windows successfully diagnosed a low virtual memory condition

Question

I have gotten this message three times now. I am only running 3 programs and IE isn't one of them.

Answer 1

Hi,

Step 1:

If you receive warnings that your virtual memory is low, you'll need to increase the minimum size of your paging file. Windows sets the initial minimum size of the paging file at the amount of random access memory (RAM) installed on your computer plus 300 megabytes (MB), and the maximum size at 3 times the amount of RAM installed on your computer. If you see warnings at these recommended levels, then increase the minimum and maximum sizes.

1.      Open System by clicking the Start button, clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Maintenance, and then clicking System.

2.      In the left pane, click Advanced system settings. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

3.      On the Advanced tab, under Performance, click Settings.

4.      Click the Advanced tab, and then, under Virtual memory, click Change.

5.      Clear the Automatically manage paging file size for all drives check box.

6.      Under Drive [Volume Label], click the drive that contains the paging file you want to change.

7.      Click Custom size, type a new size in megabytes in the Initial size (MB) or Maximum size (MB) box, click Set, and then click OK.

Increases in size usually don't require a restart, but if you decrease the size, you'll need to restart your computer for the changes to take effect. We recommend that you don't disable or delete the paging file.

For more information, please refer the link mentioned below:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Change-the-size-of-virtual-memory

Step 2:

Run a Virus scan using online live one care utility.

http://onecare.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm

http://www.microsoft.com/Security\_Essentials/

Follow the steps mentioned in the link below as well

How to get rid of malware.

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistasecurity/thread/ba80504b-61f1-4d71-960f-b561798b7b42

In addition, you can also perform disk clean up and disk defragmenter as a workaround. Here are the links.

Delete files using Disk Cleanup

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Delete-files-using-Disk-Cleanup

Improve performance by defragmenting your hard disk

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Improve-performance-by-defragmenting-your-hard-disk

Hope it helps.

Answer 2

I have seen this error of low virtual memory on two different windows 10 computers. Both machines have 8 GB RAM installed. Windows 10 may have "successfully diagnosed" the low virtual memory condition but it did not recover from it. On both computers the screen went blank and the machine needed to be rebooted.

In the latest case I was doing some significant image editing in Photoshop Elements 14. PSE was set to use up to 70% of the available memory. The system log message said that Photoshop Elements Editor,

Photoshop Organizer, and MSSQL were use the most memory:

:Windows successfully diagnosed a low virtual memory condition. The following programs consumed the most virtual memory: PhotoshopElementsEditor.exe (6960) consumed 7087198208 bytes, PhotoshopElementsOrganizer.exe (15232) consumed 1255538688 bytes, and sqlservr.exe (3880) consumed 235696128 bytes."

In both cases the Virtual Memory size was set manually. I have changed it to system managed on both systems.

Answer 3

Before changing settings to increase the page file size, determine why the current settings appear to be inadequate.  It could be that some program is misbehaving or buggy, and is using too much memory.

Answer 4

I see this posted on November 9, 2015, it is now February 25, 2016 I have this exact problem happen to about 6 employee's in my office. It is driving them crazy and they are driving me crazy. This generally happens when Windows Updates needs to be done. Their screen goes black until I have to manually turn it off and back on and wait for updates. I see the same error as a warning in the logs right before it goes down. 

Has anybody seen any fix for this? I have tried the paging file change but that has not changed anything.

Answer 5

When you get the message, launch Task Manager, and check the performance tab. Can you post a screenshot to yourSkyDrive and provide a link?

You could change the size of the page files to try to meet the demands of whatever requires the virtual memory, but it would be good to first determine why the current settings aren't working.  What are the current settings?  A screenshot of those would be helpful, too.