1) what does this mean? and 2) what should I do about it? I have a Gateway Laptop with OS: Microsoft Windows XP Professional; Total Physical Memory: 256.00 MB; Available Physical Memory: 20.66 MB; Total Virtual Memory :2.00 GB; Available Virtual Memory: 1.96 GB
Studsmurf
Favorite Answer
Wow that's kinda an old machine hu?
You really need more Physical memory then 256. virtual memory is disk space being used as RAM. Problem is: disks are 100X slower than ram.
You should upgrade to 1GB RAM or at least 512MB (which I believe is the minimum for XP). Go to crucial.com and run the scanner to see what options you have for getting more RAM.
Also, using 1.96 GB of virtual memory means you have alot of things open at once. you should close some windows/programs if you only have 256 MB ram.
Anonymous
It means that you don't have enough RAM, so the computer is using your hard drive as "virtual RAM) and since that's MUCH slower, you don't want that. Install AT LEAST 2GB of RAM.