How do I stop XP from accessing HDD's all the time?

[Zebo]

Sometimes when I have multiple programs open and switch back to a program which has not been used for couple hours Windows seems to pull it off the disk instead of RAM making the process very slow. Firefox it happens all the time. For example, I'll have 40 or so tabs open in Firefox go play a game or something , then go back to Firefox and the whole program and every tab I click pulls from disk. It's very slow and annoyance for a while till things get loaded back in RAM. I'd like to remedy this annoyance if possible. Are there tweaks to use RAM more effectively in these situations?

My system consists of 2GB ram, E6700 processor, 2 250 GB HDD's (C: and backup), and Windows XP 32 with latest updates.

I seem to rarely even use 50% of RAM in PF usage according to task manager so I would think Windows shouldn't have to write FIREFOX to disk with all the free physical memory available but it does, frequently and not just while gaming.

 

[nerp]

I don't think there's much you can do. If you're leaving open programs that use a bit of memory, it has to get swapped out for a game and swapped back in once you quit the game. Add more memory or upgrade to Vista and let Superfetch iron out those annoying moments.

 

[C1]

I suppose that you could disable the page file & the "prefetch" . Disable prefetch by modifying this registry key:


HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Memory
Management\PrefetchParameters\EnablePrefetcher...set this value to 0


After this, I would think that WINXP would just sit there with whatever is in RAM (given no further user requests).

 

[dawks]

Originally posted by: nerp
I don't think there's much you can do. If you're leaving open programs that use a bit of memory, it has to get swapped out for a game and swapped back in once you quit the game. Add more memory or upgrade to Vista and let Superfetch iron out those annoying moments.

Yea beyond getting more RAM (and going 64bit to go beyond 4gigs), going Vista and using ReadyBoost (a USB drive that does some caching of the swapfile I believe), or just closing programs when not in use, theres not much to be done.

As nerp says programs that arent in use are put in the swap file on the HD to make from for programs that are "in focus". I actually have 2 gigs ram and a 4gig ReadyBoost drive and I think it helps with this problem specifically. When I exit a game, other programs start much quicker with it installed, or at least it seems so, as I don't have concrete numbers to back that statement.

 

[Zebo]

Guys I deleted page file and it seems smoother - no pulling from disk anymore. This could be just perception - more testing/time needed but I think your on to something.

programs have crashed though - need 4gb it appears

 

[fleabag]

Originally posted by: dawks

Originally posted by: nerp
I don't think there's much you can do. If you're leaving open programs that use a bit of memory, it has to get swapped out for a game and swapped back in once you quit the game. Add more memory or upgrade to Vista and let Superfetch iron out those annoying moments.

Yea beyond getting more RAM (and going 64bit to go beyond 4gigs), going Vista and using ReadyBoost (a USB drive that does some caching of the swapfile I believe), or just closing programs when not in use, theres not much to be done.

As nerp says programs that arent in use are put in the swap file on the HD to make from for programs that are "in focus". I actually have 2 gigs ram and a 4gig ReadyBoost drive and I think it helps with this problem specifically. When I exit a game, other programs start much quicker with it installed, or at least it seems so, as I don't have concrete numbers to back that statement.

If he were to switch to vista, I'm sure he'd see a lot more HDD crunching than what he is currently seeing.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: Zebo
Guys I deleted page file and it seems smoother - no pulling from disk anymore. This could be just perception - more testing/time needed but I think your on to something.

programs have crashed though - need 4gb it appears

Well, I'd expect programs to crash - theyre running out of memory, although you've seem to have figured that out. At least you know what you need to do.