i think to make more virtual memory you do like this:

control panel
system
advanced
settings (top)
advanced

than at the bottom, 'change'

also a lot of machines to run FA@H need more than 256MB of RAM. how much do your machines have?

Windows isn't great at automatically resizing the page file, but it does it eventually. Your computer may freeze for a brief period while it catches up, but the only way anything would crash is if there was insufficient disc space.

Setting the size manually avoids the slowdown problem, but if you estimate the size wrong, then a fatal crash is more likely.

Dear johnsmith2123:

I assume you increased your virtual memory paging file size. Did this help in your situation? Also, how much real memory do you have?

Thanks.

This is what virtual memory paging does. When there is not enough real memory, it writes out portions of real memory that applications have not recently needed to disk (the paging file) and reads in the portions of data the current program needs from the disk paging file (that were saved there before) into the freed up real memory locations. This way, the operating system swaps the content back and forth from memory to disk as different applications become active and inactive. Since the agent for World Community Grid has lowest priority, other applications needing to run and use more memory will cause the memory used by our agent to get moved to disk. However, as the other applications go idle, the system moves the memory needed by the agent back to memory (and saves what was in memory in those locations back to disk). All of this activity is called "paging" and if will slow things down a bit if there is a lot of it. The solution is to run the agent as a "screen saver only" when you have a machine that does not have a lot of real memory. That way, there is minimal disruption from paging delays. For the AIDS project, the total amount of virtual memory needed (which translates roughly into the portion of the paging file size used + real memory used by the application) is about 300 MB. However, most of the time, only about 75MB of real memory is needed (called working set size) by the AIDS project and the rest of the 225MB allocated sits in the paging file on disk.

We cannot predict how many other applications a user will open, but each one will end up allocating some amount of virtual memory. If the total hits the virtual memory limit currently set on your machine, then the next application will not be able to start because it cannot allocate sufficient virtual memory. So, the user needs to increase the maximum paging file size setting. If there are too many such memory hungry applications open and running at the same time, the paging activity will increase response time (slow things down) and eventually hit a point called "thrashing" when you have way too much going on for the amount of real memory to handle. Then the system seems to come to a slow crawl. This would occur when the totals of all of the working set sizes for the applications running add up to more than the amount of real memory you have on your machine.



Of course, any computer running will experience some wear and tear, especially in the moving parts. Components, which might have latent weaknesses or flaws in them may eventually fail and cause the computer to not work. You have to judge for yourself the risks of using your computer for anything you do with it and whether your warranty covers potential failures adequately for your particular situation. We don't ask you to run your machine extra hours or change your usage habits. But many members feel it is important to contribute more, so some do leave their machines on for much longer times. You should do regular maintenance on any computer, cleaning out dust from fans etc. And, you should make backups of all of your important files on a regular basis, because eventually, all computers will fail. But, in the end, you have to judge all of these risks for your personal situation and make your own decision.



Let me assure you that IBM takes extensive measures to make sure the agent software that we run on your machine does not contain viruses, spyware, or other malicious code. This whole project depends on this to retain the trust of our members. The software we use is probably the safest of all that resides on your machine.