PSA - Don't disable Page file on Windows 10!

[AlTech]

If you run out of physical ram on Windows 10 and you've disabled the Page file. OR if you're close to running out, Windows 10 will pop a blue screen at you like shown below:

 

 

There are some other blue screen messages but still.

At idle Windows 10 uses less ram than it's predecessors but it seems to have ram filled up faster than its predecessors.

 

 

it seems Windows 10 was built on the assumption that everybody would have the page file enabled.

 

Your PC can lag very heavily before blue screening and may seem unresponsive.

 

I had this happen to me which is why i warn you not to disable the page file on windows 10. 

[JuztBe]

You sure it's page file's fault? You sure that it blue screen appeared because you were running low on RAM?
If so, then thanks, I'll keep this in mind

[AlTech]

You sure it's page file's fault? You sure that it blue screen appeared because you were running low on RAM?

If so, then thanks, I'll keep this in mind

Trust me. I know. I have 16GB and with the pagefile disabled, running GTA V (about 5-6GB) plus chrome plus Windows. BOoooom Nasty combination.

 

 

That's a BSOD.

Causes by a lack of available physical or virtual ram.

[leadeater]

I never really cared for how Windows implements swap space as a file, and doesn't give you an option to make it a partition. It makes a big difference on mechanical hard drives.

Also, jsyk Linux doesn't abandon ship and promptly crash and burn when you run out of RAM. That's a Windows feature

 

Yea you can, make a partition and move it to that. Can just be a partition on same drive or on a different one, completely user configurable.

[Liltrekkie]

Ha. I actually didn't know windows would freak out like this when you ran out of memory. Not like back during windows XP days with the popup "virtual memory low" and then it'd run like crap until you restarted the pc.(or killed the task)

[xgn]

I have 24GB ram for a reason no pagefile needed.

[leadeater]

Isn't there wasted overhead for the filesystem on that partition though? And isn't that a bit of a roundabout way of going about short-stroking your swap space? ._.

 

Not really anything to worry about, it does seem slightly less efficient than the linux swap partition but the process of creating them on both systems isn't much harder or longer on either. At least linux asks you during install though. Also linux supports swap files if you so wish to use one.

 

In terms of memory management and swap usage linux does overall do it better and you can do things like interleave between different physical disks etc. Windows can use multiple swap files/disks too but it just uses the least active disk at the time of the write which should do something similar. Just having more ram works better but that is obvious to anyone

 

If your actually having to worry about the swap configuration then your system is under resourced or some special HPC setup.

[Fetzie]

I have 24GB ram for a reason no pagefile needed.

 

In theory, that is correct. However many programs will refuse to run if you do not have a pagefile. I recently had Windows crash out on me because my page file hadn't been cleared (according to the bugcheck code in the crash dump). I had been playing GTA5, and then swapped to Cities Skylines.

[LogicalDrm]

You shouldn't disable pagefile all together at all. In any windows version. There are many software andservices which rely on it by programming. If you feel need to lower amount, do that. Or when running with SSD and HDD, move bigger file to HDD and leave small file in SSD just in case something like bad boot happens.

[Godlygamer23]

Thread moved to OSes and Software.

[Tsuki]

i run 12 gigs with pagefile disabled, havent run into issues so far.

[TomvanWijnen]

Trust me. I know. I have 16GB and with the pagefile disabled, running GTA V (about 5-6GB) plus chrome plus Windows. BOoooom Nasty combination

Wait, wut, that should definitely not use more than 16 GB...

[burnttoastnice]

-snip-

 

I used to have memory problems on my 4GB laptop in Windows 8 where it used to blackout the screen when I ran out of RAM. The laptop would be on and responsive (windows error sound would play after mashing keys) but the screen was black. The cursor was the only thing left on the screen. On one occasion I was skype screensharing with someone on my laptop while editing in Premiere Pro, guess what - the screen blacked out. I could still hear the other person though, and they said the screen had blacked out also. On this occasion, the laptop had turned off the screen backlight (it usually keeps the backlight on) so I had this crazy idea of plugging in an external monitor. Behold, it came back up, but almost all the programs I had open previously had been closed, except skype. After upgrading to 8GB the problems left .

 

You shouldn't disable pagefile all together at all. In any windows version. There are many software andservices which rely on it by programming. If you feel need to lower amount, do that. Or when running with SSD and HDD, move bigger file to HDD and leave small file in SSD just in case something like bad boot happens.

 

Those in my opinion must be very poorly written if they're relying on the HDD as RAM. Realistically, only system processes should be doing that. I usually disable the pagefile on computers with 3GB of RAM or more, especially in cases where the system would only be used for web browsing and photo storage.

With the pagefile enabled, the system is SO MUCH SLOWER, with program windows blanking out entirely for 2-7 seconds after minimizing + restoring (on my desktop with 2GB RAM and laptop with 4GB RAM before upgrade). The pagefile isn't even really utilized on systems with say 12GB RAM, it's really only there for the computer to send Microsoft page dumps if the computer BSODs.

I personally prefer the pagefile off.

[Patrick Bateman]

i always have pagefile

think i have a 2gb or something pagefile on my hdd. even with 16gb of ram

what program used so much ram

[Kobathor]

I don't have a page file. I also have 16GB of RAM.

 

You don't need a page file if you have enough RAM.

[Brennan Price]

I had that very same issue a few days ago. However I am still gonna keep it disabled as I have a small sized os hdd

[toms94z71]

In theory, that is correct. However many programs will refuse to run if you do not have a pagefile. I recently had Windows crash out on me because my page file hadn't been cleared (according to the bugcheck code in the crash dump). I had been playing GTA5, and then swapped to Cities Skylines.

I got 32gb of ram, and still got that memory managment error a few times when I tried to do away with my page file, so i reset to the recomended and I haven't had it happen again, granted I got 4.5 tb of hd space in my desktop so having a small bit for a page file isn't hurting me lol.

[Guest Gabbs]

Doesn't this happen on all versions of Windows if you run out of physical ram and disabled page file?

[Yongtjunkit]

That's definitely running a lot of tabs in edge and chrome in different virtual desktop.

[Fetzie]

I got 32gb of ram, and still got that memory managment error a few times when I tried to do away with my page file, so i reset to the recomended and I haven't had it happen again, granted I got 4.5 tb of hd space in my desktop so having a small bit for a page file isn't hurting me lol.

I have it set to 3GB, seems to be enough.

[AlTech]

Wait, wut, that should definitely not use more than 16 GB...

I had like 10 chrome tabs + GTA V uses 5-6GB + Windows uses 2GB + No pagefile + I may have had somthing else running But i don't know.

[TomvanWijnen]

I had like 10 chrome tabs + GTA V uses 5-6GB + Windows uses 2GB + No pagefile + I may have had somthing else running But i don't know.

Well, so whatever Chrome uses, it's definitely not more than 2 GB, but I'll go with that for now: 2 + 6 + 2 = 10 GB. That's much less than 16 GB. Even 12 GB would suffice for that task.