Hi Bob & Neil

 >  BL> Mine does that occasionally in Win31 if I've run many
 >  BL> applications and the VM on disc is getting a good workout. I've
 >  BL> always thought that is was Windows having a virtual wet dream
 >  BL> in virtual memory. I think it is probably cleaning up the
 >  BL> system once the RAM is free again.

 >  NS> But when I've done nothing but boot into Windows? Got me
 >  NS> buggered.

 >   Oh. Mine's never done that. It does it mosty if I'm running a
 > compiler. I sit there thinking about what comes next, and then
 > suddenly the hard drive starts shifting stuff around for no reason at
 > all. If I touch a key it stops... just like it's dreaming.

I don't know about Win95, but Win 3, 3.1 & 3.11  will react diffrently
depending on whether the swap file is permanent or temporary.

It will also react differently depending on the size of the cache and the
type of monitor.

Windows stores it's current screen on disc. If it has to redraw the screen,
it will access the disc. If your screen is mono and your cache is 500k then
no actual disc access will happen. if the  monitor is colour, and the cache
is less than 500k, then actual disc access will occur.

If your swap file is permanent then DOS programs that are minimised, will
be swapped out to disc (virtual memory) regardless of the fact that there
is still sufficient _real_ memory available.
With a permanent swapfile it will also will display the symptoms that Bob
described.  It moves info in 4k blocks, and will decide to rearrange memory
to suit itself when no other real activity is occurring.

With a temporary  swapfile, Win  will only swap something out to disc,
when the real memory drops below the preset low memory level mark.

I would suggest that this difference between how virtaul memory is handled
between temp & permant swap file, could also treat other situations in
an illogical manner, and cause unnecessary disc activity.

I only use a temp swapfile, and keep my cache at 750k, for the above reasons.

On all machines I have setup, the _only_ time there is disc activity, is when a
file is actually read or written, which is how it _should_ be.

Kind regards
Niels Petersen

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