Out of Memory

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31 Jan 2007
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Hi,
I used to have 2x 512Mb of RAM in my Vista 32bit machine. I was getting Out of Memory errors when copying files. I decided to upgrade and purchase 4 x 1Gb of DDR2 PC2-800 to give a total of 4Gb. With this I am still getting Out of memory errors. Anyone have any ideas for solutions to this? I am using an Asus P5W DH Deluxe mobo and INtel C2D E6600.

Thanks in Advance

Neil
 
Apart from the fact that you need 64bit vista to make full use of 4GB (you can use 3GB with a registry hack.. or at least you could in XP)...

1Gb should be more than enough for copying files, do you have your swapfile turned off?

Honestly, its an odd thing, as normally files are copied block by block, so even with 512meg ram, you should in theory be able to copy even 'terabyte' files if you had sufficient disk space.

Just been doing a bit of googling on this, and it seems that its a common problem with vista, it seems vista doesnt like copying large directories at all, regardless of how much ram you have.

Glad im still on XP :P
 
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Actually the amount of addressable memory using a 32bit OS is exactly 4GB, therefoer you shouldn't need 64bit Vista or a 64bit CPU to use it, the only limits will be software

Anwyay I'm not really on topic, not really sure what's causing your problem :(
 
Zefan said:
Actually the amount of addressable memory using a 32bit OS is exactly 4GB, therefoer you shouldn't need 64bit Vista or a 64bit CPU to use it, the only limits will be software

Anwyay I'm not really on topic, not really sure what's causing your problem :(

Yes, 4gb is the total addressable memory, and that includes the PC's romchips, any rom on expansion cards, the window used to map the graphics card frame buffer to addressable space, the list goes on. I believe the swapfile also has a window in there too.

Windows is 'officially' limited to 2GB, though there is a 'hack' which enables 3GB, but even then your using PAE, which requires the software applications know how to use PAE as well. Most applications dont, and even with the hack are limited to 2GB, but if your multitasking then other applications are able to make use of the full 3gb.

Move to 64bit XP or Vista and a single application can use the entire memory space without any limitations, or special programming. (Assuming its a 64bit compiled application). Not sure how much memory the 64bit OS's will grant 32bit applications, quite possibly the full 4gb though.
 
rctneil said:
How do i turn the swapfile on or off?

Thanks

Neil

Its probably on already, but as it seems other people have this issue with Vista, then the solution is to wait until microsoft release a patch to fix it. Sorry.
 
I've had a similar problem which I posted about here. Although I am now using more RAM. I haven't sorted it out as I have now finall transferred everything I needed to.

I actually think it's a bug in Vista as I never had this problem in XP, even with less memory. The paging file is definitely on.

In fact the last time I had this problem was in about 2000 on a windows 98 machine (with 128 megs of ram) while transferring huge amounts of files over a 10m/s network.

It's very frustrating.
 
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As said before, the paging file is probably already on, to check though:

Right click My Computer>Properties>Advanced Tab

Under 'Performance' click 'Settings'. Then click on the advanced tab and there will be a Virtual Memory section at the bottom of the window with the total paging file size.
 
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