Yesterday, laptop (Toshiba, P-3, 256 RAM, XP) was working fine.
Today it is pretty ill, and I have not done anything unusual to it recently that would have caused a change.
Symptons
1) It is very, very slow to boot, and very slow thereafter, and some things it just will not do.
2) When the desktop appears, so does this error message. "Virtual Memory Minimum Too Low: Your system is low on virtual memory. Windows is increasing the size of your virtual memory paging file. During this process, memory requests for some applications may be denied. For more information, see Help."
(I have googled on this - one useful site was www.newbie.org/help/messages/28233.html but when I right click on my computer and then hit 'properties' nothing happens.
3) ZoneAlarm does not ititialise (it keeps sending up a message saying that it is doing so, but it never happens. Since this appears to mean that I have no firewall, I eventually disconnected the machine from the internet.
4) When I hit ctrs-alt-delete to open the Windows Task Manager & see what processes were running, the thing that was using the most memory was vsmon.exe, which I understand is a ZoneAlarm thing.
Any thoughts?
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Is your hard drive full ?
Page file good ? How big?
tbh I always regard 256mb as too little for xp. I know people will come along and say they run fine on a P90 with 64mb, but thats my experience.
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Hard drive 60% full - so plenty of room there.
But as for Page file - I don't have a clue what it is, whether it is good, or how big it is. So that might be the solution. Do tell me more.
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How to manually change the size of the virtual memory paging file
You must be logged on as an administrator or as a member of the Administrators group to complete this procedure. If your computer is connected to a network, network policy settings may also prevent you from completing this procedure.
1. Click Start, click Run, and then type sysdm.cpl in the Open box.
2. Click the Advanced tab, and then click Settings under Performance.
3. Click the Advanced tab, and then click Change under Virtual memory.
4. Under Drive [Volume Label], click the drive that contains the paging file that you want to change.
5. Under Paging file size for selected drive, click Custom size, type a new paging file size in megabytes (MB) in the Initial size (MB) or Maximum size (MB) box, and then click Set.
If you decrease the size of either the initial or maximum paging file settings, you must restart your computer to see the effects of those changes. When you increase the paging file size, you typically do not have to restart your computer.
Notes
? To have Windows select the best paging file size, click System managed size. The recommended minimum size is equivalent to 1.5 times the RAM on your computer, and 3 times that figure for the maximum size. For example, if you have 256 MB of RAM, the minimum size is 384 MB, and the maximum size is 1152 MB.
? For best performance, do not set the initial size to less than the minimum recommended size under Total paging file size for all drives. The recommended size is equivalent to 1.5 times the RAM on your computer. It is good practice to leave the paging file at its recommended size. However, you may increase its size if you frequently use programs that use much memory.
? To delete a paging file, set both the initial size and the maximum size to zero, or click No paging file. We strongly recommend that you do not disable or delete the paging file.
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>>ZoneAlarm does not ititialise >>
If you go to Start>Run and type in services.msc and click OK. You should get the Services panel up.
Check that the True Vector Service is configured for Automatic.
It's likely that you may have to reinstall ZoneAlarm (do you have the latest version?). If and when you do so select Update rather than Clean Install to preserve your settings.
PS
Some ZA users say that when this slow system situation arises (usually after the system has been in use for quite a number of hours), that closing down ZoneAlarm in Task Manager and then rebooting cures it.
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www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=960579&page=1
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Just a further point. It's best to allow Windows XP to configure Virtual Memory.
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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Thanks all for your thoughts.
Laptop was rebooted several times yesterday, which was a slow process as it took ages to close down, as well as taking ages to boot up. It seems to me that it has now gone from moving at the speed of a glacier to moving at the speed of treacle.
As regards ZoneAlarm, I am wondering whether the problems with ZoneAlarm are
a) just a symptom of the bigger problem (which I take to be the virtual memory problem)
b) the cause of the virtual memory problem
c) an unrelated problem
Common sense says c) is unlikely, and a) more likely than b) Perhaps I should unitstall ZoneAlarm just to check?
(& btw, how can I tell if ZA has initialised successfully and is actually running?)
As regards the vitual memory problem, I take the point that is best to allow Windows XP to configure it, but how long does it take Windows XP to do it?? Leaving the machine on for ages didn't seem to help great.ly. So I did try setting the paging file size myself (min 700, max 1152). Hope that wasn't too foolish.
Any - any idea what might have caused the problem - it's not as if I'm running many programs on the computer, nor are the ones I run big. As I say, in Task Manager, most of the activity seems to be vsmon.exe, but CPU useage seems to be runnin at between 6% anbd 18%.
Keep the suggestions coming.
(And, as I say, "Thanks Stuartli et al for your help so far")
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t
if ZA is running ok you will see the red 'n yellow box in the system tray, bottom right.
JH
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Thanks JH. Clearly ZA is not running OK. Hmmmm.
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Thanks for that Mark.
I went to tek-tips, and tried to put the following bit into practice:
VSMON is a program that can eat up to 100% of the CPU time (on occasion), and can be VERY annoying to the user.
Thankfully, there is a simple way to stop it doing that.
1. Open CONTROL PANEL
2.Open ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS
3. Open SERVICES
4. Find the TRUEVECTOR INTERNET MONITOR
5. Right click on it and select PROPERTIES
6. In the STARTUP TYPE drop down select MANUAL.
Restart your computer.
At the end of stage 6, and selected MANUAL, I then hit apply, and got a message saying "access is denied" (Same happened when I hit OK)
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You will probably have to log on as the Administrator to be able to change the settings - my True Vector Service is set to Automatic.
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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How do I log on as the administrator?
Since I am the only user on the computer, I thought I was always logged on as the administrator.
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tyro - these are my suggestions, not expert advice, and you apply them at your own risk.
1. system restore your pc to an earlier time (start > all programs > accesories > system tools > system restore ) than the day that your problem started.
2. you do not say which version of zonealarm you are using. the latest versions are rumoured to hog resources. so why not go back to free version 5.5.094 - get it here
download.zonelabs.com/bin/free/information/znalm/z...l
download.zonelabs.com/bin/free/1023_zl/zlsSetup_55...e
3. run a full security scan on your system - check for spyare/viruses/trojans, use your av programs plus spybot-s&d, plus adaware6, spywareblaster, windows-defender, hijackthis, etc. to make sure there is no malware present.
4. add more ram (at least another 256 meg) to your computer.
5. stop unnecessary seervices loading on your computer. try the advice given at
www.beemerworld.com/tips/servicesxp.htm
www.optimizingpc.com/optimize/windowsservices.html
(other links from google - search for : xp optimize adminstrative services [note - use american spelling of optimise to get wider search results] ).
6. set your pagefile virtual memory size to minimum 1000, max 2000.
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tyro - suggested reading and help at:
www.theeldergeek.com/services_guide.htm
www.theeldergeek.com/paging_file.htm
www.theeldergeek.com/common_solutions.htm
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XP should handle virtual memory for you with no problems though if you set it manually an ideal is to set the min as 1.5 times the RAM and the max as double the min. If you have a partioned drive or more than one hard drive make sure the same settings are applied for each drive letter.
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Dalglish
Many thanks for taking the time to make suggestions.
Using system restore was a brilliant and obvious suggestion. I don''t know why I didn't think of it myself. Unfortunately, it didn't help. Hopefully I'll be able to get round to the others some time.
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I think you are being led astray by the Virtual Memory message - this is a symptom, not a cause. For some reason, the physical memory on your computer has suddenly become insufficient, and Windoze is having to use virtual memory instead. As you have discovered this is sloooooooooow. So, either something has installed or is running that is hogging the resources, or you have a physical fault with the RAM. If you run task manager you should be able to see what is running and taking up the space, and also how much physical memory is available to the PC - has some of it mysteriously disappeared?
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RichardW
Is it illogical? It must be Citroen....
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"Virtual memory" - what a misnomer. RAM access is in the region of a few nanoseconds (IIRC) and disk is a few microseconds. Both sound quick, but one is a million times more than the other. The relationship is such that if memory access took one second, disk access would take twelve days (at best). So, the secret is to have enough memory on your PC to ensure that you never need to use virtual memory. RAM's cheap and easy to fit. It'll make more difference to the day-to-day running of your PC than almost anything else you can do, including upping the speed of your processor.
The best explanation I ever heard was that it's like you working in an office.
The processor is your brain. RAM size is equivalent to your desktop area. The bigger it is, the more information you can access instantaneously. Disk is like a filing cabinet that's in the middle of the Sahara desert.
Every time you access "virtual memory", you're taking a journey across the Sahara to get your data rather than looking down at your desk.
Suddenly, more memory sounds cheap, doesn't it?
V
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Thanks, Vin.
Your key phrase is "RAM's cheap and easy to fit"
How cheap is RAM? I admit to not knowing anything much about this, but my laptop is a Toshiba Satellite 1800-814, and so far as I could see on the web, 256 RAM of memory for this laptop was going to be about £60 or £70 - which struck me as rather a lot of ££ to invest in a laptop which is 6 years old.
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Laptop memory is normally more expensive than that for a desk top. £50 for 256MB (from offtek.co.uk, very quick delivery when I've used them) seems quite a bit to spend on a 6 year old laptop, seeing as you can buy a new laptop for £350 these days.
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Thanks Richard. That is helpful.
As I say, on task manager, what I am seeing is CPU useage between 6% & 18%, (pretty big considering no applications open) and vsmon is the big consumer.
Physical Memory. Now, this may well be significant.
Total - 245232
Available - about 4000
System Cache - about 8000
Surely these should be much higher, considering no applications are open?
I don't know, but it does look that may be pointing to the root of the problem.
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Here is something odd. 40 minutes later the Task Manager Physical memory is showing Available at about 145,000, up from about 4000. Odd.
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