Physical memory dumping-xp-os

question for info on memory dumping

[spiritdark]

recently I had error messages where at the bottom of the message a physical memory dumping was in progress. I've about got the main problems figured out, my question here is, can anyone explain to me about the physical memory dumping? I recently found out that I seem to be using approx. 83% of memory, which is slowing system down. On start up, task manager does not show any apps running, though there are some 40 plus processes running.
OS is XP home ed.
AMD processor
256 mg ram
Is there a way to clear up some of my memory?
I would appreciate any info on this, thank you!
spiritdark

[The Contractor]

Can't help you as there are too many things that can cause it. Do a search for WinXP physical memory dump and you'll see that people have received the same message whether it be from hardware/ram failure or a certain software program.

I will say that 256mb of ram isn't even close to what you need for WinXP. I think at least 768mb is required to run more than a couple basic apps at a time. I won't run it with less than 1gig. Memory is cheap (even really good memory).

[spiritdark]

Contractor,
Thank you. I've also heard that 256 for xp is simular to bare minimum. Guess I'll have to break out the wallet!