Page File Size Question

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I am running Windows 11 Pro on a Dell Desk Top equipped with 128 GB RAM. One full terabyte of space on both my C: and my D: drives. Windows is telling me my Page File Size is: 19,456 MB. Is that the right size for a page file given that I have 128 GB of RAM on my machine? My concern, Windows users never have 128 GB of RAM. Consequently, Windows does not really know how big or small to make my Page File. What do you think?

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On my Windows 10 Pro 22H2 x64 system with a “mere” 16 gigs of RAM, my pagefile size is a “mere” 2½ gigs. Following that ratio, 15%, your pagefile is the same portion of your installed RAM, about 15%, so your pagefile size might be considered normal.

2½= 15.625% of 16 and 15.625% of 128 is a nice even 20. Since you say that your pagefile’s currently 19,456 MB, it sounds as if you’re just a smidge below that 20% figure.

If you’d like the pagefile to be smaller, there ARE ways to accomplish that. BUT, since you have two drives that are one terabyte in size for each one, it sounds as if you may not need to shrink the pagefile, for now.

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The whole purpose of the page file is to provide “temporary storage” for the data contained in the physical memory when it’s full and a particular program still needs more memory.

The way it works is:

If there’s not enough physical memory for a new program to use, Windows copies a piece of the “inactive” physical memory into the page file to free up that space for use as “active” memory for the new program.

If the original program needs it, it’ll “swap” the memory it saved to page file with another “inactive” section of the physical memory so the original program has it “active” memory again.

And so on, and so forth…

The amazing thing is this all happens “behind-the-scenes” in just a few milliseconds so the user normally never notices the very slight delay in program completion incurred by swapping pieces of the memory back & forth.

• Introduction to page files

FYI, my system has 32GB of physical memory and my “Windows recommended” page file size is 4.98 GB.

BTW, the more physical memory your system has, the less likely the page file will actually be used; unless you have a lot of different programs running concurrently.

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Lars220

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Thanks for the information (both of you). My problem is with the software package Mathematica, version 13.2. I solved an equation with a reasonable amount of input variables. The equation worked fine, for a while. Then I added another term to the equation (differential equation). Crash! The equation no longer returns reasonable numerical calculations. The equation no longer graphs properly within a manipulate. I was thinking my RAM and page file might be overloaded. Sounds like maybe the problem is more Mathematica not working well with Windows 11 Pro. Comments?

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There was an update to Mathematica released back in February of this year, version 13.2.1. Do you have it installed? According to the link below, the release included several bug fixes, and your particular problem sounds like a potential bug. If you already have 13.2.1, then perhaps you’ve found a new bug you can report to them.

https://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/quick-revision-history/

There are ways to take a look at the basics of program crashes within Windows 10, and I would think that they’re nearly identical in windows 11.

See if you can find the following item in Windows 11, an item that on Windows 10 is located in Control Panel, called (appropriately) Security and Maintenance. It’s under Control Panel>System and Security>Security and Maintenance. This item, once launched, has two drop-down items, one labeled Security and the other labeled Maintenance. You want, obviously, Maintenance. Once expanded, you should see something labeled “View reliability history” in blue text under the heading of “Report problems”. Clicking on that blue text will bring up the reliability monitor which has a graph and listings going back a few weeks. Clicking on the graph for a given date will bring up what was recorded for that date. In here is where you should find a listing for Mathematica having crashed along with details of its’ crash. You’re looking for a white “X” inside a circle with a red background on the graph.

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Wonderful suggestion. First, I found 19 error reports for the Mathematica Kernel from 30 December 2022 to 14 March 2023. Second, 4 error reports for Mathematica 13.2 from 24 January 2023 to 27 February 2023. Yes, I am now on Mathematica 13.2.1

These dates correspond reasonably well with the onset of my problems. The corrupt equation remains corrupt. A tech support person suggested, about a month ago, I should give up on my preference for the font Verdana and switch to the standard Mathematica font, Consolas. Didn’t work. The equation is still corrupt.

My notebooks follow a standard format. I solve the equation at the top and use that version of the equation both in my Manipulate and to run Non-Linear Model Fit. Near the bottom of each notebook, I table the same equation. Doing so gives me the option of creating a set of data points for any given hypothetical situation. The equation in question sometimes breaks down at the top of the notebook, sometimes at the bottom. It seems not to go corrupt in both locations at the same time. Never had a problem with Windows 10 Pro. My problems started when I upgraded to Windows 11 Pro. What are your thoughts?

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OkCarl wrote:

My problems started when I upgraded to Windows 11 Pro. What are your thoughts?

That statement makes me think that your more complex calculation routines are “falling victim” to the enhanced security level that Windows 11 has behind the scenes as compared to Windows 10.

There have been several enhancements to Windows 11’s security posture behind the scenes as compared to windows 10, and many of those changes can’t be undone.

The other possibility is that something very small, but very significant when it comes to processing your more complex equations, got tweaked when you did the upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11, and that little tweak is now causing you heartache on your more complex equations/routines.

At this point, I believe it would be a good idea for you to try submitting this issue to Wolfram as a potential bug and, obviously, include all error codes and the exact steps you had performed to reach the point at which Mathematica crashed. Also include any error codes that were produced and that Windows logged when Mathematica crashed. This will allow them to try to duplicate your setup and see if they can reproduce the crash. If they can’t reproduce it, then perhaps they can offer you a suggestion or two after poring over the data you will have sent them as part of the bug report. The more detailed your report, the greater the likelihood of them being able to reproduce the bug/crash, OR the better guidance they can give you to fix the problem if they can’t reproduce it.

One final thought just came to mind: Perhaps you’ve made the CPU “tap out” due to the increased overhead that Windows 11 has compared to Windows 10, coupled with your having added the differential equation to the mix. Wolfram can tell you better than I if that theory holds water or not, though.

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Lars220

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Thanks for the advice. First, I did not upgrade from 10 to 11. I bought a brand-new Dell Desktop with Windows 11 Pro installed. Second, I went through the tech support step with Wolfram a few months in the past.

I am a Verdana bold font kind of a guy. When I try to change the size of my font on a piece of code the pull-down menu says- ‘Verdana’. When I try to change the font size on an equation typed out in Verdana something strange happens. Often as not the pull-down menu reads ‘Consolas’ as an alternative to ‘Verdana’. F.Y.I. Consolas is the default font for Mathematica. I can’t stand Consolas. Thanks again. Please keep these comments coming.

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OkCarl wrote:

When I try to change the font size on an equation typed out in Verdana something strange happens. Often as not the pull-down menu reads ‘Consolas’ as an alternative to ‘Verdana’. F.Y.I. Consolas is the default font for Mathematica. I can’t stand Consolas.

You could try using DejaVu (https://github.com/dejavu-fonts/dejavu-fonts). It’s very similar to Verdana and also includes lots of mathematical symbols.

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