swap orgy with v.3
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg7539] swap orgy with v.3
- From: Buttgereit <Buttgereit at compuserve.com>
- Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 03:08:54 -0400 (EDT)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
Hi there, I use Mathematica 3.0 for Students on a 64 MB iP 100 Asus I/P55 with a 620 MB Pagefile under Windows NT 4.0 SP 2. Using the NonlinearFit Package to perform a nonlinear least squares fit on bivariate data of about .5 MB, the whole thing evaluates fine up to the 10 iteration (ShowProgress->True) which is already very stable. By then the kernel has occupied about 35 MB Ram and the pagefile has grown from 30 to 150 MB. The system is ok - you can do word-processing or something without problems. Then, the kernel sucks in memory: occupied memory rises up to 45 MB, the swap file grows up to almost 500 MB. From then on no further output is produced (traced by ShowProgress->True). The hard disks (I have two EIDE disks) are working hard, indicating a swap orgy. It is impossible to use the computer for anything else but waiting: it takes 10 to 30 seconds to change a windows focus. If one is patient, one can watch that situation for the next 24 hours (I did so...). There is no sign indicating that this state will ever change if one waits longer. The same thing happens saving a large notebook (size about 40 MB because of 40 ListDensityPlot Graphics). If it is possible to save such a notebook at all, it will take longer than 20 hours! The system is ok immediately and all memory is freed (pagefile returns to 30 MB) after quitting MathKernel. The pagefile is on a single (stripe set) partition formatted with FAT. Referring to "Diskeeper" it is not fragmented at all. Anyway, I have tested the whole thing with a new pagefile with the same problems. Suggestions appreciated, thanks in advance, Peter