Ok what should my ram count actually be??? help :)

I just installed 2 512 ddr sodimm ram cards to my laptop

I look in my task manager of XP an see in the performance that I only have a commit charge or 300/1672mb

Now I might be wrong, but than again


should that commit charge be at 2000 something mbs???


thanks for any help

peace

It's not off by much, depending on how much of your physical Ram is being shared for onboard video.

Try going to System Properties --> Advanced --> Settings --> Advanced tab --> "Change" button --> Select "System managed size" ... Click "SET", Click OK.

Restart your system.



 

2 -512 cards would give you a total of about 1024 megs of ram-show on pc as 1 gig or 1000mb of ram.

Previous poster is correct, your computer "may" be using system ram as video ram-not uncommon in lower cost computers.

so if it uses 128 mb for video ram, you are left with about 872 megs of ram, useable for system ram, even though your computer has 1 gig.

The second issue is that the computer was not using all the ram. Ram is used as needed, so durning "low usage" times, the amount used will be low.

Try playing an advanced game and see how much ram gets used.

Originally posted by ragster
I just installed 2 512 ddr sodimm ram cards to my laptop

I look in my task manager of XP an see in the performance that I only have a commit charge or 300/1672mb

That refers to your paging file. If you've got 1GB of RAM, the paging file should be at about 3GB.

Follow 12m8keall2c's instructions to set it properly.

To further confuse er, help you-heh.

I believe what you showed was the computer using 300 megs of ram with 1672 megs of paging file available.

The ideal amount of paging file with your ram is 3X Ram, remember, that is useable system ram. So in my previous example of 128 megs of ram being used for video, 3X872 megs=2616megs.

That said, Windows sets a min/max paging file that changes on the fly.

Another way to improve performance is to set min=max pagingfile=2616mags.

Your 1672 is the "min" paging file size.

BTW...Dimm=Dual Inline Memory

Originally posted by 12m8keall2c
It's not off by much, depending on how much of your physical Ram is being shared for onboard video.

Try going to System Properties --> Advanced --> Settings --> Advanced tab --> "Change" button --> Select "System managed size" ... Click "SET", Click OK.

Restart your system.

ok I did this hmmm


it jumped to 2432 something like after setting my maximum to 1512 an minimum 1512


But will this matter is it ok an stuff, I am scared ha ha

Here are some pics of whats going on after I changed everything.






[edit on 20-9-2007 by ragster]

By setting it to "System managed size" your PC will allot a portion of available free space on the hard drive, in unison with existing physical Ram, as "Virtual Memory" (i.e. your page-file). The premise of which is to maximize overall speed and performance by showing the system more physical Ram than actually installed/available.

With regards to your laptop, I would go with the "System managed size" setting. That or you could try a "Custom Setting" of Min: 2048 Max: 3072.

FWIW:
Try it and see what works best ... for you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As for Home PCs and Desktops, I find that a Slaved 10-15Gb "PageFile" drive works wonders. ... partitioned @ 4500Mb or similar.

 

12,
I do and don't agree with you respectively.

I have found that making the min and max paging file size the same-correct per how much system ram you have, just like a desktop, is best for all systems.

I agree, moving the paging file to another drive help-especially if it is on another controller.

I find most help comes from server or server like systems-those that are constantly asking for data.

Originally posted by mrmonsoon
I have found that making the min and max paging file size the same-correct per how much system ram you have, just like a desktop, is best for all systems.

I second that opinion. I noticed that if you set a minimum and a maximum, the page file tends to get fragmented if it is expanding from a minimum. And page files can't be defragged with the standard tools. Setting it to a fixed size eliminates this potential decrease in system performance.

So all in all

is it ok how it is now?

As it is right now it still looks too low for 1GB of RAM. Go with 12m8keall2c's custom setting first, then compare it to mrmonsoon's and my own settings, which is either 2616 flat and 3072 flat respectively. Which ever gives you better performance is the right one for you.

Ok so my computer is not going to burn up right?

its just you know how it says recommended 1512...

I have set my min. to 2616

an max to 3072


will this be safe?

You will always be safe, there is no problem even if you make your paging file just 0MB, I have done that some times to defrag the disk.

Windows may have some problems but one thing that is has always done in a very good way is managing the available memory and page file, and I have never seen a Windows system with serious problems because of lack of memory or disk space, and even last week I saw a computer with 0MB free on the system disk.

So, in conclusion, you can change the amount of disk space available to the paging file without fear of breaking the system, the most probable problem you may have is reduced system performance.

Oh, and I suggest that you get some performance tools to check if you are really gaining something with your tweaking.

Good luck.

Originally posted by ArMaP
Oh, and I suggest that you get some performance tools to check if you are really gaining something with your tweaking.

That's right. Here's a good site for beginners to start with:

Optimize XP

In fact, that page is good for advanced users as well.

Commit Charge refers to the page file + RAM. It's low because your paging file is small. What your paging file does, is it is used as RAM; only on your harddisk. It's usually used by low priority tasks, and things of that nature.

I would think 1672 is small, go into Control panel ---->System---->Advanced--->Performance--->Change--->No paging file.

Restart computer.

Control panel ---->System---->Advanced--->Performance--->Change-->Costom size. To fight fragmentation, make initial and max the same size. I would think 3090 would be a good value.

[edit on 25/9/07 by JimmyCarterIsSmarter]