Is there a way to force win11 to use a paging file?

Win711 · Jan 20, 2025

kelper said:
Which OS did it have when you bought it?

win11 home, and probably an early version.

kelper · Jan 20, 2025

How old is this laptop? Gateway should not be selling laptops with Windows 11 and only 2GB of RAM.

Win711 · Jan 20, 2025

zbook said:
Please run the V2 log collector > post a share link

BSOD - Posting Instructions

BSOD - Posting Instructions This will show you how to help provide needed information about your system and dump files. It will not contain any personal or sensitive information about you or your data. To get better help with your Windows BSOD issue, please read these instructions and follow...

www.elevenforum.com

You think there is something wrong with the os? I think widows just doesn't want to use the page file and needs some tweak to fix.

XxXxX · Jan 20, 2025

have a look at this and see if this may help. Windows ready boost to help increase RAM using a USB drive.

How to use USB flash drive as additional RAM on your Windows 10 , 11 PC

The days are long gone when 4 GB RAM is considered enough to run all the applications smoothly on a computer. Day by day the hunger for more raw hardware

thegeekpage.com

best of luck, Steve ..

Win711 · Jan 20, 2025

kelper said:
How old is this laptop? Gateway should not be selling laptops with Windows 11 and only 2GB of RAM.

A couple years.

zbook · Jan 20, 2025

Win711 said:
You think there is something wrong with the os? I think widows just doesn't want to use the page file and needs some tweak to fix.

The logs may report something related to the problems.

kelper · Jan 20, 2025

I'd suggest you don't run the browser at all when using the trading app. In fact you should boot into Windows and run only one app. Even if you run a browser and close it, it will likely still hog some memory. Windows will probably work better if you set the virtual memory to automatic as it's management is quite sophisticated

Win711 · Jan 20, 2025

XxXxX said:
have a look at this and see if this may help. Windows ready boost to help increase RAM using a USB drive.

How to use USB flash drive as additional RAM on your Windows 10 , 11 PC

The days are long gone when 4 GB RAM is considered enough to run all the applications smoothly on a computer. Day by day the hunger for more raw hardware

thegeekpage.com

best of luck, Steve ..

That's an interesting idea.

Win711 · Jan 20, 2025

kelper said:
I'd suggest you don't run the browser at all when using the trading app. In fact you should boot into Windows and run only one app. Even if you run a browser and close it, it will likely still hog some memory. Windows will probably work better if you set the virtual memory to automatic as it's management is quite sophisticated

The funny thing is it will play a dozen youtube videos at the same time.

Is it beneficial to set the paging file manually in windows 10?

Answer (1 of 4): The paging file, or virtual memory, is a system file on your computer's hard drive that Windows uses to compensate for the lack of RAM if applications run out of it. Everyone knows that running applications on a computer are executed in random access memory (RAM, RAM). Figurativ...

www.quora.com

Bree · Jan 20, 2025

Win711 said:
I have a win11 laptop with 2gb ram with 10gb static size paging file on a SSD, but windows would rather run out of memory than use the paging file.

There are some resources that have to use RAM, and at just 2GB you may be running out of real RAM for them to use. These may be things like USER or GDI resources.

See Mark Russinovich's blogs....
Pushing the Limits of Windows: USER and GDI Objects – Part 1
Pushing the Limits of Windows: USER and GDI Objects – Part 2

Unless that '2GB' is a typo, you need to consider upgrading to 4GB. What is the make and model of this laptop?

Win711 · Jan 20, 2025

Bree said:
There are some resources that have to use RAM, and at just 2GB you may be running out of real RAM for them to use. These may be things like USER or GDI resources.

See Mark Russinovich's blogs....
Pushing the Limits of Windows: USER and GDI Objects – Part 1
Pushing the Limits of Windows: USER and GDI Objects – Part 2

Unless that '2GB' is a typo, you need to consider upgrading to 4GB. What is the make and model of this laptop?

It's definitely possible it's 4gb and I'm not remembering right. I'll have to check tomorrow, but the problem is the same regardless. Whatever the amount of ram it's not sufficient and windows isn't utilizing the pagefile.

Chrome for instance would rather forget where I've scrolled to on a site rather than write it down in the pagefile.

kelper · Jan 20, 2025

4GB is working well for me.

I suggest you enter the laptop specs as your system 2.

cereberus · Jan 20, 2025

Win711 said:
Maybe you should tell microsoft that, since they recommend doing opposite of what you said. See Zbook's post above.

The problem is demand is high and windows would rather crash than resort to the pagefile.

No, that is not a recommendation to use instead of auto - it is simply guidance how to size a pagefile IF you get issues.

It gives more guidance how to manually size rather than using the 1.5xRAM decades old rule of thumb which uninformed web wannabe tech authors still spout.

By default, it is set to auto which has always been MS's recommendation.

For vast majority of users this is fine - I bet 90+% never change that.

I cannot say why your pc is crashing rather than using pagefiles as it does not happen on my devices. I have not ever had a memory crash on my 4GB travel laptop but I do know pagefiling is used sometimes.

It is not necessarily Windows per se.

You could have some kind of memory leak that is upsetting the system. It can be quite a detective exercise to bottom out such issues.

I wager the issue is related to a faulty app.

antspants · Jan 20, 2025

Win711 said:
It's definitely possible it's 4gb and I'm not remembering right. I'll have to check tomorrow, but the problem is the same regardless. Whatever the amount of ram it's not sufficient and windows isn't utilizing the pagefile.

Open the Settings app
Select System
Select About
Open the Device Specifications section View your RAM information

antspants · Jan 20, 2025

Your link says

Gateway GWNC31514 15.6" 4GB 128GB SSD Core i3-1115G4 3.0GHz WIN11 S

I don’t believe they would put Win 11 on a PC that only has 2GB of RAM, and sell it.

Win711 · Jan 20, 2025

antspants said:
How would you know if the problem is the same regardless if you don’t know if it’s 2 or 4GB

Open the Settings app

Select System

Select About

Open the Device Specifications section View your RAM information

The same way I know when I'm out of gas regardless if I know the tank is 10 or 12 gallons.

I tried a ram cleaner last night and it was able to free up enough ram to take it from roughly 75% down to 50%. Since I'm only running chrome and a trading app then I'm assuming it has only 2gb. I didn't think the amount of ram is relevant to the question of whether there is a way to force win11 to use a pagefile, so I didn't pay much attention to the nominal, just the percent. Whatever it is, the fact remains that it's not enough.

antspants · Jan 20, 2025

Win711 said:
The same way I know when I'm out of gas regardless if I know the tank is 10 or 12 gallons.

I edited that before you quoted me. Regardless that English is my first language, I had read it wrong

kelper · Jan 20, 2025

Emty RAM is not doing anything so give up on the ram cleaner!

Win711 · Jan 20, 2025

antspants said:
Your link says

Gateway GWNC31514 15.6" 4GB 128GB SSD Core i3-1115G4 3.0GHz WIN11 S

I don’t believe they would put Win 11 on a PC that only has 2GB of RAM, and sell it.

Dad and I both bought one, but I bought mine way before he did and advised him to get more ram, so I'm pretty sure his is twice mine. Since I have the box from his right beside me and it has that model number on it, then that's dad's laptop and therefore mine is half as much, or 2gb. But it's possible I have a 4 and he has an 8, and I'm confused whose box I have here. I'll look at the laptop later today, but it seems like a distraction from the problem.

Win711 · Jan 20, 2025

kelper said:
Emty RAM is not doing anything so give up on the ram cleaner!

Yeah I figured that out lol

Is there a way to force win11 to use a paging file?

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