HostMemoryLow.... what a big problem...

[Pota]

Hi everybody,

I have a problem with a "HostMemoryLow" message.
I can set up 1280Mb for the Virtual Machine (with a windows XP SP3 Guest), but when I try to increase the amount of Ram of the virtual machine, I have the LowMemory warning and the VM doesn't start....
I don't know what could be the problem, but I have to use some programs that use many ram on guest machine (PLC and scada tools from Siemens and other companies). I see that Windows 7 has a large portion of the ram in "Standby", but reading some forums I've understood that when in need, windows 7 has to free that memory and use all the free memory (standby+free)...
I've attached the log, can you pls tell me if i'm doing something wrong?
Thank you very much,
Andrea

ps, sorry for my poor english...

[stefan.becker]

I see you have very old additions in the guest running.

Start the guest with less RAM and update the additions to the newest version. Then try again.

[Pota]

Same problem
Guest additions updated but again with host memory low message

New Log attached... Thanks to everybody..

[mpack]

As I understand it, VirtualBox requires a contiguous block of memory to run the VM in, so if you are getting "Host memory low" warnings on a host that apparantly has enough free mem then AFAIK it means that the memory isn't contiguous, and that usually means that you have some monster memory hog already running. Take a look at the task list to see who the culprit might be.

[Pota]

I've checked the processes, i've closed all the processes that I though useless and the biggest process remained was explorer.exe with about 50Mb of Ram.... but nothing, still HostMemoryLow...

[Pota]

I'm using W7 Home Premium.... not Pro or Ultimate... could it be the problem?

[mpack]

I'm using W7 Home Premium.... not Pro or Ultimate... could it be the problem?

No. AFAIK the host OS kernel is the same in all those versions. Pro, Ultimate etc are only marketing labels somewhat indicating what other software has been bundled.

Make sure you "Show processes from all users" in the task list.

[Perryg]

There are also host applications that cause this. Google, and some virus software.

[Pota]

Yes, I've read about Google chrome problems, but I have not installed Chrome... what about virus software? do you mean virus or antivirus programs?

[Perryg]

antivirus programs

[Pota]

It's seems Avira was the problem.
Uninstalling the antivirus programm and installing another one (Avast) I can set the Ram to 2048MB or more without problems! Thank you!