How do you set your pagefile in your notebook?

So how do you set your pagefile?
I put mine in a new partition E: and set the same initial and maximum size (1.5x my total RAM).
I wonder if it's better to use the new partition or should I just put it in the D: partition, along with other disposable files. I keep my OS along with other essential programs in C:. The D: is for musics and games' program files.
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks

 

The page file is for swapping data using virtual memory in place of ram. It is highly effective to use two partions to span the virtual memory. I have a 700-1000 swap file on my D drive and only on the D drive to keep the main drive free. This method however is only effective if you have two hard drives on two seperate channels or cables. Changing the swap file won't really help on a system with one hard drive partioned in two. You need two hard drives on seperate channels. hope that helps!

 

gotcha! thanks.
I think I'll keep the pagefile in a separate partition if there's no difference.

 

If you have 512MB of memory or more, I doubt you should keep your pagefile set at 1.5x. The 1.5x figure stems from the days when computers had much less physical memory.

 

If your paging file is on the same physical disk as the O/S, which is the case on laptops because they usally come with one disc, then it doesn't matter where you put the swap space (virtual memory). If you have two discs then put it on the disc where the O/S doesn't reside.

Best thing to do it:
delete swap space.
reboot
defrag the disc
create the swap space, but give it a fixed size. None of this min=512 and max =1024. No. Make it max 512 and min 512.
reboot.
This way the swap space ends up in one contigious block. Perhaps, later versions of Windows keep the disc space configious, but I don't see how this is possible if the swap space size is a varible!
my tuppence worth.
z

 

zii is correct, except that if the second disk is not faster than the boot disk, there is no benefit from placing the pagefile on the second disk.

Also, if you have several partitions, turn off system restore on all but the boot partition. Having system restore enabled on non-boot partitions really slows down booting.

Q

 

i have turned my pagefile off in my desktop, and have not noticed any difference...ever.

pb,out.

 

It depends on the amount of installed memory, what applications are used, and how many applications are opened at once.

 

On my desktop (winxp sp2, 1 gig ram) I disable the pagefile and can play Oblivion without problems.

What's weird is that when I tried enabling it, my HDD was much more burdened because windows had a pagefile to abuse. You'd think windows wouldn't use the pagefile until it ran out of RAM, but for some reason that's not the case.

However, the truth is that you can't disable the pagefile entirely. Taskmanager indicates that there's a 40MB pagefile even though I disabled it in My Computer.

I'd encourage everyone to try disabling the pagefile, run your everyday tasks, and see what happens.

 

My new laptop with 2GB of Ram, I just turned off the pagefile, haven't noticed any issues with that yet.

 

the specs are in my sig..

i can run WoW or Morrowind Oblivion with aim+firefox (with a few tabs), fraps, and winamp going in the background..not one issue for me.

sig didnt display, so here it is.
OCZ Powerstream 520W | SB Audigy 2 ZS | 2 80gb Hitachi 7200 hdd Raid 0 | Maxtor DiamondMax 10 300GB 7200, 16mb Cache | EVGA 7800GTX KO w/ ACS3 SLI | OCZ Gold GX 2GB DDR 500 | DFI Lanparty nF4 SLI-DR | Evercool VC-RE chipset cooler | Windows XP PRO, SP2 | Opty 170 Denmark | CM Stacker w/crossflow fan

pb,out.

 

Yeah, i was actually wondering, do you run any risks in disabling the page file? Additionally, is it better to let Windows manage it or just set it yourself?

 

Risks are you will run out of memory and windows will start to complain (about no virtual memory left) the problem with letting windows manage it is that it will become more and more fragmented (as windows resizes it many times) I believe.

 

I would recommend google-ing for "Xp myths" especially the part about swap files. Some people might find some things a bit different than they think. Especially about disabling, fixed size, other partition (not another disk). Defragmenting was the best thing I've tried.

Cheers,