Friday, June 22, 2007

Is your computer running out of RAM?

Windows Users, Howto know if your computer is running out of RAM/Memory:

Open the Windows Task Manager (ctrl + alt + delete). Note the stats below the PF history. (screenshot)




From the screenshot above:

Total Physical Memory - This is the total amout of RAM/Physical memory installed in the computer. Total amount of RAM installed = 1.5GB

Commit Charge - The maximum amount of space used by the pagefile = 1.2GB

Total Physical Memory (K) = 1562668 ~1.5GB
Commit Charge Peak value (K) = 1340072 ~1.2GB

* Divide (K) by 1048576 to convert value to GB

Total Free RAM/Memory = Total Physical Memory - Commit Charge Peak value
= 1.5 - 1.2
= 0.3GB (~307MB)

In this example, 307MB is the total free memory available under load. This number is acceptable. I still have room to run a few more apps.

IF your total free memory is in the negative, Windows _will_ swap contents to the pagefile instead of the memory. This causes applications to slow down and Windows runs like a pig. Perhaps its time for that long awaited RAM upgrade. ;-)


Linux, check the amount of free RAM available:

Run the command free -m at the shell prompt:

-sh-3.00$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 1010 794 215 0 14 205
-/+ buffers/cache: 575 435
Swap: 2000 257 1743

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