Try running some memory-intensive programs (e.g., Adobe software, Firefox) and observe some information related to page faults on your computer:

1. For Windows users, open Task Manager, go to “View”, “Select Columns”, and show the “Page Fault” and “Page Fault Delta” columns. Observe the number of page faults for each process and how many new page faults are generated between updates (the delta).

2. For Linux users, open up a terminal and run “vmstat k”, where k is an integer that indicates the update interval. (man vmstat for details). Observe the “si” and “so” columns, which reports on the amount of memory swapped in and swapped out. Alternatively, run “ps -ea v” and observe the “MAJFL” columns, which report on the number of page faults.

3. For Mac users, open up a terminal and run “vm_stat k”, where k is an integer that indicates the update interval (man vm_stat for details). Observe the numbers under columns “faults”, “pageins” “pageouts”.

For comparisons with your friends, post the amount of RAM on the system you are making the observations on.