Member Avatar for mrshotdog

My sister forwarded this email for a friend to see if I knew what was wrong. And I have no idea, And since you all helped me fix my computer. I thought I would post his email on here to see if anyone knew what might be going on.


Here is part of the email:

i got a new putter bout 3 months ago it telles me sometime my virtual memory is low i don't know nothing about that i was wondering if it might have sonething to do with having to many pics ask sherry or send me her email i have a COMPAQ 7550 3000 PROCESSOR 512MB 160GB DVD+RW/CD-RW 9 IN ONE MEMORY CARD READER an i can't burn my pic, thay won't open or play on my DVD ?????

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Member Avatar for Puckdropper

Looking at the system specs, I will assume Windows XP. (This time it shouldn't be dangerous...lol) If the system has not been messed with, XP should handle your virtual memory just fine. If you run out of virtual memory, that means you've got WAY too much open, especially for 512 MB of RAM.

Without knowing more about the software installed AND RUNNING, I can't say anything specific. All I can say is make sure you close programs when you're done with them.

FYI, Virtual memory is a method of increasing memory on your computer. It works by moving "pages" of data in RAM to the hard disk for retrieval by the system later. When your RAM is full, the system may start "paging" or moving pages of RAM to the hard drive. This is NOT the same thing as saving, as the pages of virtual memory are temporary. The biggest drawback to this is hard drives are slow so the constant reads and writes done to RAM have to be done to the hard disk instead. This takes a lot of time.

Member Avatar for alc6379

Also, one of the biggest causes of the Virtual Memory Low error is a memory leak in some type of spyware programs. I'd also consider trying some of the steps mentioned in my sig entitled: "Read this before posting *any* HiJackThis logs in the Security forum" It's got excellent tips on spyware removal.

Member Avatar for mrshotdog

Ok, thank you so much. I will copy and paste this so I can send it to the person that was needing it.

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