virtual memory and defragmentation

IndianSummer

my computer often hangs up and crashes and i get to see a blue screen with bullshit written on it in white. this often happens after i play a long video or movie, stuff like that. when i place a lot of burden on the computer's memory.

so i want to ask - does it crash cos the virtual memory is too low? is there a way to increase the virtual memory? or is it because the ram is too low? my ram = 1 gb.

secondly is disk defragmentation risky? do i stand to lose data?? is it advisable to defragment the hard disks when the computer gives trouble of the blue-screen kind.

j-bug

i dont know much but i do know you should defrag reguly...least thats what i got taught at school...

RolandTD20Kdrummer

IndianSummer wrote:

my computer often hangs up and crashes and i get to see a blue screen with bullshit written on it in white. this often happens after i play a long video or movie, stuff like that. when i place a lot of burden on the computer's memory.

so i want to ask - does it crash cos the virtual memory is too low? is there a way to increase the virtual memory? or is it because the ram is too low? my ram = 1 gb.

secondly is disk defragmentation risky? do i stand to lose data?? is it advisable to defragment the hard disks when the computer gives trouble of the blue-screen kind.

defragmentation inside windows is safe, unless your drive (the spinning platter itself) is checking out with bad sectors and or controller issues. Offline fragmentation where you mess with the MFT during a reboot can be dangerous, but realistically no. You can change the virtual memory to any size you want, but with a gig already, I really doubt you're running out.

Anyhow that's not your problem.

Sounds to me like one of your ram chips is checking out or the contacts need to be cleaned with a pencil eraser and reseated, or just reseated a few times. Try just reseating them a few times first if you;re up to it. I'd say that 90% the problem you're experiencing.

If you take note of the stop error on the next bluescreen (the 0x0000000 number) you can find out more precisely what the deal is.

IndianSummer

RolandTD20Kdrummer wrote:

defragmentation inside windows is safe, unless your drive (the spinning platter itself) is checking out with bad sectors and or controller issues. Offline fragmentation where you mess with the MFT during a reboot can be dangerous, but realistically no. You can change the virtual memory to any size you want, but with a gig already, I really doubt you're running out.

Anyhow that's not your problem.

Sounds to me like one of your ram chips is checking out or the contacts need to be cleaned with a pencil eraser and reseated, or just reseated a few times. Try just reseating them a few times first if you;re up to it. I'd say that 90% the problem you're experiencing.

If you take note of the stop error on the next bluescreen (the 0x0000000 number) you can find out more precisely what the deal is.

ok i will get the number next time and get back to you.

btw, how to increase virtual memo?

vedder_soup

IndianSummer wrote:

ok i will get the number next time and get back to you.

btw, how to increase virtual memo?

right click on My Computer, and select properties, and then click on the advanced tab. Virtual memory is under Performance in there, under another advanced tab!!!!
as a genaral rule of thumb, your virtual memory should be 150% of your RAM.
i have a gig of ram in my computer and the page file (virtual memory) is 1.5gb