Windows 10: Why was my "system managed" pagefile so small?

I have been trying to sort out a performance issue on my HP desktop Windows computer. Various windows were giving not responding messages and I noted that the memory utilisation at these times was over 95%. I am not at all clear about why it was that high - I was mostly only running one browser Chrome and Outlook at this time and the only other large memory utiliser was Kaspersky anti-virus. I would have thought that my 8GB of physical memory should have been enough to handle this load. So this was a pain!


I guessed that my issue might have something to do with the Virtual memory and files needing to be swapped in and out. I discovered that my pagefile size was set as "system managed size" and was 6,656 MB. I have 8GB of RAM so using the 1.5x rule it should have been at least 12,288 MB.


I decided to see if increasing the VM by adding a second pagefile to another partition using custom settings. So I set up a second pagefile on to another partition which increased the total available VM size to just over the recommended size. I was not confident this would fix things, but it did. My "Memory utilisation" figure has now settled to a figure just over 60%. And everything is running smoothly.

So my question is why the "system managed" page file was set so small by the Windows system? And why increasing the available VM actually reduced the amount of physical memory being used? I note from Task Manager that currently only 4.8 GB of the 7.9 GB of physical RAM is being used. Previous to my VM expansion it was close to all of it.


I love fixing things, but I like to know why the fix worked! Any ideas appreciated.

:)

 

Clear Pagefile on Shutdown


I've been looking into clearing the pagefile, and I found the following steps at a somewhat dated webpage:

1. In the registry editor, navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
2. Set ClearPageFileAtShutdown to the REG_DWORD value of 1.
3. Restart Windows.

I'm just wondering whether those steps are still valid, and, if so, does clearing the pagefile work as advertised?

 

How to efficiently manage a huge pagefil and hiberfil

By default, Windows 10 automatically manages the Pagefile according to your computer’s configuration and the RAM present in it. The minimum and maximum size of the Pagefile can be up to 1.5 times and 4 times of the physical memory that your computer has,
respectively. For example, if your computer has 1GB of RAM, the minimum Pagefile size can be 1.5GB, and the maximum size of the file can be 4GB

It is a system file so I do not recommend deleting it. Instead resize it.

Use an administrator account to log on to Windows 10.

From the desktop screen, right-click the Start button to open its context menu.

Click System.

From the left pane of the System window, click Advanced system settings.

On the System Properties box, ensure that you are on the Advanced tab.

Click the Settings button from under the Performance section.

On the Performance Options box, go to the Advanced tab.

Click the Change button from under the Virtual memory section.

On the Virtual Memory box, uncheck the Automatically manage paging file size for all drives checkbox.

From the available list, click to select the drive on which Windows 10 is installed. (C: in most cases.)

From below the list, click to select the Custom size radio button.

In the now-enabled fields, type the minimum and maximum size of the Pagefile in megabytes (MB) according to the physical memory present in your computer.

You can set the page file to the same size min/max to improve performance slightly.

Click Set and then click OK.

Restart your computer when you're done.

For the Hibernation file By default the file is 75% of your RAM amount – a computer with 4 GB of RAM would have a 3.5 GB hiberfil.sys file.

This can be be changed to any other amount between 50% – 100% – however if Windows needs more than the amount you have allocated the computer will fail to enter hiberation.

The steps below show how to change the size of the hiberfil.sys file.

Click on the Windows search bar and type cmd

Right click on ‘Cmmand Prompt’ and click on ‘Run as administrator’

Windows10-ReduceHibernateSpace2

In this example we will be changing the amount from the default 75% to the minimum 50%. If you are setting a different amount replace 50

Enter the following command and hit enter

powercfg -h -size 50

Windows10-ReduceHibernateSpace3

The hiberfil.sys file will now be changed to the new amount. Click the window using the X at the top right or type exit and hit enter on the keyboard.

 

Huge pagefile

You can't just delete the page file, you would go to system/advanced system properties/performance settings/ advanced tab Virtual Memory there you can uncheck the "Automatically manage Page file size" then you can set the size you want, maybe the 1 GB as suggested by using Max 1gb min 1gb or select no page file at all. As stated earler you don't really need a page file with a SSD.