Q: I have had many computers both laptops and towers and I have never run into low memory space and believe me I had evertyhing on my computer. NOw however, since I have had work on this computer I no longer have lots of space. I just took off all my pictures and videos off the computer which I would think free up lots of space. My computer says it has total 36 g and only 125 mb left. What is going on? When I had the work done on my computer did he remove some of my storage space?
A: Hard drive storage space and virtual memory are two different things. Usually running out of virtual memory means that you are running too many applications at the same time for your system or one of them is attempting to use too much memory. Increasing virtual memory is one way of compensating for lack of RAM. However, it's optimum should be set at 1.5 times the amount of RAM on your computer. Virtual memory can be increased, but it comes with a risk if you increase it too much as it can eventually lead to hard drive damage. To increase VM on Windows XP (should be in similar locations for other versions) look in Control Panel: System, Advanced, Performance Settings, Advanced, Virtual Memory. You can see if your computer can handle more RAM at http://www.crucial.com/index.asp It's important to note that everything takes RAM. Not only security products (such as active anti-spyware, anti-virus and firewall) eat up memory but your operating system, active browser windows, running applications (such as Word, Gaming, Messenger, Photoshop, etc) and malware all compete for system resources. The presence of Malware (viruses, spyware, etc) will particularly eat up your system resources so you may want to run your resident security products such as antispyware and antivirus applications to ensure that your system is clean.