Low on Virtual Memory
 

I have a Toshiba Satellite 50, it has been working great. Recently I am constantly getting Low on Virtual Memory warning.

What exactly is this? Is it serious?

When I reboot it is ok for a while. What can I do to fix this problem?

Is your hard drive (c) almost full? If so, remove some files. If not, you will need to increase the amount of virtual memory available to Windows.

http://www.hulahamsters.com/solution1.html

I don't think so.

I have 18 gigs left free on my C drive alone.

Is that not enough?

18g may or may not be enough based on the setting on how much windows is looking for. If it's looking for 50 and you only have 18 for example, it will constantly tell you that you are low on virtual memory. Though that is plenty, you may just need to tell windows to look for less. To change what Windows is looking for (it's also possible since you say you have 18 gb on C alone that your system may be looking to other drives if you have them, check that too):

How to manually change the size of the virtual memory paging file

You must be logged on as an administrator or as a member of the Administrators group to complete this procedure. If your computer is connected to a network, network policy settings may also prevent you from completing this procedure.
1. Click Start, click Run, and then type sysdm.cpl in the Open box.
2. Click the Advanced tab, and then click Settings under Performance.
3. Click the Advanced tab, and then click Change under Virtual memory.
4. Under Drive [Volume Label], click the drive that contains the paging file that you want to change.
5. Under Paging file size for selected drive, click Custom size, type a new paging file size in megabytes (MB) in the Initial size (MB) or Maximum size (MB) box, and then click Set.

If you decrease the size of either the initial or maximum paging file settings, you must restart your computer to see the effects of those changes. When you increase the paging file size, you typically do not have to restart your computer.

Notes
• To have Windows select the best paging file size, click System managed size. The recommended minimum size is equivalent to 1.5 times the RAM on your computer, and 3 times that figure for the maximum size. For example, if you have 256 MB of RAM, the minimum size is 384 MB, and the maximum size is 1152 MB.
• For best performance, do not set the initial size to less than the minimum recommended size under Total paging file size for all drives. The recommended size is equivalent to 1.5 times the RAM on your computer. It is good practice to leave the paging file at its recommended size. However, you may increase its size if you frequently use programs that use much memory.
• To delete a paging file, set both the initial size and the maximum size to zero, or click No paging file. We strongly recommend that you do not disable or delete the paging file.

It's possible that something you are working on creates large temp files (like photoshop for example) that takes up most, if not all of the free disk space, so that windows doesn't see enough space. Auto recover files in Office documents, etc all take up disk space and you may not know they are even there when the application is closed. If you see it usually with one program running (for me it's photoshop) you may be able to adjust the size or location of those temp files to help.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8830/4.2.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

One other suggestion for manually setting the size is to set the min and max to be the same number, at 1.5x physical RAM. If the page file is a static size it will be less likely to become fragmented over time, resulting in better performance. It also prevents lack of HD space from being an issue as the entire size of the file will be reserved from the get go.

If you want to find which program is using all your virtual memory you can do so using task manager. There is an option under the third menu to select columns. In that dialog check the box for virtual memory. You can then sort by that column to see what is causing the VM to be consumed.

Maybe one of your programs has a memory leak.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_leak

I have simiar, though not exactly the same problem

My 7 year old Dell sever in a small office setting is starting to spit out:
"F:\ is not accessible. Not enough server storage available process the command" when accessing it from multiple on site machines.

The HD is SCSI at 10 GB and I have 1.6 GB of space left. Note that I was down to about 800 mb and took a lot off of it, but still get the same mesage sporadically. When I go to the server keyboard directly, I have no problem getting into it. I then delete any small file from it, and the problem goes away for a few days, usually. I am running Windows 2000 Professional on it.

Are there any suggestions, or is it really time to look for a new server (I had planned doing this later in the year).

How about just a much bigger disk drive? Way cheaper if the server does the job otherwise.

Your 10G SCSI drive belongs in a museum. As your applications and data have gotten larger, your drive is stuck in the year 1999.

-David

Thanks. I was afraid that a new serverwas the answer. I am understandably leery of transferring everything over to a new system, Including the accounting system (QuickBooks PRO 2001) that I use. I guess I am just old fashioned in that "If it ain't broke, don't touch it" and only bad things seem to happen whe you mess with something that has been working flawlessly for 7 years and handled everything our 6 person office could throw at it. (at least until now):(

it's possible that you can run the accounting software off the current server, and run everything else off the new one until you are comfortable moving it over. Assuming you have file and print and other overhead on the current server, spreadsheets, documents, etc, just getting all that stuff off to a new server may make a huge difference.

But the post you quoted didn't say you need a new server. It said, as I did, that you need a new drive. That may do the trick for way less money and conversion hassle.

Thank you all for your response.

Special thanks to cordelli, your advise was spot on. It fixed the problem.

Go to bed with a problem and flyertalk tells you what is wrong when one wakes up.