Laptop memory low

mikeopvc

My laptop has recently started running very slow and I had a warning about memory the other day, can't remember exactly what the warning said but it was definately about memory running low.

When I go into computer and view the drives it says the following:

OS (C) - 24.7 GB free of 141 GB

HP RECOVERY (E) - 1.61 GB free of 7.60 GB

DATA (D) - 141 GB free of 149 GB

My Book (G) - 122 GB free of 465 GB

So I'm guessing by drive D I do still have a bit of space available but what do I need to do to use it, I assume everything I do on my laptop automatically saves to drive C
My external drive G has used a lot of memory too, is it necessary to have all the updates on there or should I only have the latest one?

thanks in advance!

superstylin

Drive D (Data) is where all of your documents and settings will be saved, so all of your music, word files etc. It is quite full, if whatever you were trying to save was of a decent size then it would have prompted the warning. I'd suggest doing a manual deletion or the moving to your external drive of anything you don't need in your data drive.

Your C drive is used for your program files and operating system. Most of what you do will not effect that unless you're constantly downloading new programs.

spakkker

Think you're right in that progs are saving to c drive - an easy way to see what's filling up c is to use windirstat

http://sourceforge.net/projects/windirstat/
If you open up both c and d drives you can very easily cut and paste from c to d drives. Once you know which files take up most space on c you can just set the associated prog to use a new folder on d.

Don't confuse storage space with memory- when progs run they use ram, memory, but this is a temporary state and usually progs and data are stored on hard drive.

mikeopvc

superstylin wrote: »

Drive D (Data) is where all of your documents and settings will be saved, so all of your music, word files etc. It is quite full, if whatever you were trying to save was of a decent size then it would have prompted the warning. I'd suggest doing a manual deletion or the moving to your external drive of anything you don't need in your data drive.

Your C drive is used for your program files and operating system. Most of what you do will not effect that unless you're constantly downloading new programs.

Drive D has 141 GB available!

closed

you have loads of disk space, which is not the same as memory, and has little bearing on speed.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2436849

if it really was a disk space message, turn off system restore on the e drive

Mista_C

It was most likely a message regarding low Virtual Memory. Virtual Memory is a file used by the operating System as a cache. When running programs and applications Windows loads them into memory (RAM) and when the RAM is 'full' it dumps parts into a page file buffer.

It could be your Virtual Memory settings are set too low or you had a badly coded app running creating a 'memory leak', basically the code forgets to unload itself from memory when not in use and continues to eat up memory space.

Unless it happens frequently I wouldn't worry about it. If it starts happening a lot then a quick Googling for "increasing virtual memory" should provide some clear, concise instructions. It would also be worth looking for any known issues with your applications, keep a track of what's running when the message appears.

superstylin

mikeopvc wrote: »

Drive D has 141 GB available!

My apologies! I read that as 141 of 149 used. Discount my suggestion OP!