Page File problem

[minoukat]

OK, now this is ****ing me off ! Fourth time I reformat today, and still it gives me this stupid problem ! Here it goes (I already started a thread like this before, but now it's worse). Windows [based on NT] 2000/XP eats my paging file for nothing :mad:. I leave it alone for a night, and the next day it has already taken 100 more megabytes of paging file, doing nothing but FOLD ! could anyone help me a little with this problem ? Happens in 2000 and XP (wanted to try it on this POS). Thanks

PS : might it be cuz the NT kernel doesn't like my K6-2 ? Or my mobo ? or my chipset, memory, video card, ... ? cuz I have no problem with winblowz98, just with NT-based OSes ...

[minoukat]

Bumpity Bump Bump

[minoukat]

bump

[minoukat]

BUMP. Please ?

[phantom punisher]

i had this problem before in a beta version of xp. you need to manualy set the size of the page file and not let windows regulate it. go my computer, properties,advanced,performance,advanced,virtual memory, then set it to custom size. then it cant grow

[minoukat]

Nope, didn't help, it's not the pagefile that expands over it's [assigned] 500MB, it's that some files take pagefile while doing nothing (SVCHOST.exe, for exemple), and don't give back that virtual memory. So after a few days of non-stop on, the system is jerky, slow and whatnot. It doesn't happen on my P3 though, with both XP and 2000 :confused: :(.

Thanks for your answer btw :)

UPDATE : I tried it with a specific amount of pagefile storage, and the only thing it did was limit the amount of apps to run at the same time, cuz it still expanded for no reason, while nothing else than Folding was running (including the default Windows processes)

[o770]

how is the page file set to?

[minoukat]

I changed it of drive (cuz I have 3 partitions, 1 for Win98, 1 for 2000, and one for the Win2k programs). Now, it's on the 2k programs partition, but it didn't help, it still does the same pagefile eating. It's currently set to : minimum : 2MB, Max : 500MB. User-configured, so Windows doesn't change it when it needs it.

[Big Nuttz]

I have my page file on a seperate physical drive set at 512-1024 with no problems. Try it on a seperate drive that might help if its availible.

[minoukat]

I don'T have an additional drive, that's why I changed it of partition, just to notice it didn't help at all :(

[phantom punisher]

im not sure if it is the set up causein gthis problem but i just reinstalled .net tonight and it defaults to a page file of min 576 and max 1066. page files are soposed to be no less than your memory. and in .nets case it deafalts to nearly twice as much. try upping the page file to something ridiculous and see what happens.

[minoukat]

I'll try that now, and I'll tell in the morning if it produces any changes

Thanks :)

[o770]

minoukat, try settting it first to a permanet file, and check how it works. set it to 512-512MB so windows wont work on resizing it anymore.
i think the problem might be that phantom punisher talks about.

[minoukat]

still increasing :(

(pic is after 1 night of work. I'l post the processes afterwards)

[minoukat]

list of processes and memory each one uses :

[phantom punisher]

those dont strike me as too out of the ordinary.

[phantom punisher]

f34r |\/|y |_337 |\/|s p41|\|7 s|<1|_|_s

[minoukat]

I don't know, both have the same amount of RAM, both the same HD, both have equal amoount of VRAM (only mine steals 4MB from system memory for the onboard graphics chip that I don't use, and that I can't disable)

[minoukat]

pic of the performance from the P3 :

[minoukat]

processes :


BTW, it's using that much memory right now cuz I'm converting a movie to DivX. if it wouldn't convert, it'd stay calm at about 200MB of pagefile used

[phantom punisher]

i cant imagind your processor being a problem but may be post and see if anyone is running that cpu with 2k in the amd forum. xp on that same amd rig does the same thing? and these arnt beta windows are they? only asked cause i see kazaa running

[minoukat]

Nope, retail versions, and yah, both 2k and XP do the same pagefile-stealing :(

thanks for your help :)

[The Coolest]

Try settting up a static page file, like 512MB min and 512MB max, and see what happens, this looks like some kind of virus? what is this all alexandru stuff in there?

[minoukat]

Already tried, didn't work :( And Alexandru is the user on both computers, cuz when I install the OS, it looks better than "Compaq blahbalh" or "Alex's computer" or whatever other crap like that. (check my profile to know from where this name came from ... ;))

[phantom punisher]

Originally posted by The Coolest
what is this all alexandru stuff in there?
thats his name. i looked at it too with the hairy eyeball for a bit:)

doh you beat me to it mini

[Fiz]

Download a program called cacheman, I use it on all 3 of my systems and it does a great job. It enables you to turn on conservative swap file usage and a few other nifty things. It also keeps my physical ram free, out of 512MB no matter how much I have open, the lowest I have seen it go it about 230MB free. Give it a try and see if it helps. :)

Fiz

[cmkrnl]

Hmm, there are a few things in those screens that need a bit of explanation.

minoukat: Your 2K-like display prefs fooled me for a moment, 'til I noticed the "PF usage" label, and the four svchosts... ok, it's XP!

In the WinXP task manager performance tab, the graph labeled "PF usage" is not the paging file usage. It is how much virtual memory there is of the type that would be paged to the paging file if it couldn't all be kept in RAM.

You'll notice it's lower than your total RAM. That however doesn't necessarily mean that it's all in RAM, because there are other types of virtual memory competing for RAM too. They however are not stored in the paging file when not in RAM, but in files like exe's, dll's, and data files that are accessed through the cache. There aren't counters for these other types of virtual memory in Task Manager. (And there is other virtual memory that isn't pageable at all; it always stays in RAM, but only the OS can create that sort.)

Back to the "PF usage" counter - it is also the same counter as the "commit charge - total". Note that if you do the conversions -- multiply "commit charge" by 1024 to get bytes, and the "PF usage" by 1024*1024 to get bytes -- you'll get the same number of bytes for both (modulo the fact that one is displayed with more significant digits than the other).

Another surprise: You can have a lot more of the "PF usage", or "commit total", than you have pagefile space. The "commit charge - limit" comes from your current pagefile size + RAM available for pageable virtual memory (which is most of your RAM, but not quite all). See, the idea is, when apps allocate pagefile-backed virtual memory, the system has to know that it can be stored somewhere. But "somewhere" can either be the paging file or RAM.

Now, over to the "processes" tab - the "mem usage" column there is the physical memory being used by each process. Not total virtual memory, not pagefile-backed virtual memory, and not pagefile usage. Physical memory, aka RAM. IOW you can't add up the "mem usage" column to get the "commit charge" - they aren't the same "things" even though they're both measured in bytes.

If you want to see each process's contribution to the "commit charge - total", in task manager, processes tab, View | Select columns, and check "virtual memory size". Remember this is only the type of v.m. that's backed up by the paging file - the total virtual size of each process is bigger. Much bigger.

Now, all that said - I don't really see a problem with your box. After reading the above you're probably worried that one of the svchosts is chewing up 18 MB of RAM... but that is after the system has sat all night with nothing else to do. And you still have 1/3 of your RAM free! If something starts making more demands on RAM, the system will automatically shrink those infrequently-used processes to make them give up the RAM, but right now, with 66 out of 192 MB RAM free, you really aren't in a RAM crunch, so the system is letting even mostly-idle processes keep in RAM everything they touched since.. well, since the last time there WAS a heavy demand on RAM.

I will mention that with only ~200 MB RAM, and 173 MB commit charge at the moment, your pagefile default size should probably be at least 200 if not 400 MB. Set the maximum size to a GB or so.

[minoukat]

Originally posted by cmkrnl
minoukat: Your 2K-like display prefs fooled me for a moment, 'til I noticed the "PF usage" label, and the four svchosts... ok, it's XP!



Got me :D. First post ("Happens in 2000 and XP (wanted to try it on this POS). ") :D ;)


Anyways, my RAM is alright, it's the virtual memory that has a problem. Say that I leave it on for some days. I just let it fold, without running anything else. With only Folding running, the Commit Charge is about 130MB. Then, I come back 3 days later (still without running anything else during that time), the commit charge has jumped to 300 or 400MB. That'S my problem, it jumps while doing nothing, and doesn't give back my Virtual Memory space when an app is closed.

[cmkrnl]

Well, switch the "VM size" column on in task manager and see where it's going. Sort by that column too.

[minoukat]

Here it is (sorry for being long, wanted to wait a little bit to let things increase). it's at about 210MB used right now, after a day of uptime. Donno how, but it seems that XP (what I'm currently using to test this) has stabilized the virtual memory itself. I'm saying that because yesterday, when I left it, it was at 170-soemthing, and this morning, it was at 178MB.

[cmkrnl]

Originally posted by minoukat
[...] yesterday, when I left it, it was at 170-soemthing, and this morning, it was at 178MB.
I'd still like to see a task manager screen with both "mem usage" and "vm size" shown. If you sort by the "vm size" it'll be easy to get all the "major offenders" in the same screen cap.

What services do you have enabled? (Wondering what svchost is doing...)

With only 256 MB RAM, your pagefile really should have a default size of at least 256 MB, if not 512. Actually there is nothing magic about powers of two or exact multiples, 250 would do as well as 256, and 500 as well as 512... but anyway, with only 256 MB ram your default pagefile size needs to be MUCH bigger than you had it.

[minoukat]

sorry ! forgot to add it last time ! :D And nevermind, it's not solved, it was just growing a little slower :(. And all the services are running, cuz it didn't do any change with them on or off. Here's a screenshot of about 5 minutes ago, I just rebooted.

[cmkrnl]

Well, folding (core_65.exe, winfah.exe) is accounting for about 65 MB, and winmsgs (messenger service) about 17MB.

A lot of the rest of it may be in the paged pool (see the "kernel memory, paged" counter over on the performance tab). To see if any procs are particularly responsible for that, you can add a "paged pool" column to the processes tab.

It seems reasonable that FAH is going to grow a lot over time. Have you tried it without FAH running?

[minoukat]

I don't think Folding is doing that, cuz even without WinFAH it still growed, and on my P3, it stays at about 200MB, even after being on a week straight (I know, I tried :D). I guess it just doesn't like my system :(.


and the Paged pool stays at lesss than 100KB per process.

[redduc900]

minoukat...what if any USB devices to you have connected to your PC?

[minoukat]

Originally posted by redduc900
minoukat...what if any USB devices to you have connected to your PC?

Only a MS WheelMouse Optical (the cheapest MS Optical mouse), and sometimes a scanner which isn't installed so it doesn't really count ...

[redduc900]

Is it a Visioneer scanner, and if it is...are the drivers for it installed?

[cmkrnl]

Originally posted by minoukat
I don't think Folding is doing that, cuz even without WinFAH it still growed,

If I read this right (I don't run it here), WinFAH is just the GUI. From a few web searches I learned that Core_65 is the "engine" part of FAH and from the display you posted it is most decidedly doing that.

and on my P3, it stays at about 200MB, even after being on a week straight (I know, I tried :D). I guess it just doesn't like my system :(.

It might be a configuration difference, or having more resources to grow into.

Does your other system not have core_65 running on it? Might core_65 also be used as the "engine" for some other "distributed computing" app, one that takes more pagefile-backed virtual address space than FAH?

Anyway, if you want to run whatever it is that is running in core_65... give it a 500 MB DEFAULT pagefile size or so, maybe twice that for maximum, and forget about it. Some apps just have to define a lot of, um, "the type of virtual address space that is backed up by the paging file when it can't all be kept in RAM" ("private bytes" in PerfMon, "VM size" in task manager). To accomodate them you can provide a lot of RAM, or a lot of paging file space, or somewhere in between; or you can not run those apps.

[minoukat]

yup, both are folding, using the exact same version of the client. both have the same amount of RAM also, so it isn't that "Folding uses more RAM than I have available", cuz it would happen on the P3 too. Also, the P3 has a Windows-controlled Virtual Memory, so the pagefile can grow and reduce as needed.