Video Covering Virtual Memory – Part of our Fix Slow Computer tutorial found on https://www.pctechguide.com/how-to-fix-your-slow-computer
Transcription From Video
Hi, this is Jacob with pctechguide.com. In this video series, we’re covering how to speed up your slow computer and this is the actual first hands-on video. The other video just explains several reasons of why your computer could be slow. And in this video, we’re going to help by addressing one particular issue and that is called “virtual memory”.
Now the amount of memory you have installed in your computer is going to be called RAM and that’s “Random Access Memory” and it’s that memory that actually holds your programs as they’re currently open. And depending upon how much memory you have there, that can severely slow your computer down.
So we’ll go ahead and take a look. So I’m going to hit the “Windows Start” button and we do have our video link and the channel. . .I’m sorry, our channel link, in the description below. And what that’s going to do is, it’s going to link to the actual YouTube channel for our Slow Computer Series and you can go through all these videos. And if you go through five or six of the videos, then definitely, you’re going to end up with a faster computer. You know, it’s just this one issue might not be your issue.
So I’m going to go ahead and right-click on “Computer”. I’m going to go to “Properties”. In here, we’re going to see that I have a Windows 7 computer here with an i7 processor, Intel, and 6 GB of RAM. If you need more memory, this part would cost you money, if you were actually to go out and purchase more memory for your system.
If you’re unsure, you can go ahead and look at the model number on your computer and go to the manufacturer’s website. Or you can type in any search engine “memory configurator” and punch in your model number. It’ll tell you how many slots your computer has for memory and how much memory it’s capable of holding, as well as recommending memory for you.
And you might be surprised at the low cost that, you know, I had 12 GB in here, but one of the sticks actually died on me, and I have a. . .mine’s in a channel segment. So basically, I had to remove three memory sticks, because they were not longer working. But still, even at 6 GB, my computer’s still going really, really good. So you know, it has to do with the processor, it has to do with memory, it has to do with accessing the hard drive, but in this particular thing, we’re going to look at another instance, besides just RAM, that’s the biggest tip I can give you. Because RAM’s super cheap out there nowadays and that is your virtual memory.
So I’m going to go under the “Advanced Systems Settings” right here and then we’re going to make sure we’re under the “Advanced” tab, then go over to “Settings”. And what we’re going to do is, we’re going to look at the virtual memory. I’m over here, I’m going to go to the “Advanced” tab one more time and under the “Advanced” tab, right here it says, “Top page file size for all drives: 6133 MB”. I’m going to go ahead and hit “Change”.
And if we look here, you’re going to see that I already did a custom size. So by default, yours is probably looking something like this. It’s going to be automatic. The “Currently allocated” will be whatever it is there, right? So it’ll be there and then, it’ll give the recommended amount. If you uncheck this, you can go ahead and put in the recommended amount as the minimum. So I’ll do 9199 as my initial size and then the maximum size, right here, you’re going to see the space available on your drive that you can actually put in. You can put in, pretty much, really that whole space. Now I wouldn’t do it all. I’d do maybe half. This is a smaller drive that I have on this UDrive. So just depending upon how much space I want to use for that. And by increasing the size, what it’s going to do is, is you’re going to be able to open up more programs and have more things in active memory.
And it’s just going to help, especially if you’re, let’s say, watching Netflix, right? And you’re watching Netflix in your web browser and the video keeps pausing on you kind of, but the audio you can still hear and then all of a sudden, it catches and it speeds up a little bit later. Well, that’s probably because you don’t have enough memory on your system to handle it or the computer’s really hot. So there could be multiple issues there going on, but often times, if you increase the virtual memory, you’re going to find that it’s going to give you a nice little boost to your computer.
So to figure it out, like I said, you can go ahead and go with the recommended amount. Or another tip that you can do here is, I’m going to bring up the system calculator real quick and I have 6 GB installed on my computer. I’m going to go 6 times and 1 GB is actually 1024, so, 6*1024, because that’s the blocks that we’re doing it, equals. . .This would be the minimum I would set it to is 6144. And let me go ahead and I’m going to times that by two. And so, I have 12,288. That’s what you’ll see, actually, I ended up putting as the max. And that is going to be under what the space available is here.
So that’s generally my rule of thumb, is just times it by two. So again, that’s going to be 1024 times the number represented by the installed RAM, so if it was two, you times it by two. If it was four, times it by four. In my case, I’m multiplying it by six. And I am simply doubling it again, so times two. And so, that’s the number that you can enter in there.
This should give you a nice boost. Now will it give everybody a boost? No. If this isn’t your issue, then you’re not going to get the system performance that you’re looking for. But in the following videos, one of them will probably be partially what’s happening to you and it all adds up. This might give you a 3% boost, but you might not notice, but doing it a few times and doing a few of the other tricks is definitely going to help you out.
Now once you do make that change, you do have to restart your computer. You’ll be prompted to restart it. Feel free and just say, “Hey, restart later,” and continue on with the videos in the link below in the description for the video channel. Because you’re going to want to go through multiple videos and really integrate more of the tips. They’re not hard to do and everything we show you is pretty much free.
Feel free to like, share, comment. It all helps to move this video up in the rankings and that’s what I’m looking for. Thanks, appreciate it.
Here are the complete links to the Slow Computer Tutorials
Repair a Slow Computer – Virtual Memory Boost
Slow Computer – Removing Junk Temp Files
Slow Computer – Optimizing Slow Starting PC With Startup Menu