«

What is PF Usage that I see in the Performance tab of Task Manager? I
tried a Googles search but other than a lot of people discussing what
their PF Usage is, I can't find a definition. Mine is running about
173Mb right now. Thanks.

wrote:

> What is PF Usage that I see in the Performance tab of Task Manager? I
> tried a Googles search but other than a lot of people discussing what
> their PF Usage is, I can't find a definition. Mine is running about
> 173Mb right now. Thanks.
>
Pf= Pagefile. A file on your harddrive used as an extension of your RAM.
Since a disk is a lot slower than RAM you want to avoid making a lot of
use of your pagefile.


--
Groeten/Regards
Jeroen Wijnands
jeroen at wijnands punt xs4all punt nl

On Wed, 03 Mar 2004 09:22:43 -0500, wrote:

>What is PF Usage that I see in the Performance tab of Task Manager? I
>tried a Googles search but other than a lot of people discussing what
>their PF Usage is, I can't find a definition. Mine is running about
>173Mb right now. Thanks.

PF refers to the Windows swap file, also known as the paging file.
This is a file space on your hard drive which is allocated to be used as virtual memory by the operating system.
Virtual memory functions as RAM, but uses hard drive space instead of standard RAM. Virtual memory is markedly slower
than RAM.
Depending on how much physical RAM you have, you may want to try running Windows without a paging file altogether. Not
recommended for less than 1024 MB of memory, however.

Ideally, you would want the paging file on its own separate partition, placed at the beginning of the drive. This
improves seek times and guards against fragmentation. If you have two or more hard drives, place the paging file on a
separate partition, at the beginning of the drive, and on the non-system physical drive. This will greatly improve
performance as the system can utilize both drives at the same time for different functions.

Thanks. I have 1Gb of RAM. Where would I disable page filing in
Windows XP if I wanted to try that?? I have a 120Gb hard drive in two
equal partitions. Is this a folder I should look for and maybe move to
the partition that doesn't have the operating system on it? Or does
that only help if I have as you mentioned, two physical drives?

>On Wed, 03 Mar 2004 09:22:43 -0500, wrote:
>
>>What is PF Usage that I see in the Performance tab of Task Manager? I
>>tried a Googles search but other than a lot of people discussing what
>>their PF Usage is, I can't find a definition. Mine is running about
>>173Mb right now. Thanks.
>
>PF refers to the Windows swap file, also known as the paging file.
>This is a file space on your hard drive which is allocated to be used as virtual memory by the operating system.
>Virtual memory functions as RAM, but uses hard drive space instead of standard RAM. Virtual memory is markedly slower
>than RAM.
>Depending on how much physical RAM you have, you may want to try running Windows without a paging file altogether. Not
>recommended for less than 1024 MB of memory, however.
>
>Ideally, you would want the paging file on its own separate partition, placed at the beginning of the drive. This
>improves seek times and guards against fragmentation. If you have two or more hard drives, place the paging file on a
>separate partition, at the beginning of the drive, and on the non-system physical drive. This will greatly improve
>performance as the system can utilize both drives at the same time for different functions.

To disable the prefetcher:

Start > run >regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \
Control \ SessionManager \ Memory Management \
PrefetchParameters
Double-click the EnablePrefetcher value (remember the value
that EnablePrefetcher is set to!)
Change the Value data to 0 to disable the prefetcher, 1 to
prefetch applications only, 2 prefetch boot only, 3 is
default and does both
Close the registry editor and reboot the computer for the
changes to take effect


bright

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++



<> wrote in message
news:...
| Thanks. I have 1Gb of RAM. Where would I disable page
filing in
| Windows XP if I wanted to try that?? I have a 120Gb hard
drive in two
| equal partitions. Is this a folder I should look for and
maybe move to
| the partition that doesn't have the operating system on
it? Or does
| that only help if I have as you mentioned, two physical
drives?
|
| >On Wed, 03 Mar 2004 09:22:43 -0500,
wrote:
| >
| >>What is PF Usage that I see in the Performance tab of
Task Manager? I
| >>tried a Googles search but other than a lot of people
discussing what
| >>their PF Usage is, I can't find a definition. Mine is
running about
| >>173Mb right now. Thanks.
| >
| >PF refers to the Windows swap file, also known as the
paging file.
| >This is a file space on your hard drive which is
allocated to be used as virtual memory by the operating
system.
| >Virtual memory functions as RAM, but uses hard drive
space instead of standard RAM. Virtual memory is markedly
slower
| >than RAM.
| >Depending on how much physical RAM you have, you may want
to try running Windows without a paging file altogether. Not
| >recommended for less than 1024 MB of memory, however.
| >
| >Ideally, you would want the paging file on its own
separate partition, placed at the beginning of the drive.
This
| >improves seek times and guards against fragmentation. If
you have two or more hard drives, place the paging file on a
| >separate partition, at the beginning of the drive, and on
the non-system physical drive. This will greatly improve
| >performance as the system can utilize both drives at the
same time for different functions.
|
|

On Wed, 03 Mar 2004 19:53:02 -0500, wrote:

>Thanks. I have 1Gb of RAM. Where would I disable page filing in
>Windows XP if I wanted to try that?? I have a 120Gb hard drive in two
>equal partitions. Is this a folder I should look for and maybe move to
>the partition that doesn't have the operating system on it? Or does
>that only help if I have as you mentioned, two physical drives?

Right-click My Computer and choose Properties.
Click Advanced
Under Performance, click Settings
Click Advanced
Under Virtual Memory, click Change

Moving the swap file to a second partition on the same physical drive will be of no benefit, and would actually result
in a degradation of performance due to the seek times being slightly longer towards the middle of the disk.

If you ever reinstall from scratch, create a 1.5GB partition as the first partition on the drive and place the swap
file, and nothing else, there. Use the balance of the disk as you see fit for Windows and files.

>
>>On Wed, 03 Mar 2004 09:22:43 -0500, wrote:
>>
>>>What is PF Usage that I see in the Performance tab of Task Manager? I
>>>tried a Googles search but other than a lot of people discussing what
>>>their PF Usage is, I can't find a definition. Mine is running about
>>>173Mb right now. Thanks.
>>
>>PF refers to the Windows swap file, also known as the paging file.
>>This is a file space on your hard drive which is allocated to be used as virtual memory by the operating system.
>>Virtual memory functions as RAM, but uses hard drive space instead of standard RAM. Virtual memory is markedly slower
>>than RAM.
>>Depending on how much physical RAM you have, you may want to try running Windows without a paging file altogether. Not
>>recommended for less than 1024 MB of memory, however.
>>
>>Ideally, you would want the paging file on its own separate partition, placed at the beginning of the drive. This
>>improves seek times and guards against fragmentation. If you have two or more hard drives, place the paging file on a
>>separate partition, at the beginning of the drive, and on the non-system physical drive. This will greatly improve
>>performance as the system can utilize both drives at the same time for different functions.
>

Wonderful bit of information. Irrelevant to the OP's question, but nonetheless wonderful.

On Wed, 3 Mar 2004 19:52:29 -0600, "br1ght" <nitrox_frogy@> wrote:

>To disable the prefetcher:
>
>Start > run >regedit
>Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \
>Control \ SessionManager \ Memory Management \
>PrefetchParameters
>Double-click the EnablePrefetcher value (remember the value
>that EnablePrefetcher is set to!)
>Change the Value data to 0 to disable the prefetcher, 1 to
>prefetch applications only, 2 prefetch boot only, 3 is
>default and does both
>Close the registry editor and reboot the computer for the
>changes to take effect
>
>
>bright
>
>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
>
>
><> wrote in message
>news:.. .
>| Thanks. I have 1Gb of RAM. Where would I disable page
>filing in
>| Windows XP if I wanted to try that?? I have a 120Gb hard
>drive in two
>| equal partitions. Is this a folder I should look for and
>maybe move to
>| the partition that doesn't have the operating system on
>it? Or does
>| that only help if I have as you mentioned, two physical
>drives?
>|
>| >On Wed, 03 Mar 2004 09:22:43 -0500,
>wrote:
>| >
>| >>What is PF Usage that I see in the Performance tab of
>Task Manager? I
>| >>tried a Googles search but other than a lot of people
>discussing what
>| >>their PF Usage is, I can't find a definition. Mine is
>running about
>| >>173Mb right now. Thanks.
>| >
>| >PF refers to the Windows swap file, also known as the
>paging file.
>| >This is a file space on your hard drive which is
>allocated to be used as virtual memory by the operating
>system.
>| >Virtual memory functions as RAM, but uses hard drive
>space instead of standard RAM. Virtual memory is markedly
>slower
>| >than RAM.
>| >Depending on how much physical RAM you have, you may want
>to try running Windows without a paging file altogether. Not
>| >recommended for less than 1024 MB of memory, however.
>| >
>| >Ideally, you would want the paging file on its own
>separate partition, placed at the beginning of the drive.
>This
>| >improves seek times and guards against fragmentation. If
>you have two or more hard drives, place the paging file on a
>| >separate partition, at the beginning of the drive, and on
>the non-system physical drive. This will greatly improve
>| >performance as the system can utilize both drives at the
>same time for different functions.
>|
>|
>

[DynV]

Originally Posted by Harrison

On Wed, 03 Mar 2004 19:53:02 -0500, wrote:

>Thanks. I have 1Gb of RAM. Where would I disable page filing in
>Windows XP if I wanted to try that?? I have a 120Gb hard drive in two
>equal partitions. Is this a folder I should look for and maybe move to
>the partition that doesn't have the operating system on it? Or does
>that only help if I have as you mentioned, two physical drives?

Right-click My Computer and choose Properties.
Click Advanced
Under Performance, click Settings
Click Advanced
Under Virtual Memory, click Change

Moving the swap file to a second partition on the same physical drive will be of no benefit, and would actually result
in a degradation of performance due to the seek times being slightly longer towards the middle of the disk.

If you ever reinstall from scratch, create a 1.5GB partition as the first partition on the drive and place the swap
file, and nothing else, there. Use the balance of the disk as you see fit for Windows and files.

>
>>On Wed, 03 Mar 2004 09:22:43 -0500, wrote:
>>
>>>What is PF Usage that I see in the Performance tab of Task Manager? I
>>>tried a Googles search but other than a lot of people discussing what
>>>their PF Usage is, I can't find a definition. Mine is running about
>>>173Mb right now. Thanks.
>>
>>PF refers to the Windows swap file, also known as the paging file.
>>This is a file space on your hard drive which is allocated to be used as virtual memory by the operating system.
>>Virtual memory functions as RAM, but uses hard drive space instead of standard RAM. Virtual memory is markedly slower
>>than RAM.
>>Depending on how much physical RAM you have, you may want to try running Windows without a paging file altogether. Not
>>recommended for less than 1024 MB of memory, however.
>>
>>Ideally, you would want the paging file on its own separate partition, placed at the beginning of the drive. This
>>improves seek times and guards against fragmentation. If you have two or more hard drives, place the paging file on a
>>separate partition, at the beginning of the drive, and on the non-system physical drive. This will greatly improve
>>performance as the system can utilize both drives at the same time for different functions.
>

I wonder why you discussed about prefetching as it was negative, after seeing this article about prefetcher on wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefetcher

I see that I need to enable Task Scheaduler as stated in the article !

[elextro]

Hey . I have 582 MB of PF Usage right now but I don't understand why. You see, my Task Manager also says that I have 3144988 K of Total Physical Memory and 2414728 K of available physical memory. My System Cache is 1009632 K.
If I have 2414728 K of Physical Memory available then why I'm I using 582MB of virtual memory?

[phoenixtwo87]

Hey guys,

Phoenix here, I scrolled through this section kinda fast but I don't think I saw this mentioned above. If it was I apologize you may chastise me later. lol.

PF usage actually refers to the total memory being used in your system. This is total physical RAM + Page File Size. The top of the PF usage graph being the maximum memory your system can handle. Start approaching that section of the graph and you start getting those worrisome low memory warnings that I'm sure many of you have seen once or twice in your life. Adding more RAM to the system will increase the value that that graph displays as will increasing the size of your page file.

If you'll take a walk with me down to the commit charge location, the values in this section are actually what is represented by the PF usage graph. Total = the bright green value at the bottom of the graph (only here its displayed in KB not MB/GB). Limit = the value represented by the top of the graph (No value is actually shown at the top of the graph). And of course peak = Highest value that the TOTAL has reached.

What you want to see in that section is a value that is less than your total physical RAM if you have 512MB installed in your system total and you are seeing over 800MB being used then you know that approximately 300 MB are being ran out of the page file itself. Chances are that your system is running rather s-l-o-w as well.

If you are seeing system slow downs and you hear a lot of disk activity then you should check this portion of task manager. If the PF usage is much higher than total physical RAM in the machine you should add more RAM. I would just bump your RAM up to 2GB it's typically a cheap upgrade that can boost performance by a lot. If you already have a good deal of RAM in the system and are still over that value, then you should really look at what is running on the machine. Uninstall unnecessary programs and run malware scans. It may be wise to boot to SAFE mode and run the malware scans. IF you don't see an improvement seek help. Also if the system is sluggish only when Internet Explorer is open make sure you don't have a ton of toolbars up in the top. I can't tell you how many times I have logged into machines where the internet browser is open and half the screen is filled with toolbars and the other half is a tiny sliver of webpage. If you have a ton of toolbars get rid of them.

Hopefully this is helpful!