Why is my APU page usage so high ?

[reynerd]

So i have a AMD A10-5800k in my office pc ( for lightweight work no gaming ) and i have noticed my page usage is over 70% most of the time and the pc is running very slow. Can any one explain or help me solve why the page usage is so high. This is a link to imgur for the photos i uploaded it has my specs and CPU usage info.

Thanks in advance

-Reynerd

 

[Saberus]

How big is your pagefile?

 

[Tom Tancredi]

Pagefile is used to make up for the amount of RAM your computer doesn't have to keep doing the things your demanding it perform when it doesn't have the hardware. WAY back in the day, it was common for Windows to say "Out of Memory" and then lock up, so they created the 'pagefile' out of the Hard Drive space to 'make up the difference' when Windows needs more memory to do things. if your a common 'multitasker' 2-4GB isn't enough usually need at least 8, with many people now sitting at 16GB (like myself) because you do NOT open only one Webpage, then close that open ONE email, close that, open ONE word document, then close that. You usually have ALOT of webtabs open, with multiple emails, several documents, Instant Messaging (skype), streaming music, etc. all at the same time, that means alot more RAM is needed for your computer.

 

[TheTemest]

My computer usage sounds like yours. As @Tom Tancredi mentioned, having a lot of tabs open in your browser chews up a lot of memory. Couple that with a lot of extensions enabled and you could be chewing into a lot of RAM. If you're using a chromium-based browser like Chrome, open its Task Manager and see how much memory is being used. If you add more memory you will see page usage drop. I doubled my RAM (4GB to 8GB) and it was like I got a new computer...and I don't play games.

 

[reynerd]

Sorry for the late reply and i thought i pasted a link apparently i forgot again sorry about that,

Right now the system has 704MB allocated as virtual memory with my system having only one 4GB stick of DDR3 1600mhz Hyperx installed. What is a good "rule of thumb" to use for allocating more virtual memory

 

[reynerd]

And also what does it mean by "Initial size (MB)"?

 

[Tom Tancredi]

Okay first problem your running one stick. Modern CPUs all need DUAL sticks, you should never do single sticks as this impedes the basic design of modern computers. They will use two sticks like two lanes of registers at the store, than using one stick / one register lane to push out data. This is a problem easily fixed by buying a 2nd exact stick of RAM, same make, model and most importantly timing it is set for (9-9-9-7) .

Second, do NOT mess with the Page File Settings leave it as Windows Managing it. There is no good rule of thumb, you need another stick of RAM to solve your problems, period.

 

[TheTemest]

Initial size is the size you're telling windows it can use as one contiguous area on the hard drive in an attempt to improve performance of the HD. Given the fact that you are only using one RAM stick, I don't even think that adjusting the size of the pagefile would solve the entire problem. You MUST have two sticks of RAM. Either get two 2GB for a total of 4GB to save money or get another 4GB stick. Ideally you would have two of the exact same sticks. Quite frankly, this is your only option.

 

[Saberus]

Sorry for the late reply and i thought i pasted a link apparently i forgot again sorry about that,

Right now the system has 704MB allocated as virtual memory with my system having only one 4GB stick of DDR3 1600mhz Hyperx installed. What is a good "rule of thumb" to use for allocating more virtual memory

The old rule of thumb is 1.5 times your physical memory, which I would stick to if you're running less than 16GB.

At your current spec you should set it to 6144MB of virtual memory, and if you upgrade your RAM to 8GB (Which I do recommend along with the others here), up the pagefile to 12288MB. Just make sure your drive has 12GB of space to give to the pagefile, and additional free space for overhead. (Again, the old rule of thumb is to have 10% free, but on today's multi-terabyte drives, you can skate on as little as 2-5%)

 

[reynerd]

Okay first problem your running one stick. Modern CPUs all need DUAL sticks, you should never do single sticks as this impedes the basic design of modern computers. They will use two sticks like two lanes of registers at the store, than using one stick / one register lane to push out data. This is a problem easily fixed by buying a 2nd exact stick of RAM, same make, model and most importantly timing it is set for (9-9-9-7) .

Second, do NOT mess with the Page File Settings leave it as Windows Managing it. There is no good rule of thumb, you need another stick of RAM to solve your problems, period.

I had no choice this pc was built from parts i just had lying around but i am planing on buying a brand new kit of G.skill Snipers 8GB for that PC. Also im buying a SSD for it nothing special just a Kingston SSD V300 ( i use that one in my gaming PC Have had no issues what so ever with it ). The hdd i have now is constantly at 100% disk usage and it sounds like a dolphin is traped in my HDD and its very loud.

One more question will modifying the page file have any disastrous effects on the pc?

Thanks for you guys help so far im not so good at software/OS i mainly just assemble PC's and the users install the OS