Simple ways to increase your computer’s performace – Configuring the paging file

Posted on March 15, 2007 at 12:00 pm

Make sure to read other posts from the Increase Computer Performance series!

Simple ways to increase your computer’s performace – Configuring the paging file
Simple ways to increase your computer’s performace – Defragmenting your hard drive
Simple ways to increase your computer’s performace – Stopping the startup programs!
Simple ways to increase your computer’s performance – Save hard disk space!
Simple ways to increase your computer’s performace – Turn off indexing on your local drives
Simple ways to increase your computer’s performance – Disable Visual Effects in the Performance Options tab

If your computer has begun to slow down after several months of usage, there a a couple of minor changes you can make to your settings that will help increase the performance of your computer. Tweaking Windows is essential to get the maximum performance for your computer. Even on a fast computer, if the settings are incorrect, the computer will perform poorly.

Virtual Memory Settings:

Virtual memory for your computer is hard drive space used by Windows when it fills up the physical RAM. Let’s say you have a computer that has 256MB of RAM and you’re running several applications at once that might need a total of 400MB of memory. Windows will fill up the 256MB and then use the free space on the hard drive to store the rest. This is called the Paging file or Virtual memory and Windows will increase and decrease the size of this file as needed. Writing to disk takes much longer than writing to physical RAM, so when Windows uses the paging file, computer performance degrades.

That’s why you’ll always hear people asking if there is enough RAM because the more RAM you have, the better your computer’s performance will be. However, we can tweak the virtual memory settings also so that the paging file does not get fragmented and so that Windows does not have to grow or shrink the size of the paging file, both of which will cause the computer to slow down, especially on older machines.

By default, Windows uses the boot partition (the partition that contains your operating system files) and it is recommended to set the size to 1.5 times the amount of RAM that you have.

To change the virtual memory settings, go to Start, Control Panel and click on System. Click on the Advanced tab and under the Performance box, click Settings.

On the Performance dialog, click the Advanced tab and then click Change under the Virtual Memory heading.

Now you’ll see the Virtual Memory settings as shown below:

Here are the rules for setting your paging file correctly:

To get the best performance it is best to create a paging file on a different partition than the boot partition (the drive that contains that operating system, which is usually the C drive) and to also create it on a separate hard drive. In this way, Windows can handle more I/O requests because the paging file will not have to compete with the system folder that needs to be constantly accessed as Windows runs.

The only problem with completely moving the paging file off the boot partition is that Windows uses the page file to write out debug info in case your computer crashes with blue screen of death STOP error. This is important for machines that have critical data, but for the average user, this is not a big deal. If you get the blue screen of death, it’s not an easy process at all to get to read the file and even if you can, it can be quite complex. But if you have enough space, then you can leave the paging file there.

So the best solution is to create on paging file on the boot partition that will take care in case of a crash and create another paging file on a separate partition on a DIFFERENT hard drive preferably. If you only have one hard drive on your computer, then just create another paging file on a different partition. Windows automatically uses the paging file that is on the less accessed partition using an internal algorithm.

Even more ideal would be if you could put the paging file in it’s own partition with no other data. This ensures that the paging file will never become fragmented and hence performance will be better. If it’s on a drive that has other data and the paging file must be expanded, and if there is other data in the way, the file will become fragmented.

Another way to reduce fragmentation of the paging file is to set the initial and maximum sizes to the same number. What this does is ensure that the file does not grow or shrink and therefore will not fragment. However, you should defragment the hard drive before doing this to ensure the paging file is all together on the hard drive.

So if you have only one partition, set the initial and maximum sizes to 1.5 times the amount of RAM you have. If you have more than one partition, select the boot partition and set the initial and max to 250MB. The reason for this is because it’s better to create another paging file on the other partition and create one paging file on the boot partition that’s just big enough for the mini dump file, which is 250MB.

On your second partition, select Custom Size and set the initial and maximum values to 1.5 times the amount of physical RAM you have. You can determine the amount of RAM you have by going to Start, Control Panel, and click System. You’ll see the amount of RAM at the bottom right.

Hope this article helped you! Please feel free to comment!

» Filed Under Computer Tips

Comments

24 Responses to “Simple ways to increase your computer’s performace – Configuring the paging file”

J. Walker Stevens said on : May 10th, 2007 at 11:19 am

Hi, I’ve tried doing all that you mentioned to increase my speed and increase my paging file. (I keep getting notices that I have no paging file) When I go through the steps, I’m showing that I’m adding a paging file (of 1536 mb), but after I re-start, it shows 0 mg. I’ve disabled everything on start-up as well, but it still takes a lot of time to boot. Can you help me. I no longer have a tech dept to support me, since I’ve retired. Thank you & God Bless, Walker

J. Walker Stevens said on : May 10th, 2007 at 11:22 am

How do I set up a paging file on the boot system? How do I set up a paging file on my D hard drive? w.

sukeert said on : September 17th, 2007 at 4:58 am

nice article

Mehdi Anis said on : March 12th, 2008 at 10:12 am

Dear,
It’s a useful article that you have published. Thanks for that.

My situation is different. I have 4GB of RAM and I do not want to use PAGE FILE. I assume 4GB is enough for my WinXP to consume. What is your opinion : Should I stop using page file or I keep a 6GB of page file?

A reply will be apprecaited.

Regards,
Mehdi Anis

PIllmonsta said on : April 17th, 2008 at 2:42 pm

It is not neccessary to have a paging file as long as your system has enoughh pysical ram available. e.g.: if you have 2 gig of pysical ram installed and your system uses a max of say 1.2 gig of ram you can quite safely turn paging file off. The 1.5 x the amount of system RAM rule is very outdated -it was introduced with windows 3.1 when the average amount of RAM installed was around 128MB.

You do NOT need a paging file if you have plenty of physical RAM installed.

Mehdi Anis said on : April 19th, 2008 at 1:10 am

Hi,
I turned off using page file. Still, in Windows Task Manager’s Perofromance Tab, I see PF Usage 1.xGB.

As far as I know this ‘PF Usage’ shows amount of page file used. If I already turned off page file, how come it is showing 1.x GB of page file use?

Any idea? Thanks.

BlaBla said on : May 28th, 2008 at 12:35 pm

That’s an M$ error. PF usage is actually refering to the amount of RAM your system is using. A mistake M$ never bothered to fix.

jayjoe said on : June 6th, 2008 at 11:22 pm

i found a much easier way to tweak your computer, it helped mine a lot,
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/....._for_free/

DigiBlog said on : July 23rd, 2008 at 3:43 am

Nice post, thanks for the info

Khomotjo said on : August 1st, 2008 at 7:37 am

Hi there I am an intern at an IT company in South africa and I have to better the perfomance of a PC i have been assigned to work on and the maths behind having to set the initial size of the paging file to 1.5 times the size of RAM is a bit difficult for me to understand. Plaese advise me!

For instance the PC I am working on has 1.11 GB of RAM.

Kevin said on : October 1st, 2008 at 5:29 am

I have 480mb of RAM and i cant do my gaming. im 14 and ive read all ur articles on increasing computer performance and i just deleted one of my accounts with 3.2gb and its speeded up my comp thnx.

todd said on : December 9th, 2008 at 10:21 am

how do you create a second page file on the d: drive.

akishore said on : December 12th, 2008 at 11:52 am

Todd, you can create a second page file in Windows by right-clicking on My Computer, choosing Properties, click on the Advanced tab, click on Settings under Performance, click on Advanced tab again, and then click Change. Now click on the D drive letter and choose the Custom size radio button.

Andy said on : March 5th, 2009 at 7:21 pm

Is it possible to create a paging file on an external HDD and if yes, would it make sense at all?

Rajwan ahmed said on : June 5th, 2009 at 1:59 am

Great information! I didn’t realize this much performance benefit can be gained from optimizing the paging file. Thanks!

donola88 said on : July 7th, 2009 at 12:01 pm

Greetings and thank you for your educational post.You’ve stated that it’s ideal if the paging file can be placed in it’s own partition with no other data. How is this to be done; say if I want to create such a partition in drive D? And yes, I HAVE followed no 13 above. Would appreciate your guidance, thanks.

Ed said on : July 24th, 2009 at 1:26 pm

hi, thanks for this because its taught me how to change it but im confused. I have 3gb RAM, so would it make my computer faster if i switched off my paging files or would it make my computer faster if i turned it up? Thank you for any help.

RoninV said on : August 13th, 2009 at 12:33 pm

…paging file importance?

RoninV said on : August 13th, 2009 at 12:35 pm

My previous post is wrong. I just wanted to make sure I received all responses to this thread.

Paging ForDummies said on : August 14th, 2009 at 8:51 am

I have only the “c” drive, and I wish to create a different particion like “d”, to speed up my computer. The default paging file size is:1536-3072, and i have 1.00 GB of RAM. any suggestions would be nice

sanjay said on : November 27th, 2009 at 12:13 am

I originally had 256 MB DDR and I upgraded the RAM to 512 MB (256 MB + 512 MB =768 MB). Unforunatley, I get virtual memory error messages when I try to do stuff while browsing online. I have this problem when I have a lot of websites open like Facebook, etc. How can I get rid of these virtual memory errors?

Sri said on : November 28th, 2009 at 4:09 pm

This was really helpful to me on my home computer with 512 MB RAM. It runs a lot faster now.

Martin said on : December 18th, 2009 at 7:01 pm

Thank you very much for nice tips i have used these tips and used registry cleaner Reginout and my PC is running like a horse now

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September 11th, 2009 at 5:09 am