Having trouble: Adding RAM with a USB memory stick to a Windows XP desktop that has 4GB installed

Thanks, John, for all the information and answers.!!! I do appreciate your time, and I think I am learning some things. :-)

I believe the best answer for the thought behind this, is in using the USB "as Ready Boost" (on the XP system). [This is what I am being told is possible to do]. ~now I am learning this is not so. There are many youtube videos and articles online showing "how to add RAM to XP with a USB flash drive." However, most that I have seen, are adding 2GB to a system which probably had only 1GB of RAM installed. (The publish dates of many of these are 2009-2011. Whether they even work, or not, I can't say.)

As far as increasing the page file size in C, on the XP machines, I was following the instructions of the Microsoft article (also linked above): ""How To Set Performance Options in Windows XP"

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308417/en-us

" The recommended minimum size is the same as 1.5 times the RAM on your computer, and 3 times that figure for the maximum size."

You can see that they mention to set the initial and the max at 1.5 and 3x the installed RAM values, (which exceeds the 4096M limit I am encountering).  

This IS a rebuilt machine, and I do not know if the 4096MB value is a default Windows XP value, or if it is based on the 2GB RAM which I believe the machine was originally installed with. (The rebuild included a new 1T hard drive, motherboard, and 4GB RAM).

If you are accusing me of doing this: 'home machines that are yanked about and "experimented" with in Jekyll Hyde kind of fashion that some home users give to their computers! Well, sir, I am doing research, and asking questions before proceeding. I appreciate the wisdom of others, and those willing to share it. Knowledge is wisdom, and questions are the beginning of wisdom. I am trying to increase the performance of my machine, responsibly, not ruin it. I am a technician/electrician; not a "button-pusher"; "Let's see what happens if I press this button!" Please don't judge me like that.

Q: why do you think that you need all that much paging space? A: M*a*f*i*a*Wars is a Zynga game on facebook, which seems to consume a lot of RAM. There are not a lot of flashy action graphics, necessarily, but a lot of actions being performed; clicks being sent over the internet. Many, MANY clicks per second, per minute. I notice (on the XP machine's Task Mgr), in the Page File graph, the numbers will creep up to 2.88G. This is with one browser open, and 4 tabs (or 'users' within the browser; Chrome-based browser, open). As the PF graph rises, the computer seems to slow. (CPU usage typically 25-50%) dual-core 3.0GHz processor, seems OK, but sometimes at 60-80%.

Question: Does this indicate that the RAM is full, and this data is being 'cached' in the hard disk's page file (virtual RAM)? In comparison, I have a laptop notebook pc with Windows 7 Home Premium, and the Task Mgr shows RAM, as you know. A similar thing occurs. As more game tabs are opened, the RAM 'usage' rises, and computer response slows (CPU % rises). The idea, apparently, is that by adding more RAM, we can keep the cpu running at a lower % (faster). So, to summarize, I still am not sure that the settings for C drive Initial size, and Maximum Size, in Virtual Memory are set correctly, based on the current installed RAM. I will search for the information that you mentioned, on how to make the appropriate changes. I recall seeing on the Microsoft site that no discussion about performance would be complete without discussing adding more RAM. Thanks, again!

Also, in Performance Settings, on the XP machine, I have selected "System Cache" as opposed to "Programs". This was also mentioned in the article, as a possible solution. As I do not have many programs running while I am 'playing' M*a*f*i*a*Wars game.

edit to add:

Interesting reading on the Gavotte Ramdisk. ...Unsure about installing it. Seems to be a lot of conflicting comments about it. 

But, can I simply add the /PAE switch to the boot.ini file, and have the OS use more of the hard disk for paging file, if needed, by increasing the PF sizes of C in virtual memory?

Will I gain anything? (drop in cpu % / less lag /faster response)

Is it true that the Windows XP OS only uses or 'sees' 3GB of the 4GB installed RAM?

Q:  So, Although, I have formatted the USB device NTFS, and selected it for paging file in Virtual Memory, you are saying that it will not be used as RAM because Windows does not permit it?

A:  Windows does not allow placement of paging files on any removable drives.

Q::  I was under the impression that a USB flash drive can be used to add RAM on a Windoes XP machine in this manner.

A:  No, that is incorrect.  As stated earlier, Windows operating systems do not permit use of removable media for paging files.  What you are thinking about is Ready Boost, this is not placing a paging file on the flash drive it is "disk caching", caching of the paging file for quicker access, there is nothing in the Ready Boost cache that is not already in the paging file on a fixed disk, any changes to the Ready Boost cache are first flushed to the paging file on the fixed disk before they can be then be then added again to the Ready Boost cache.  The concept here it that the cache can be read faster from from NAND memory (flash drives) than it can be read from the pagefile on the hard disk so the Ready Boost cache is used for read operations, on the flip side write operations are usually faster on hard disks than they are on flash drives but even if they were faster on flash drive the operating system would still not allow pagefile flushing to removable drives because of the disaster that would occur on surprise removal of the drive.  Ready Boost only became available on Windows Vista, it is not available on Windows XP.

Q:  And, adding /PAE switch to the boot.ini file would allow increasing the value above 4096 for the maximum value of the C drive?

A:  Yes, if you add the /PAE switch to the boot.ini file the operating system will use a different Page Table structure for the use of the CPU's Physical Address Extension and this will allow the use of larger pagefile.  The IA-32 processor architecture has a 32-bit address space so it can only address 4GB of memory (4,096MB) but the use of Physical Address Extension increases the CPU's address space from 32 bits to 36 bits and Windows will use the increased address space to allow for larger paging files.  To note that PAE is a kluge to be sure so it's usually most effectively used on well tuned, stable servers.

Q:  Are you saying that this cannot be accomplished at all, John? Is my only option increasing the maximum sixe of the C value? (aside from adding more RAM inside the tower)

A:  No, adding more RAM to the tower will do absolutely nothing unless you are using a 64-bit operating system or a 32-bit server version that can use PAE to increase the physical address space rather than just the virtual address space as Windows XP does.  Furthermore, even if you have 4GB of RAM installed you still won't be able to use it all because some of the processor's 4GB address space is exclusively reserved for direct access by some of the hardware, so in fact you will not be able to fully use the 4GB of RAM that you have now installed in the machine.  Incidentally when Windows XP was released it could address a full 4GB of RAM with the use of PAE but soon after its release it began to show increased fatal errors (BSOD) caused by misbehaving drivers so when Microsoft released SP2 for XP it did away with PAE ability to increase the RAM address space, this was just too much trouble on machines that are used by too many people who don't understand the need for well designed and well selected stable hardware on 32-bit operating systems making use of Physical Address Extension, these kind of machines are usually well thought out servers, not home machines that are yanked about and "experimented" with in Jekyll & Hyde kind of fashion that some home users give to their computers!

Q:  I have no idea where the boot.ini file is located...

A:  It's a hidden read-only system file at the root of the system partition, usually C:.  You can remove the read-only attribute and edit it directly there or you can use this method:

1. Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.

-or-

Click Start, click Run, type sysdm.cpl, and then click OK. 2. On the Advanced tab, click Settings under Startup and Recovery. 3. Under System Startup, click Edit.

I have to ask, with 4GB of RAM installed in the machine why do you think that you need all that much paging space?  Are you working with humongous files or large databases?  I don't play many games but I don't think that there are many games out there that need to page out that much data, if so the game would be excruciatingly slow!

Now, with all of that being said, if you do a search for Gavotte Ramdisk you may find some interesting workarounds to the the 4GB limitations...

John

Thanks.

So, Although, I have formatted the USB device NTFS, and selected it for paging file in Virtual Memory, you are saying that it will not be used as RAM because Windows does not permit it?

And, adding /PAE switch to the boot.ini file would allow increasing the value above 4096 for the maximum value of the C drive?

I was under the impression that a USB flash drive can be used to add RAM on a Windoes XP machine in this manner.

Are you saying that this cannot be accomplished at all, John? Is my only option increasing the maximum size of the C value? (aside from adding more RAM inside the tower)

edit to add: I have no idea where the boot.ini file is located

You must add the /PAE switch to the boot.ini file to overcome the 4,095 MB paging file size limit.  Windows does not permit placement of paging files on removable drives and Windows XP does not support Ready Boost.

John