virtural memory too low??????

[mom to 4]

I just had that message pop up. What the heck does that mean. I dumped about 800 photos off my hard drive today.....how can my memory be low after doing that??????

Anyone know anything about that?????

[bwolford]

Memory and disk space have nothing to do with each other (strictly speaking). Are you using Windows? I assume so. Are you getthing this message a lot? How many appls were running at the time? How often do you reboot?

Some applications "leak." This means they use memory (RAM) and don't free it up before they quit. Good applications. Some appls have a flaw (bug). The programmer didn't write the correct computer instructions to free the memory. The only way to free it up again or clean up the leak is to reboot.

Brice

[Norm F]

From a "Kim Kommando" newsletter. I increased the virtual memory on my old machine, eliminated the error message and had no problems. I'm not suggesting you should but here's what Kim had to say.

Your computer uses random access memory (RAM) to store data for
programs that are currently running. Windows XP alone requires 128 MB
of RAM. If you want to run programs, you're going to need much more
than that to get by. I generally recommend 512 MB.
Virtual memory is designed to complement the computer's physical
memory. It creates a paging file, or swap file, on your hard drive. As
programs request memory, and RAM overflows, Windows moves data to the
hard drive.
But there's a downside: Hard drives are relatively slow, so programs
won't respond as quickly. That's why having a lot of RAM is beneficial.
You're probably best off to let Windows manage the size of virtual
memory. It adjusts the size as needed.
However, you can set virtual memory yourself, if you prefer. Generally,
you will want to set the minimum size to 1.5 times your physical
memory. You can also specify a maximum size. Set the maximum size to
the same size as the minimum. This will help speed things up. If you
get warnings, enlarge both minimum and maximum.
To change the size of your paging file, click Start and right-click My
Computer. Click Properties and select the Advanced tab. Under
Performance, click Settings. Open the Advanced tab. Under Virtual
memory, click Change.
Now, select the C: drive. Click Custom size and enter the minimum and
maximum sizes. Click Set and OK. Click OK on the other open dialog
boxes.
If your hard drive is partitioned, or you have multiple hard drives,
you can accelerate virtual memory. Place the paging file on a hard
drive that doesn't contain the operating system. In that case, select
"No paging file" for the C: drive.

[mom to 4]

Thanks Guys!

Brice:

I am running Windows. I guess at the time, I had PSE4 open, was uploading photo to pixentral and had the forum open. But many times I have had lots of other things open too. This is only the second time in months that has happened, but what really shocked me is that I had just deleted so many photos and it came up.

Norm:

I recently (within the last 4 months) added an additional 512 of memory which is another reason why this shocked me. I will read your instructions once I wake up a bit more (it is now 6 am here) and follow them.



I really appreciate the two of you responding and your help! THANKS!!

[TonyW]

Colleen: Funnily enough I recently had the same thing happen on my wife's computer (that doesn't even run Elements). I checked the settings in System Properties and the paging file size was set way too low. I'm sure when I set her computer up I set it much higher. Anyway I changed it to let Windows manage it and it's been fine ever since. Don't know what caused the change - only thing I can think is that one of the Windows updates may have reset it but that's just speculation.

Tony

[Juergen D]

I dumped about 800 photos off my hard drive today.....
Colleen,
After you cleaned those photos off your HDD, did you also defrag the drive? The swap space used as virtual memory needs to be contiguous.

Juergen