Pagefile constantly going crazy - please help

My pagefile is always busy when I try doing things. Sometimes it's going for minutes at a time, bringing my system to a crawl. When my hard drive starts going nuts, I always check my resource monitor from task manager, and it's always the pagefile that's accessing the hard drive.

What should my pagefile settings be? I'm running Windows 7 32bit with three 1Gb rams sticks and a 1Gb video card. Currently, it's set to Custom Size - 4608, maximum size - 6144. Are my settings off? Should I set it to "system managed size"?

The pagefile is on the same drive as my main OS. I was thinking about putting it on a memory stick but I understand that would kill off the stick quickly and I'm afraid of corruption also.

It's probably Windows or a program accessing the paging file/Virtual Memory, it can't do anything by itself. You can set the max. and min. to the same number, I do. The general recommendation in Help and Support is for 1.5 times the physical RAM, for 3GB it would be 4.5GB or about 4500MB. It can be set higher if programs complain about being out of memory. Also possible is the need to defrag the HDD but I seldom do it. \

An idea, turn the Virtual Memory off, reboot and turn it back on using the same numbers for both. I find it puts the clusters on the HDD together and doesn't get fragmented when set otherwise.

I don't think it works on removable media.

I try to put in a second HDD and put 2GB Virtual Memory on the OS drive and the rest on the second drive before adding any data to the second. Will be doing it to my Win8 machine next time I clean it, don't have room for another HDD in my Win10TP SFF computer.

I think that's where I got my 4608 number from when I set it. I'll try resetting the pagefile and setting both numbers to 4608 and see what happens. I know certain programs seem to trigger the pagefile, but that's the problem. The pagefile seems to get used a lot, especially during certain operations. I was hoping to dial back the pagefile usage, as it's always grinding away every time I do anything it seems.

It's safe then to turn off the pagefile and restart my pc with it off before going in and setting it back again?

It seems the issue is that you are running a low ram machine...
Page file is used when real memory is needed, thus paging out 'old' data that's on ram to disk... Whenever that information is needed again, it's paged in into the ram for usage...

If you are noticing a lot of paging activity, it means 2 or more programs are just battling for RAM...

Not much you can do, except:
- limiting the amount of programs you have open
- adding more ram to the system.

BTW, when I bought my actual computer, it had 4gb of ram... It also had windows 7 ultimate 64x... I noticed 4gb where not enough, so I bought an extra 4gb... Runs OK, almost no paging during normal usage...
It only use paging when I load heavy and demanding games...

I tried running Prime95 last night to test out the new cpu cooler I installed to replace a dying cooler, and it was set to Blend (test some of everything, lots of RAM tested), and instantly my system came to a crawl as the pagefile went nuts. That never used to happen when I ran the blend test.

It was okay when I set it to a different option focusing on the cpu and not RAM.

Do the following: reboot your PC, log to your account, and leave windows fully initialize...
Once it's, check the ram usage, and which programs are using it... Run that test that produces paging, then check again for the programs that are using ram...

Then, reboot your computer into safe mode, and re run the tests you did before... Take notes or screens.

It's safe then to turn off the pagefile and restart my pc with it off before going in and setting it back again?

Yes, I've never had a problem doing it but I never run a program until I get it reset. Most programs seem to want the paging file available.
Some helpful information:
https://www.google.com/search?site=&....0.RpPNZ2kR4Kk

Except I'm running 32bit and I already have 3Gb installed so I can't add any more RAM.

I've set my pagefile to auto and I'll see how that does. When I reboot my pc later today I'll boot into safe mode and run Prime95 and see what happens. All I know is I used to be able to run Prime95 in blend mode without issue for hours on this pc, and now I can't due to the pagefile.