uses the paging file on the less frequently accessed partition over the paging file on the more heavily accessed boot partition. An internal algorithm is used to determine which paging file to use for virtual memory management
How to Configure Paging Files for Optimization and Recovery in Windows XP

In addition, Virtual Memory is always in operation and can't be “turned off” (or...“set the system to use no page file space at all”.)

Doing this would waste a lot of the RAM. The reason is that when programs ask for an allocation of Virtual memory space, they may ask for a great deal more than they ever actually bring into use...the total may easily run into hundreds of MB's. These addresses have to be assigned somewhere by the system. If there's a page file available, the system can assign them to it...if there isn't, they have to be assigned to RAM, locking it out from any actual use.

Therefore, you shouldn't turn off paging even with a vast amount of RAM. You can set the initial size down to about 50-100MB, and it will never get bigger, and will see no traffic (except the system initially 'parking' a few files in it). Not having the possibility of paging would result in locking out a lot of RAM. The reason is that many programs ask for allocations of virtual address space far bigger than they actually use. These have to be associated with some physical device. If there's a page file, they can go with that...resulting in a page file on which there isn't any traffic. If you don't have a page file, then they have to be assigned to RAM, and that part of RAM becomes effectively useless...it can't be used for anything else.
 
Cant set it static, i even had it set up to a max of 450mb and windows STILL increased it.....retarded.

Moreover, what's the point of having 1GB of ram? honestly? so i can multitask, have a greater amount of RAM go unused, and have a LARGER pagefile size?

The only reason why i can see having 1GB of ram now is what Cyrix_2k said...make a pagefile drive out of physical ram to "trick" windows.

Crap like this makes me SERIOUSLY look at G5's.....and i haaaate macs

Doing this would waste a lot of the RAM. The reason is that when programs ask for an allocation of Virtual memory space, they may ask for a great deal more than they ever actually bring into use...the total may easily run into hundreds of MB's. These addresses have to be assigned somewhere by the system. If there's a page file available, the system can assign them to it...if there isn't, they have to be assigned to RAM, locking it out from any actual use.

This is a flaw of Windows... i do not understand how allocating RAM is worse than not allocating RAM and making a pagefile in case it needs to be used...technically windows is locking out the RAM anyway by NOT ASSIGNING IT AT ALL! :mad: Id really like for windows to allocate RAM before pagefiles no matter what...and if the program asks "for a great deal more" dont assign it right away by making a 700mb page file, just be ready to IF IT NEEDS IT.

So...anyone up for a lynch mobing outside Microsoft headquarters? :p
 
I have 1 gb of ram, and while windows show a page file being used, I rarely notice any disking unless I'm actually reading files from the hard drive. It doesn't seem to ever actually use the page file. And just doing stuff on the desktop is noticeably faster than a computer with even 768 mb ram, I've noticed. It's just lying to you about the page file usage.
It also lies to you about how much ram it's actually using. That number you see called "system cache" in task manager: some of that is stored in physical ram to speed things like file access, but windows doesn't tell you that ram is being used, because it can be freed at any time if you launch a program that needs it.


As far as I'm concerned, it really doesn't matter what the numbers say. My computer is faster with 1 gb of ram compared to 512 or even 768 mb.
 
I built a system a year ago, and managed to turn the page file off, without windows freaking out. The system however had 2 gigs of RAM installed. It might be hard coded into windows to only allow you to disable the page file if you have over a certain ammount of RAM.
 
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