NIELIT 2018-48

Question

Decreasing the RAM causes

• A. fewer page faults
• B. more page faults
• C. virtual memory gets increased
• D. virtual memory gets decreased

Answer 1

Decreasing RAM causes more page faults

By having less RAM, you will typically force the system to use more virtual memory on the HDD. This results in the CPU having to do a bit more work e.g. moving data between RAM and HDD and tweaking page tables, particularly when there is a context switch. Therefore, there is less CPU time available to the applications and more time for paging.

We can also think as solutions of thrashing i.e. decreasing degree of multiprogramming and increasing main memory (RAM) size.

Answer 2

A page fault is a type of exception raised by computer hardware when a running program accesses a memory page that is not currently mapped by the memory management unit (MMU) into the virtual address space of a process.
When handling a page fault, the operating system generally tries to make the required page accessible at the location in physical memory, or terminates the program in case of an illegal memory access.
So, Decrease the physical RAM on your machine could result in more page faults