Out of virtual memory

notbob · Post by **notbob** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 10:58 pm

I have a 2.6 gig intel processor, 50 gig hard drive and 1 gig of ram. The
pc runs XP Pro.

I have a 750 meg text file that I opened up in textpad. I tried to run a
sort in alphabetical order and remove duplicate items. At this point, I
received a low on virtual memory message. The pc then came to a grinding halt, the light on the hard drive did not stop. There were no other applications open.

I really need to be able to clean this text file up and was wondering if
anyone knows of an efficient way I can do this? I thought my system would have enough resources to complete this task.

Thank you

s_reynisson · Post by **s_reynisson** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 12:35 am

First double check your swap file location, does it's drive have at least 2 or 3 gigs free, and is it's size at least 1,5 gigs?
Second, try dividing the file in two parts and join it after the sort op.
I've had similar problems with large files in TP on my system and oddly it's when TP tries to return the memory after this error it grindes to a halt. HTH

notbob · Post by **notbob** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 1:19 am

Thank you, I did check all the settings. I ended up increasing the size of the swap file just a bit more, cold booting the pc and was able to work with this large file.

It was interesting in that once I did a remove duplicate lines, the file is now just over half the original size (about 450 meg).