DIsabling swap file with 4GB ram. Wise?

TigerUK

TigerUK

TigerUK

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I want to get an SSD for my notebook, trouble is the notebook is limited to 4GB ram, it's a UL30a, If i could find a ul30xt used, and but it and sell my UL30a it could be good because the ul30xt supports up to 8gb ram.

The reason for me wanting to disable the swap file is because I want to get a SSD. I want to disable the swap file and disable as many of the unnecessary read/write operations as possible in order to prolog SSD life.

I was wondering has anyone disabled the swap file with 4GB of ram? I have done this on my desktop with 8GB ram and it works flawless, but I have seen the ram use go above 4GB which worries me a little bit.

I'll probably use some memory hog software like chrome and fireworks/dreamweaver etc/

P.s. I'm not being lazy with not trying it first because if the laptop runs out of RAM it could mess it up, and I might not be able to undo the swap file change because windows might not be able to boot up to change the setting back.
 
Never disable the PF.

Work out your usage and keep the PF but keep it smaller according to your needs/

I run a few 100 MB Max PF from my SSD on my desktop with 8GB of RAM.
 
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Sin_Chase said:
Never disable the PF.

Work out your usage and keep the PF but keep it smaller according to your needs/

I run a few 100 MB Max PF from my SSD on my desktop with 8GB of RAM.
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why not? ive done it and even play skyrim with itunes in the background. it has worked fine.

windoes is dumb if you give it pagefile it will use it, even when its not optimal to do so, e.g. with pagefile you have 8gb ram computer with 1.2gb used ram and 3gb in page file..

the downside is though that word documents are saved on pagefiles, so if you disable pagefile and it crashes without saving you have no recoverable versions of it in cache
 
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Disabling your pagefile has no negative impacts on your system as long as you've got the ram spare to replace it.

I don't know about SSD's but I've disabled the pagefile on any of my pc's and never run into any problems
 
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mrk said:
It does, if your PC crashes or an app crashes the PC, you won't get any memory dumps or crash reports on why it did so.
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When my PC crashes I just reboot it, never even looked at memory dumps, the only bluescreens I've ever got are from over-volting the CPU, so like I said, never had any problems
 
exactly, if you system develops faults, renable page file to see the memory dumps.. if you must. For 99.99% of users this really isn't an issue, especially when you have ssd where you need to prolong the life of your drive by limiting these read write hordes.
 
TigerUK said:
exactly, if you system develops faults, renable page file to see the memory dumps.. if you must. For 99.99% of users this really isn't an issue, especially when you have ssd where you need to prolong the life of your drive by limiting these read write hordes.
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Yes limiting, they'll only last a few decades at most :p
 
pros and cons to both ideas, but I'd say that keeping the pagefile actually increases the efficiency and useability of the pc on ALL the systems I've looked into it on...
 
TigerUK said:
why not? ive done it and even play skyrim with itunes in the background. it has worked fine.

windoes is dumb if you give it pagefile it will use it, even when its not optimal to do so, e.g. with pagefile you have 8gb ram computer with 1.2gb used ram and 3gb in page file..

the downside is though that word documents are saved on pagefiles, so if you disable pagefile and it crashes without saving you have no recoverable versions of it in cache
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What a load of rubbish.

Windows is not dumb at all. It has probably the most advanced memory management of any mainstream OS. It is the logical descendant of VMS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenVMS) because Microsoft poached the entire engineering team behind that OS chain. That's where the NT kernel came from.

Are you aware that pages of virtualised memory can exist in BOTH the RAM and the page file? The system does this so that if it needs to allocate some RAM, it doesn't need to worry about performing the writes to the page file (of pages that are getting bumped out) - because it has already done them in the background when the system was perhaps idle.

Page files aren't something just special to Windows. Every multi-tasking desktop/workstation/server OS requires them. Because even today, with 8 and 16GB becoming common, you can never have enough memory to satisfy all the software you want to run. Without a page file you're not really operating a virtualised memory system. Well you are, because you're still putting the CPU into protected mode, making both it and the kernel keep track of pages of memory, but then never by having no page file you're never allowing any pages to be copied out of the RAM.

Idiots that talk about page files without first understanding virtual memory, really are the worst kind of "geek". The problem is most people will glaze over when trying to learn about virtual memory because it involves understanding memory pointers.
 
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Burnsy2023 said:
Microsoft, which is why you can never completely disable it.
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But they do not say that, and you can disable it.

NathanE said:
Without a page file you're not really operating a virtualised memory system. Well you are, because you're still putting the CPU into protected mode, making both it and the kernel keep track of pages of memory, but then never by having no page file you're never allowing any pages to be copied out of the RAM.
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I am glad that you included that last part. Virtual memory is about putting the cpu into paging mode.
 
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TigerUK said:
windoes is dumb if you give it pagefile it will use it, even when its not optimal to do so, e.g. with pagefile you have 8gb ram computer with 1.2gb used ram and 3gb in page file..
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May I ask where you retrieved the '3GB in page file' information from please? Which tool did you use?

Deception said:
Just to get it across. A pagefile is there for a reason :)
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Going on the assumption that you don't require a paging file because you have enough physical memory to support your workloads commit charge, you would ideally want to have one due to the following reasons.

  • A subset of pages on the modified page list can be written to the paging file which results in that memory being available for other purposes.

  • The system can generate crash dumps.
A paging file is beneficial but it is not a requirement.

Burnsy2023 said:
Microsoft, which is why you can never completely disable it.
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Would you mind posting some documentation which suggests a paging file is required and you can't disable it completely please?
 
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A paging file also acts as a natural system performance inhibitor; but only when memory is getting tight. And when memory does start getting tight the system will slow down, providing a visible human cue that you're approaching the system's limits.

With no page file, this warning does not occur. You will quite simply fall off the cliff immediately. Programs will start crashing. You'll experience strange quirks on GUIs, missing buttons etc. Device drivers will start crashing complaining of a lack of paged pool memory. Basically, the system will entire into a state of instability. And you'll have had no warning that it was about to happen.

This is, in my opinion, one of the single most important reasons to have a page file. It acts like the rev limiter on your car.
 
of course a pagefile is not 100% required, but on a modern OS with the speed of hard drives/ssd a decent pagefile/swapfile/virtual memory system will significantly enhance the general usefulness of the system. Examples have already been given where it's useful, ie memory dumps and there are literally loads of other times when it can be used.Large amounts of temp files is another area where the pagefile is used in windows, along with extended system useage. Feel free to disable the pagefile guys and dolls, but eventually, over time, the system will probably slow down unless you are very proactive at managing memory etc. I can't find anywhere that actually states it in black or white, but I believe that unless you really hack the kernel, it will still page memory even if you disable the swap file via windows, so is there really any point?
 
plus...whilst still googling around, it appears that Windows 7 at least will eventually turn on pagefile management EVEN if you have disabled it to prevent crashing/memory issues with protected memory. So turning it off really achieved very little...

Also it appears that something like photoshop in an x64 environment, with 32-bit plugins will not work without a pagefile full stop. It will actually fail to run or crash, so under windows 7 for example, even with the pagefile off, windows will turn it back on to let photoshop run and then turn it off when you quit.
 
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