Stable E8400 OC - stock voltages

[Psycho101]

Re: Stable E8400 OC - stock voltages

It doesn't matter if like me you're using a seperate partition. Remember, although the page file is seen by Windows Explorer as a big "pagefile.sys" it's really just a container for loads and loads of small writes ie RAM being paged out then back in.

Fragmentation performance drop on a page file therefore isn't all that great. Definitely set a fixed size if it's on your System partition and you have plenty of space. If however it's on a small drive, letting it grow as needed up to the max of the drive is fine. The page file will also force itself to shrink should a program need to save to disk.

Optimum configuration for a page file is to have two identical sized page files on two hard drives/non RAID SSD's. This is because from XP upward a certain amount of parallelism was introduced. Sort of like software RAID but just for the page file.


You can also tidy up any excess fragments the page file may get into by using PageDefrag. It's so good, Microsoft bought it. download it from here: PageDefrag You can choose to defrag on every boot if you wish.

Above all, the over riding factor is that if you set a reasonable size for the initial page file quantity, it will seldom grow. Mine only ever does when using Photoshop and sometimes HandBrake (H264 encoding). Usually on a 64bit system with 4GB of RAM, the page file isn't heavily used.

There are many myths about the page file, like having to set 1.5x RAM amount. This isn't true. You may think that one needs enough to page out all installed RAM, but you don't. The more physical RAM you have the less swap space is necessary. Linux has it correct, partitioning a seperate section of the HDD with an optimized file system just for swap space. It will also use every last drop of RAM before paging anything.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Stable E8400 OC - stock voltages

If you use S3 Sleep though, you may need as much as physical ram right? Just checking

[Psycho101]

Re: Stable E8400 OC - stock voltages

I'm almost certain that S3 doesn't require a page file.

When in S3 the PC's RAM goes into a mode called "Slow Refresh". This is supported by all DDR2 and DDR3 as well as some DDR RAM. This means that all pages can be kept "alive" with minimal power. As there are no real Memory operations going on, the sticks aren't really drawing any significant current. In total, the standard calls for 5W of power to be used by the motherboard and components. This 5W doesn't include the wattage the PSU will be constantly drawing to maintain its +5VSB for the "Power Good" signal.

I've used S3 on systems with 8GB of RAM where the (unexperienced) customer has asked the page file be disabled. Unfortunately I can't test it currently as I have no boards that can successfully resume from S3, even at stock.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Stable E8400 OC - stock voltages

Doh!! Of course not, sorry I was sleeping and must have been thinking of the old sleep S1 days when I posted that!

Guess I need to be sure I am awake before I start making myself look silly :)

[Psycho101]

Re: Stable E8400 OC - stock voltages

No harm, no foul mate. :thumbsup. S States aren't the simplest things in the world. |Even "On" has an S state for example (S0).

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Stable E8400 OC - stock voltages

Ya, I read a HUGE guide on them all, so I know what you mean.

I was just asleep at the wheel when I replied earlier

[SBMongoos]

Re: Stable E8400 OC - stock voltages

Okay...I gave up again as it seems to take forever to go through the steps to find the right settings. I went back to the 3.83 settings.

But I have to say. When I swap out my XP HDD to my 7 HDD and run 7 I expect the data transfer speed between HDDs to be faster. I put in the XP when boottinf off of 7 to migrate files over from XP HDD. Was seeing about ~30-40mbps. Not really impressed.