Did you feel PC running slow especially after Windows 10 upgrade Laptop freezes not responding? This is mostly because of the popular apps increase, your aging hardware suffers especially memory. If you don’t have enough system memory, your system will slow to a crawl when you attempt to run multiple resource-intensive programs. And in such cause, you can increase the size of virtual memory to make those issues disappear.
What is Virtual memory?
Your computer has two types of memory: A hard drive or solid-state drive, and RAM. Your hard drive is where your operating system lives, as well as your photos, music, games, documents, and otherwise. Your RAM stores program-specific data. It is much faster but also more volatile, acting as a working storage area for the programs and files you have open. Well, when your PC use all the RAM available to your system it will utilize virtual memory—also known as a swap or paging file—to provide a temporary expansion.
In simple words for understanding, Virtual memory combines your computer’s RAM with temporary space on your hard disk. When RAM runs low, virtual memory moves data from RAM to a space called a paging file. So this virtual memory is extremely useful. It allows your system to handle more data for more programs than previously available.
Here a video tutorial Explains virtual memory on Windows 10.
What is the best size for virtual memory?
Windows sets the initial virtual memory paging file equal to the amount of installed RAM. The paging file is a minimum of 1.5 times and a maximum of three times your physical RAM.
For example, a system with 4GB RAM would have a minimum of 1024x4x1.5=6,144MB [1GB RAM x Installed RAM x Minimum]. Whereas, the maximum is 1024x4x3=12,288MB [1GB RAM x Installed RAM x Maximum].
How to Increase Your Virtual Memory
Here’s how you increase the size of the paging file to get rid of the virtual memory error message.
- Head to Control Panel > System and Security > System.
- Select Change Settings to open your System Properties.
- Now open the Advanced
- Under Performance, select Settings.
- Open the Advanced Under Virtual memory, select Change. Here are your Virtual Memory options.
- The default option is to Automatically manage paging file size for all drives.
- Uncheck this to enable the currently greyed out section below.
- Select the drive you want to edit the paging file size for. By and large, this is your C: drive.
Now, select Custom size. Set the Maximum size you want for your paging file, following the recommended size for your system. Remember, Windows restricts the paging file size to three times the size of your installed RAM. This is to ensure system stability. Set the Initial size to the Currently allocated size (found below). Click Set followed by OK. You have successfully increased your system’s virtual memory size
If you find that your system still runs slowly following the paging file size adjustment, you must consider upgrading your RAM. Upgrading your RAM is the only way you can increase your virtual memory, by increasing the amount of overall memory available to the system. In that, you will alleviate the virtual memory issue during the process and could see a boost to your system speed, too.