Help What Does this Message Mean?

[Lana30]

Hi Friends,
A buddy of mine was trying to increase her RAM on her rooted Intex Aqua 3G and then tried the RAM expander but then she saw this....swapon invalid argument…………. What does it mean? Thanks in advance!

 

[Hadron]

"Swap" is "virtual memory" - copying files from ram to storage when ram space is needed and then back to ram when they are needed. I'm never convinced it's a good idea in a phone (will slow things down).

So it sounds like the app was trying to turn swap on and failing to do so (probably because you'd need root at least).

There is no way of really increasing ram apart from buying a different phone. Is your friend having actual performance problems, or just thinks that because most of the ram is in use (as it should be) this means they need more? Android will always try to fill the ram, so if it's the second then they should just stop worrying.

 

[Lana30]

"Swap" is "virtual memory" - copying files from ram to storage when ram space is needed and then back to ram when they are needed. I'm never convinced it's a good idea in a phone (will slow things down).

So it sounds like the app was trying to turn swap on and failing to do so (probably because you'd need root at least).

There is no way of really increasing ram apart from buying a different phone. Is your friend having actual performance problems, or just thinks that because most of the ram is in use (as it should be) this means they need more? Android will always try to fill the ram, so if it's the second then they should just stop worrying.

Hi, thanks for the translation. I´ll ask her. So, basically all those methods of trying to increase your RAM don´t really work? I read somewhere that some try to use your SD card to increase the RAM, is that bad?

 

[Hadron]

That's basically what the swapping is trying to do. But it's not really using the SD as RAM (it can't - SD is much, much slower) but using it as a temporary "overflow" space to store stuff that doesn't fit in RAM at this moment, which will then be swapped back into RAM when needed.

Nothing can increase the amount of actual RAM other than soldering a bigger capacity RAM chip onto the board. Everything else is either task-killing (which is definitely a bad plan) or swapping (which I tend to think "why bother?").

 

[Lana30]

That's basically what the swapping is trying to do. But it's not really using the SD as RAM (it can't - SD is much, much slower) but using it as a temporary "overflow" space to store stuff that doesn't fit in RAM at this moment, which will then be swapped back into RAM when needed.

Nothing can increase the amount of actual RAM other than soldering a bigger capacity RAM chip onto the board. Everything else is either task-killing (which is definitely a bad plan) or swapping (which I tend to think "why bother?").

Ohhhhh, I see. This is some interesting stuff, ha ha,. I love it!

 

[Lana30]

"Swap" is "virtual memory" - copying files from ram to storage when ram space is needed and then back to ram when they are needed. I'm never convinced it's a good idea in a phone (will slow things down).

So it sounds like the app was trying to turn swap on and failing to do so (probably because you'd need root at least).

There is no way of really increasing ram apart from buying a different phone. Is your friend having actual performance problems, or just thinks that because most of the ram is in use (as it should be) this means they need more? Android will always try to fill the ram, so if it's the second then they should just stop worrying.

If the app is failing in this, what can be done to fix it? I mean, if it can be fixed.

 

[chanchan05]

Remove the app and forget about trying to increase RAM altogether. Won't make much difference anyway.