What does it mean when a message pops up that says
"you're computer is low on virtual memory"? And
what do you do to "fix" it? Or can't you?

When that happens I can barely get around in here
or any site for that matter...last night I got froze
in this place because of it

I was trying to post, but my browser wouldn't let me....

Maybe you should clean out your Temporary Files folder


It's a part of Internet Options

[Edited 12/10/08 9:53am]

thekidsgirl said:

I did that about 1 1/2 weeks ago, so I don't think that's it,
but thanks...I don't seem to be having as much trouble today.
But I'm still curious as to what that message meant?

Maybe I had picked up a virus with all the googling I've
been doing and my virus protection was working overtime?

Anyway more ideas, in case this happens again?

OK, let's start at the beginning.

First, is computer plugged in and turned on?

Imago said:

I wouldn't be here if it wasn't

There is a help menu on your computer.

Graycap23 said:

Yes, and I didn't get the "help" I needed

obsessed said:

shewww. That will save some time.




OK, your virtual memory is the memory your OS is using to do all the crap you do on a nomral basis.
On Microsoft OSs, it's actually kept in file on the hard drive that in theory should be as contigous as possible.

Anyways, what's happenning is possibly one of a few things:

1) Your memory is running out of space on the hard drive (you need at least 15% free on your hard drive on the system partition or the partitions on which your scratch file reside.

2) Your virtual memory size is manualy being set, and needs to be increased, or you need XP/Vista to handle the memory size itself.

3) You have a virus or program that's eating up resources. (FireFox, even with the supposed fix is notorious for eating up resources on XP/Vista).



Sooooo,
Try increasing the file size or let XP manage it.

Got to:

Start menu, my computer (right-click my computer)
Then click the advance tab of the diologue box that pops up)

you'll see this


Then go in and increase your VM memory size or let XP manage it for you.




Also,
You could always try running a scan for viruses and spyware.


Finally, it never hurts to add more RAM. VM on RAM memory runs thousands of times faster than on a scratch file. Always has, and always will.


Lawd, I'm glad I own a mac.

Imago covered it, I just dealt w/ this recently. Had some spyware that was eating up what little virtual memory I had. Paid out the ass to get rid of it Bought some RAM, cleared some things off my hard drive, made a point to do all the maintenance things that need to happen regularly (running Disk Cleanup, defragmenting drives, regular virus scans), I'm good now...

CalhounSq said:

Imago said:

OK, thanks. I'm not sure I'm understanding this completely on first read,
but I'll digest and then see what can be done. I do know however that my
hard drive isn't full...I saw the statistics on that recently it seems.

I need a new pc one of these days anyway (not sure about mac)...my daughter
has one and she has more damn trouble than I do

obsessed said:

Anyone who complains about their mac simply doesn't love it enough.


It's true.

If your hard drive is full, you can buy a new one for real cheap now.

And any of the bigbox retailers will swap copy the contents onto the new drive if you don't know how to.

CalhounSq said:

I had a bad Trojian Horse infection about two months ago that put me at a
stand-still for about 4 days...my virus protection at the time wasn't cuttin'
it, so we installed a new virus and spy protection....it's been good catching
everything, but sometimes I think that the protection itself screws things
up sometimes.

I'm not really computer savvy, so I continuously need help...my mind doesn't
wrap around all this stuff the way it should. But I do try to maintain.

Imago said:

Tell her that...she'll have your head on a platter....even with all the
trouble she's had, she still swears by it

Imago said:

This is one thing I do know

obsessed said:

I had the same thing with my PC. It was no more than 10 days old and that bitch got a trojan virus. Unbelievable.

Norton sucked ass at getting rid of it, and slowed my pc down.

Dewerde recommended a virus protection called Kapersky.

After installing Kapersky (which uninstalls Norton), I was in love.
This thing is blissfully thorough, and my Pc is running smooth and fast...well, smooth and fast considering it isn't a mac.

Lawd, do I love my mac.

obsessed said:

Yea, my McAfee failed & let something prompt me to d/l an update for IE. My dumb ass thought it was legit so I invited the problems into my system But even before that one there was some spyware I didn't realize was there, which contributed to McAfee failing. But the real Q is WHY did McAfee fail in the first place & let ANYTHING in??

Imago said:

Here's the thing...we had Norton to begin with and didn't like it, so changed
to Avgfree or something like that...it seemed to do OK until that Trojian
Horse attack, so then someone convinced us to go back to Norton because it
had improved...it did a good job of whiping out bugs that Avg missed, and it
put everything back into place for us....but I really think it still slows
things way down sometimes...it's very noticeable when updating virus definitions.

Long story short, I'll keep Kapersky in mind if we continue to have problems.

Thanks again for all your help!

CalhounSq said:

That's basically what happened to me with my old virus/spyware protector,
but I still don't know to this day how I "invited" in that Trojian Horse!