Resource Monitor/Processes/HardFaultsPerSec - Is it a problem?

[mykc]

When I run the Resource Monitor and look at the Processes Tab I am getting Hard Faults/sec. This is something which I didn't expect with my PC setup, so should I be getting them & should I be concerned?

If I understand correctly Hard Faults/sec is essentially the amount of paging going on. Paging, I believe, is writing RAM contents out to disk when there's not enough RAM to hold everything which wants to use RAM and then reading it back into RAM again when it needs to be used in RAM.

If this is so then why am I getting Hard Faults, when I have 24Gb of RAM and am only using 25% of it when these Hard Faults are occuring?

Surly it should use the rest of the RAM before paging starts? Is this something I should be concerned about?

The screen print below(sorry problems inserting the jpg image) shows 21 Hard Faults/sec for Photoshop, the maxed at around 550/sec when its first loaded & then up to 30 depending on what is done within it, e.g. load a photo. This is typical of other programs e.g. Lightroom, MSWord (may be less initially), IE, Excel etc.

Cheers & thanks for any help,
Myk


My PC Spec........................................................................................................................................
Case COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-960 (3.20GHz) 4.8GTs/8MB Cache
Motherboard ASUS® P6X58D PREMIUM: DDR3, USB 3.0 & SATA 6.0GB/s, 3-Way SLI
Memory (RAM) 24GB SAMSUNG DDR3 TRI-DDR3 1333MHz (6 X 4GB)
Graphics Card 1GB AMD RADEON™ HD6870 - 2 DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DirectX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
Memory - 1st Hard Disk Crucial C300 256GB SSD
2nd Hard Disk 2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
3rd Hard Disk 2TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD20EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 12x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 12x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW
Memory Card Reader INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply CORSAIR 750W TX SERIES (TX750) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU
Processor Cooling SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER
Sound Card Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Titanium PCI Express
Network Facilities ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options 6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
Office Software OFFICE 2007 Professional
Anti-Virus NIS 2012
Wattage Max Reqd Power 677W

 

[Buzz]

I posted this in another part of the forum, it relates to your issue. Being honest though the event viewer and Res monitor will usually record some kind of errors, most are harmless. For EG, Say you have a service running like maybe an Anti Virus or a recovery software prog, and on startup the service takes a little longer then usual to start for what ever reason, it may record it as an error, as it didnt start in a time frame, but then it starts anyway and comp is fine. 24Gig Ram is a hell of a lot and you will never use that much unless you are doing serious 3D rendering and the likes and by having that much RAM your page file will be set to 24Gig on your Op system Drive, if you have not changed the page file settings from default. Try below and let us know how ya get on.

Disable, move or reduce the page file

Your system starts using the page file (virtual memory) when it runs out of memory while working with applications. When the system is using the page file, there are writes to your drive. Because it’s best to reduce writes to an SSD, as mentioned earlier it’s best to either reduce the size of the page file, move it to another drive or disable it altogether depending on personal preference and/or available amount of RAM.

By default the operating system will create a page file that is one and a half times the amount of RAM that is installed in the computer, provided there is sufficient free space on the system hard drive.

The page file can be modified in the following way, depending on personal preference and setup:
Delete : If you have a lot of RAM. (8Gig or higher is usually good. DDR3 1333Mhz or higher is best)
Move : If you have a high capacity, high speed HDD (500Gig or higher, and the likes of a WD Black would be best / SATA 6 Gb/s, 64mb cache 7200rpm)
Reduce Size : If you have half decent size Ram 4Gig or higher and know it wont all be utilized all the time

Use the Page File Bytes Peak counter to calculate page file size
Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Performance Monitor
On the left, Click Performance Monitor.
In the right pane, click + (the Add button).
Use local computer in first drop down panel.
In the Performance object list, double click Process.
Click Page File Bytes Peak, click Add, and then click OK.
Let the counter run during typical use of your computer for approx 30min

Note the Minimum Value is usually 16MB
Note the maximum value for the Page File Bytes Peak counter, and then multiply the value by .70. The sum of the equation is the size to set for your page file.

To change or disable the page file:
Click on Start, navigate to Computer
Right-click on Computer and go to Properties
Choose Advanced System Settings link on the left-hand side (This will launch the system properties box)
Choose Advanced Tab
Choose Settings under Performance (This will launch the performance options box)
Choose Advanced tab
Virtual memory and click Change
Uncheck the Automatically manage paging file size for all drives check-box
Under Drive [Volume Label], click on the drive where you want to change the size of virtual memory. If your system uses a HDD in addition to an SSD, it’s best to move the page file there in accordance to preference and Ram size as stated above.
Click Custom size and type the new size in MB in the Initial size (MB) and Maximum size (MB) boxes. Make sure it’s the same amount to prevent your CPU from constantly adjusting virtual memory.
Click Set and then click OK

 

[baron75mk2]

An interesting read buzz , i checked mine & have only 1 hard fault ( norton ) & from what you have said i dont need to worry about it much - i have 8gb of ram 1600mhz xmp - just wondered what are the benifits & downsides of removing the pagefile ?
i did do it on an earlier pc & found that more ram was being used - but it did only have 3gb of ram

Any information would be appreciated

 

[Buzz]

The Pagefile lets pretend it is virtual RAM. When the RAM is full it will utilize the pagefile.

Therefore if you have as above 3gb RAM, and windows 7 needs min of 1gig to run, It doesnt really leave much room for mistakes, so the pagefile is usually needed just in case the RAM spikes at all and needs the pagefile to store more info.

If you have lots of RAM then lot of the time the PF is not needed, but every now and then certain things do still infact use it. For EG, say you have 4gig Ram and open Photoshop, as its opening it can use a lot of RAM then it will lower again, this kind of spike

So

Benefits of removing the PF
Less space used on op sys drive.

Less read / write operations to dvire (SSD can benefit more from this to prolong life span)

Personally I dont remove mine. I have had chats with ppl before fighting for the removal of it with lots of ram.
I moved mine to another fast caviar black and Lowered it right down to 2Gig. This will support any RAM spikes (I have 16gig ram so is very doubtful) if they may occur.

Hope this helps, need any more info let me know.

 

[baron75mk2]

The Pagefile lets pretend it is virtual RAM. When the RAM is full it will utilize the pagefile.

Therefore if you have as above 3gb RAM, and windows 7 needs min of 1gig to run, It doesnt really leave much room for mistakes, so the pagefile is usually needed just in case the RAM spikes at all and needs the pagefile to store more info.

If you have lots of RAM then lot of the time the PF is not needed, but every now and then certain things do still infact use it. For EG, say you have 4gig Ram and open Photoshop, as its opening it can use a lot of RAM then it will lower again, this kind of spike

So

Benefits of removing the PF
Less space used on op sys drive.

Less read / write operations to dvire (SSD can benefit more from this to prolong life span)

Personally I dont remove mine. I have had chats with ppl before fighting for the removal of it with lots of ram.
I moved mine to another fast caviar black and Lowered it right down to 2Gig. This will support any RAM spikes (I have 16gig ram so is very doubtful) if they may occur.

Hope this helps, need any more info let me know.

Thanks buzz , you have confirmed my own understanding of this topic - its always good to get a second opinion , i think i will just leave my page file to "system managed" as i have plenty of room on HDD & dont have an SSD.

Thanks for the advice

 

[Buzz]

Anytime mate

 

[mykc]

Buzz,

Thanks for the reply. Sorry for the delay in replying - many other things have got in the way.

I've had a quick look at it & the page file is indeed on the SSD and set at 1.5 times the Ram (i.e. 36Gb), so I can move it to the HDD & reduce it.

Also I did a very quick run of PerfMon & from the stats it appears that when I'm do "normal" work, using Lightroom & Photoshop concurrently, that the Page File's average size continually goes up ?! It went up to 11 Gb in less than 2 mins. Is this what you'd expect?

I'll do a more in depth check over the next couple of day (other things still keeping me busy) & get back with how it goes goes.

But thanks for the help its ver much appreciated,

Myk

 

[captcha]

Photoshop always wants as much memory as it can find,and more.
I'm running 32GB which stuffs the SSD,so moving the pagefile make sense, and might even make sense to get rid of it altogether,but people who know a lot more than me say that because of Photoshop's programming you'll always need the swap file, so leave it alone.

 

[Buzz]

Buzz,

Thanks for the reply. Sorry for the delay in replying - many other things have got in the way.

I've had a quick look at it & the page file is indeed on the SSD and set at 1.5 times the Ram (i.e. 36Gb), so I can move it to the HDD & reduce it.

Also I did a very quick run of PerfMon & from the stats it appears that when I'm do "normal" work, using Lightroom & Photoshop concurrently, that the Page File's average size continually goes up ?! It went up to 11 Gb in less than 2 mins. Is this what you'd expect?

I'll do a more in depth check over the next couple of day (other things still keeping me busy) & get back with how it goes goes.

But thanks for the help its ver much appreciated,

Myk

You can move your pagefile to your WD caviar BLACK.
Depending on your preference I would suggest one of the following

1: Disable Op system drive pf and let the system manage a pf on the caviar black.

2: Lower your SSD (op sys drive) Pagefile to say about 500MB and add a 2nd pagefile to the WD caviar black that matches your RAM. So for you 24Gig (24576MB or more recently just simply 20000MB)
Some people always like to keep a pagefile on the op system drive. But it being an SSD, the more read/write actions it takes the lower the said lifespan. By how much is anyones guess really as SSDs are being modified all the time with firmware upgrades and better, smaller components.

can always try 1 for a week or 2. If have any issues try changing to 2. See how you go.