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Why is computer still using the paging file?

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franky77

Technical User
Nov 16, 2003
25
CA
I got this computer with only 128mb's of ram, its older and takes PC-133Mhz Sdram, so I went and upgraded it to 512Mb's and yet I check the "Performance" with the task manager and it says i am using 135Mb's of the paging file? I still have lots of ram free so why is it still accessing the much slower paging file? Is there any way I can bring this down so it is not using any or very little? I am running Windows XP Pro version on my computer. Any answers or advice is more than welcome! Thanks in advance.
 
Windows XP contains certain programs/services/etc. that need an active page file in order to run properly, and installing additional RAM will not prevent this from happening.
However, the performance of your normal applications will not be compromised by this.
 
You could try to remove the paging file altogether (My Computer - Properties - Advanced - Performance), but I do not think that would be good thing for OS stability.

Pascal.
 
That's right. Basic OS operations rely on an active paging file, and taking that away won't increase your overall performance.

It sounds like you've got a really slow hard drive (probably an old ATA/66 5400RPM w/ slow disk access) which is causing slow pagefile access, or perhaps some of the other components in your system (CPU, RAM, etc) are severely bottlenecking XP. Realize that XP is very demanding in terms of hardware. It can run fine on a PC as slow as 300MHz, but it's potential isn't nearly reached until you've gotten beyond 700MHz with at least 256MB of RAM. You've easily met RAM requirements, but the CPU and Hard Drive are just as important.

Even if your system is that new, you might have too many processes (services) running in the background. Go here for some ideas of what you can disable:

www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm


~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind"
[tab][tab]- Aristotle
[stpatrick2] [navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884
 
Plus, certain hardware, like the sound card, may not operate properly if the page file is disabled.
 
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