low on virtual memory

[bosoxfan]

I've been getting this message every few days lately on my desktop. It's a dell about 3 years old. I don't even know the spec of it. But it was cheap.

It's slow to open programs but am trying to get some more time out of it.

What does low virtual memory mean and is there a cheap way to fix it?

It's probably not enough info but any help would be great thanks.

[JDErickson]

Usually this means you either have a ton of spyware/viruses using your system sithout your knowledge or you need to update you laptop for the more recent programs that use more resources.

I suggest you run Spybot S&D first to see what that finds. If it finds a bunch of nasties work on getting rid of those and see what that does for you.

[bosoxfan]

I have Norton Anti-Virus and the Microsoft Anti-Spyware. Should I be using different programs? The last time it happened was last night when I was downloading updates for the Norton.

[Terry]

Assuming you haven’t changed your virtual memory settings lately, cleaning up your hard drive might help if it’s getting full. Do a thorough housekeeping and uninstall all the stuff you never use – and then defragment the disk.

Like JD said, run Spybot and/or Ad-Aware.

[astroglide]

how many megs of ram do you have, and have you rebooted your computer in a while?

virtual memeory is space on your harddrive that the Operating System uses when you have used up your ram, so either you dont have enough ram or your virtual memory settins are too low, you can check your ram and vitual mem under the control panel using the system feature.

I agree with the other posts as being problems. Your best bet would be to scan for spy ware and viruses first, then uninstall programs you dont use, run disk cleanup, and then degrag, if that doesnt work you might want to put some more ram into it.

[anatta]

I used to get this on my laptop. I actually think it had something to do with Empire poker. I had this problem downloading the updates from empire. I tried various things (ie deleting Empire and redownloading it) but my computer wouldn't do it. No problem with other sites downloading their updates. I could still play at Empire, but everytime log on, it would say "need to update" it would try but no dice. That same day, I got that message, low on virtual memory when I was playing on Empire. My system would slow down. But I didn't think the two were related. I tried all the things these guys are saying, reboot, virus scans, closed programs, defrag, I increased the virtual memory settings, all that crap. After a while, I just stopped playing Empire. The problem went away, I went back to empire after a few months, downloaded their stuff no problem, and no more virtual memory probs. I dunno. Maybe unrelated, and the disk clean up did it or something, I am not sure...

sounds like the empire software had what is known as a memory leak, where the program isnt using ram efficently and wont release ram when its done. could have been the updater program that was doing it.

[BluffTHIS!]

[ QUOTE ]
sounds like the empire software had what is known as a memory leak, where the program isnt using ram efficently and wont release ram when its done. could have been the updater program that was doing it.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is apparently the problem of the party platform. For each table you open and each wait list you view, the client uses a portion of memory to store it, but then doesn't release it for reuse once you've left it. Thus if you don't have a ton of memory as with newer desktops, then after a few hours if you are contantly switching tables and viewing lists, you get a freezeup or video problem and have to reboot. From reading other posters' experiences, this is especially true if you are still running 98/ME which doesn't have the better memory management of XP.