Huge WIN386.SWP file

[Doc]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsme.general (More info?)

Win ME, 256Mb ram, 80Gb HD with 3Gb primary partion. I reformatted
primary partion and reinstalled Win ME a month ago. Since then I have had
a problem with the Win386.swp file growing to over 1Gb in size. I then
boot from EBD and delete the swap file in DOS. And then over the next
week or so I watch the swap file continue to grow again. Control Panel /
System / Performance / Virtual memory is set to allow windows to manage
my virtual memory settings.

Since the re-install I have set up this PC to have nothing but Windows
system files etc on the primary partition, with all other programs on an
extended partion. Consequently I have just under 2Gb of free space on C:
(after deleting the swap file).

Is it normal for the swap file to grow to over 1Gb, given the large
amount of free space ? Prior to the re-install I never had much more than
3 or 400 Mb free space on C:, and never noticed the swap file exceeding
200Mb or so. If it is not normal, is there a fix ?

TIA for any help on this.

Doc
--
Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving
safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in
broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming
"WOW, WHAT A RIDE"

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsme.general (More info?)

No - this is not normal.
What programs are you actually running?
How much RAM is installed?


--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2005, Windows)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.btinternet.com/~winnoel/millsrpch.htm
http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's

"Doc" <postmaster@[127.0.0.1]> wrote in message
news:Xns95E789C7E4370Aardvark@news.xtra.co.nz...
> Win ME, 256Mb ram, 80Gb HD with 3Gb primary partion. I reformatted
> primary partion and reinstalled Win ME a month ago. Since then I have had
> a problem with the Win386.swp file growing to over 1Gb in size. I then
> boot from EBD and delete the swap file in DOS. And then over the next
> week or so I watch the swap file continue to grow again. Control Panel /
> System / Performance / Virtual memory is set to allow windows to manage
> my virtual memory settings.
>
> Since the re-install I have set up this PC to have nothing but Windows
> system files etc on the primary partition, with all other programs on an
> extended partion. Consequently I have just under 2Gb of free space on C:
> (after deleting the swap file).
>
> Is it normal for the swap file to grow to over 1Gb, given the large
> amount of free space ? Prior to the re-install I never had much more than
> 3 or 400 Mb free space on C:, and never noticed the swap file exceeding
> 200Mb or so. If it is not normal, is there a fix ?
>
> TIA for any help on this.
>
> Doc
> --
> Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving
> safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in
> broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming
> "WOW, WHAT A RIDE"

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsme.general (More info?)

As Noel has said, 1Gb is not normal, however, you also said :-

> .. the Win386.swp file growing to over 1Gb in size. I then
> boot from EBD and delete the swap file in DOS. And then
> over the next week or so I watch the swap file continue
> to grow again.

This may seem a daft question, but did you 'down-power/reboot' at all over
that 'next week' or did you keep the machine running throughout? And, if
you rebooted, did the swapfile 'retain' its previous value or shrink (even
slightly) or grow (at bootup, i.e at the start of a session)?

Mart


"Noel Paton" <NoelDPspamless@btopenworld.com> wrote in message
news:euAl2YOAFHA.2540@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> No - this is not normal.
> What programs are you actually running?
> How much RAM is installed?
>
>
> --
> Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2005, Windows)
>
> Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
> http://www.btinternet.com/~winnoel/millsrpch.htm
> http://tinyurl.com/6oztj
>
> Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's
>
> "Doc" <postmaster@[127.0.0.1]> wrote in message
> news:Xns95E789C7E4370Aardvark@news.xtra.co.nz...
>> Win ME, 256Mb ram, 80Gb HD with 3Gb primary partion. I reformatted
>> primary partion and reinstalled Win ME a month ago. Since then I have had
>> a problem with the Win386.swp file growing to over 1Gb in size. I then
>> boot from EBD and delete the swap file in DOS. And then over the next
>> week or so I watch the swap file continue to grow again. Control Panel /
>> System / Performance / Virtual memory is set to allow windows to manage
>> my virtual memory settings.
>>
>> Since the re-install I have set up this PC to have nothing but Windows
>> system files etc on the primary partition, with all other programs on an
>> extended partion. Consequently I have just under 2Gb of free space on C:
>> (after deleting the swap file).
>>
>> Is it normal for the swap file to grow to over 1Gb, given the large
>> amount of free space ? Prior to the re-install I never had much more than
>> 3 or 400 Mb free space on C:, and never noticed the swap file exceeding
>> 200Mb or so. If it is not normal, is there a fix ?
>>
>> TIA for any help on this.
>>
>> Doc
>> --
>> Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving
>> safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in
>> broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming
>> "WOW, WHAT A RIDE"
>
>

 

[Doc]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsme.general (More info?)

"Noel Paton" <NoelDPspamless@btopenworld.com> wrote in
news:euAl2YOAFHA.2540@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl:

> No - this is not normal.
> What programs are you actually running?
> How much RAM is installed?
>
>
256Mb ram. On a daily basis I run IE6(MyIE2), OE, Outpost firewall,
AVG7, Spyware Guard, a bookmark manager, a download manager, netmeter,
XNews, keynote ...... nothing unusual, nothing new or different to what I
ran before the re-install. Currently, 12 hours after deleting it the swap
file it is 151Mb, about what I would normally expect.


--
Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving
safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in
broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming
"WOW, WHAT A RIDE"

 

[Doc]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsme.general (More info?)

"Mart" <mart(NoSpam)@nospam.com> wrote in
news:eOoREkOAFHA.2640@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl:

>
> This may seem a daft question, but did you 'down-power/reboot' at all
> over that 'next week' or did you keep the machine running throughout?
> And, if you rebooted, did the swapfile 'retain' its previous value or
> shrink (even slightly) or grow (at bootup, i.e at the start of a
> session)?
>

Machine gets powered down daily. (reboot with EBD is the only way I have
of getting to DOS to delete swap file). I haven't really noted the file
size changes with relation to rebooting. I will take note of this over
next few days.


--
Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving
safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in
broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming
"WOW, WHAT A RIDE"

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsme.general (More info?)

> Machine gets powered down daily.

Well, that eliminated one train of thought!

Thanks for the reply. I'll keep following (watching) Noel's part of the
thread.

Mart


"Doc" <postmaster@[127.0.0.1]> wrote in message
news:Xns95E79451DDEA4Aardvark@news.xtra.co.nz...
> "Mart" <mart(NoSpam)@nospam.com> wrote in
> news:eOoREkOAFHA.2640@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl:
>
>>
>> This may seem a daft question, but did you 'down-power/reboot' at all
>> over that 'next week' or did you keep the machine running throughout?
>> And, if you rebooted, did the swapfile 'retain' its previous value or
>> shrink (even slightly) or grow (at bootup, i.e at the start of a
>> session)?
>>
>
> Machine gets powered down daily. (reboot with EBD is the only way I have
> of getting to DOS to delete swap file). I haven't really noted the file
> size changes with relation to rebooting. I will take note of this over
> next few days.
>
>
> --
> Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving
> safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in
> broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming
> "WOW, WHAT A RIDE"

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsme.general (More info?)

Nothing too strange there - although I have heard some (apocryphal) strange
tales about Outpost causing problems

I'm assuming that you've checked for signs of malware with up-to-date
scanners?

The only thing I can think of is that there may be a weird setting in
system.ini
look there for any references to PagingFile - what (exactly) do they say?


--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2005, Windows)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.btinternet.com/~winnoel/millsrpch.htm
http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's

"Doc" <postmaster@[127.0.0.1]> wrote in message
news:Xns95E79395C5D82Aardvark@news.xtra.co.nz...
> "Noel Paton" <NoelDPspamless@btopenworld.com> wrote in
> news:euAl2YOAFHA.2540@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl:
>
>> No - this is not normal.
>> What programs are you actually running?
>> How much RAM is installed?
>>
>>
> 256Mb ram. On a daily basis I run IE6(MyIE2), OE, Outpost firewall,
> AVG7, Spyware Guard, a bookmark manager, a download manager, netmeter,
> XNews, keynote ...... nothing unusual, nothing new or different to what I
> ran before the re-install. Currently, 12 hours after deleting it the swap
> file it is 151Mb, about what I would normally expect.
>
>
> --
> Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving
> safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in
> broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming
> "WOW, WHAT A RIDE"

 

[Doc]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsme.general (More info?)

"Noel Paton" <NoelDPspamless@btopenworld.com> wrote in
news:u$E8XsUAFHA.3368@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl:

> Nothing too strange there - although I have heard some (apocryphal)
> strange tales about Outpost causing problems
>
> I'm assuming that you've checked for signs of malware with up-to-date
> scanners?
>
> The only thing I can think of is that there may be a weird setting in
> system.ini
> look there for any references to PagingFile - what (exactly) do they
> say?
>
>

Hi Noel. Outpost has been my firewall for 18 months now and this is a new
problem. (I have noticed Outpost can cause problems if log files are left
to get too large).

Malware free, safe surfer, and well protected.

No reference to PagingFile in system.ini, only references to 'File' is in
the [vcache] section, as follows
[vcache]
ChunkSize=512
MinFileCache=8192
MaxFileCache=8192

I don't know what is going on here. Last night (10:30pm local time) I
closed all programs except explorer, checked the size of swap file and it
was 171,966,464 bytes. Then I shutdown PC. After booting today I
rechecked swap file and it was exactly the same size. Now PC has been
running 7 hours today and I just checked swap file again, it is still
exactly the same size with a time/date stamp of 6:47pm last night. So it
hasn't been used for 4 hours before I shutdown last night, or the 7 hours
uptime today. I guess I shall keep monitoring it.


--
Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving
safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in
broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming
"WOW, WHAT A RIDE"

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsme.general (More info?)

Doc <postmaster@[127.0.0.1]> wrote:


>No reference to PagingFile in system.ini, only references to 'File' is in
>the [vcache] section, as follows
>[vcache]
>ChunkSize=512
>MinFileCache=8192
>MaxFileCache=8192
>

Whoops. Either you have had some crudware program (such as Cacheman)
installed on the or you have been given some incredibly bad advice
regarding these settings.

Chunksize is totally ignored by Windows. It has not been used since
the Windows 3.x days.
There is never any need for or value in having a MinFileCache entry
MaxFileCache=8192 would be appropriate for Windows 95 (and only
Windows 95) on a machine with 64 mb of RAM. With WindowsMe this entry
is totally inappropriate and is having a substantial negative impact
on the overall performance of your computer. There is no need for a
MaxFileCache entry in WindowsMe until you get beyond 512 mb of RAM.

>I don't know what is going on here. Last night (10:30pm local time) I
>closed all programs except explorer, checked the size of swap file and it
>was 171,966,464 bytes. Then I shutdown PC. After booting today I
>rechecked swap file and it was exactly the same size. Now PC has been
>running 7 hours today and I just checked swap file again, it is still
>exactly the same size with a time/date stamp of 6:47pm last night. So it
>hasn't been used for 4 hours before I shutdown last night, or the 7 hours
>uptime today. I guess I shall keep monitoring it.

Delete the swap file again and reboot the computer. Launch the System
Monitor utility that comes with Windows and use Edit - Add to
configure it to track "Memory Manager - Swapfile size". Then use
Options - Chart to set the update interval to every 10 minutes and
leave System Monitor running minimized while you use the computer.
Check it every couple of hours and see what the size is.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsme.general (More info?)

Ron Martell wrote:

> Whoops. Either you have had some crudware program (such as Cacheman)
> installed on the or you have been given some incredibly bad advice
> regarding these settings.
>
> Chunksize is totally ignored by Windows. It has not been used since
> the Windows 3.x days.
> There is never any need for or value in having a MinFileCache entry
> MaxFileCache=8192 would be appropriate for Windows 95 (and only
> Windows 95) on a machine with 64 mb of RAM. With WindowsMe this entry
> is totally inappropriate and is having a substantial negative impact
> on the overall performance of your computer. There is no need for a
> MaxFileCache entry in WindowsMe until you get beyond 512 mb of RAM.

<g> in other words delete the Chunk, Min and Max lines (but leave the
original [vcache] standing.


Rick

 

[Doc]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsme.general (More info?)

Ron Martell <ron.martell@gmail.com> wrote in
news:uqt8v0duov68khuc4lihfro3odeibicrvm@4ax.com:

>
> Chunksize is totally ignored by Windows. It has not been used since
> the Windows 3.x days.
> There is never any need for or value in having a MinFileCache entry
> MaxFileCache=8192 would be appropriate for Windows 95 (and only
> Windows 95) on a machine with 64 mb of RAM. With WindowsMe this entry
> is totally inappropriate and is having a substantial negative impact
> on the overall performance of your computer. There is no need for a
> MaxFileCache entry in WindowsMe until you get beyond 512 mb of RAM.
>
> Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada


Thanks for the advice Ron, I have removed the 3 lines under [vcache].

As I mentioned in my initial post this is a recent reinstall on a
reformatted drive. I have spent a lot of time over the last 28 days
locating and reinstalling all my favourite apps. Being a much smarter
cookie <vbg> than I was when I purchased this PC 6 years ago, I have been
making disk images frequently just in case I mucked something up like
this. Viewing the files in my image sets has allowed me to track down
when the [vcache] section of system.ini file was modified. I have kept a
listing of what I installed on which day so was able to track down the
culprit. I downloaded a 'boot disk' called "The Ultimate Boot Disk" from
http://www.startdisk.com/Web1/ubd/ubd.htm, also on that page is a link to
a tweak called "Tweak98" http://www.startdisk.com/Web1/ubd/sysini.htm,
recommended for Win95, Win98, WinME.

It was that tweak that loaded the 3 lines into [vcache]. It has also done
more than this. I would really like your opinion on the other 'tweaks'
listed on that page. It appears that most of them modify system.ini
although there are some registry entries.

The tweaks98 does have an uninstaller, however it appears to remove the
tweaks but doesn't seem to reinstate the previous entries.


As an aside ..... while checking my image sets I also checked the
system.ini from my old setup (immediately prior to reformat) and the same
3 lines were in the old system.ini courtesy of the tweak, and I never had
problems with the swap file size back then
--
Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving
safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in
broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming
"WOW, WHAT A RIDE"

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsme.general (More info?)

Doc wrote:
<snip>
> culprit. I downloaded a 'boot disk' called "The Ultimate Boot Disk" from
> http://www.startdisk.com/Web1/ubd/ubd.htm, also on that page is a link to
> a tweak called "Tweak98" http://www.startdisk.com/Web1/ubd/sysini.htm,
> recommended for Win95, Win98, WinME.
>
> It was that tweak that loaded the 3 lines into [vcache]. It has also done
> more than this. I would really like your opinion on the other 'tweaks'
> listed on that page.

-fine

-no idea, might wanna play with that one ... also might wanna jot down
the default and review 'Safe Mode' procedures thoroughly first

-good

-never heard of it, might try it

-not necessary

-no idea, IIRC that's the default for WinME

-not necessary

-stupid

-don't think that'll work in 98SE/ME

-did that manually myself... useful, but the one for '95 won't work on
WinME I don't think

-LOL, that plus the bad vcache setting gets my vote for "worst
combination"... and anyways, you can get the same result by choosing
'Network Server' in some easily reachable Option :/

-<shrug>

-System Restore takes care of that in WinME


Some of the tips are almost 10 years old and have nothing to do with
98SE and or WinME.

http://www.mdgx.com/wme.htm is a full listing of the Axcel216
tips'n'tricks for WinME, though I'd go looking for something more recent
than that particular 'system.ini' batch



Rick

 

[Doc]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsme.general (More info?)

Rick T <plinnane3REMOVE@NOSPAMyahoo.com> wrote in news:eXhhyUdAFHA.608
@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl:

>
> <g> in other words delete the Chunk, Min and Max lines (but leave the
> original [vcache] standing.
>
> Rick

Thanks Rick, the clarification COULD <vbg> have been necessary.

--
Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving
safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in
broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming
"WOW, WHAT A RIDE"