/ Windows Swap File

Windows Swap File

Ever had one of those times where you finished working with an application and all of a sudden your computer’s hard drive light starts flashing fast and a dull grinding noise can be heard for a few seconds?
Many of us have.

But were you aware that it can slow down your computer?

Many of us without properly configured speed enhanced computer set ups already wait enough as it is without adding more waiting to our computing lives. But did you know that it also be avoided? That grinding noise accompanied by the delay can be greatly reduced, or even removed entirely. One would definitely benefit from that for sure. Here’s how we do it.

It’s all about the Windows swap file.

When Windows decides that it could run out of real memory aka RAM, it starts to use virtual memory, which is actually just a very large single file on your computer’s hard drive.

It places temporary data in there and treats it as extra “pretend” memory. It continually does this until you are finished with what you are doing and then should return back to normal. But not always.

Not only that, but the file size is always being recalculated, depending on what extra virtual memory Windows thinks it might need. This is part of the reason you hear the grinding noise; Windows is calculating how much extra to inflate the file and then does it.

But what if you were to tell it the minimum amount it can use and the maximum amount? That would eliminate it’s need to continually slow you down by calculating it wouldn’t it?

So how do we set that?

Well, it is all in one place and there a few ways of getting to it, depending on your familiarity. If you consider yourself a power user, you can hit the Windows key on your keyboard and tap the Pause key to bring up the System Properties box. For the rest of us, right-click once on “My Computer” on your computer’s desktop background and select properties.

Got it? Excellent!

Now click on the “Advanced” tab across the top, at the right hand side.

Under the “Performance” area, click “Settings”,

then click on the Advanced tab, then down the bottom under “Virtual Memory”, click the change button.

Select the “Custom Size” circle selection, and make the Initial size about 1/3 to ½ of your current RAM amount.

Set Maximum to 2x your RAM amount, or if you have 1GB of RAM or more, set it about 1000MB, though you are free to set it to more if you like.

Now that will work just fine, though if you are really keep to get all the extra speed you can, set both values to the same number, perhaps both at 1000MB, though you certainly don’t need to.

Now click OK, OK and OK again. You may be asked to restart your computer. That’s fine. Do that now.

When it boots back up, you should find it a little snappier. Open up your word processor, run a game or open up a graphics application.

You should notice that when the hard drive would start grinding and the light flickering, it shouldn’t do it for as long, or even at all.

This is a great speed tweak and I hope you got a lot out of it. There are many, many more out there and I hope to write on them later, too. Happy speed tweaking!