What is page fault?, Operating System

Assignment Help:

What is page fault?

In the computer storage technology a page fault is an exception which is raised by the memory management unit when a requested page isn't mapped in physical memory. This exception is passed on to the OS (operating system) which is able to then try to handle the exception by making the required page accessible at a location in physical memory.

For instance a page fault may take place when a program requests a page in memory and the system can't find it at the requested location. If the page is elsewhere in memory then the fault is called as a soft page fault. If the page should be retrieved from disk, the fault is called as a hard page fault.

Opposing to what its name might suggest a page fault is never a fatal error. Actually, it is a relatively normal occurrence in any OS operating system that utilizes virtual memory in order to increase the amount of memory available to programs. The term General Page Fault is habitually found printed on the screens of computers running a Microsoft Windows operating system when a serious error has take placed in the paging algorithms that handle an ordinary and generally harmless page fault. This kind of paging error takes place in the software handling the exception, and isn't directly related to the page fault itself, which take place in hardware.

Page faults by their extremely nature degrade a program's or operating system's performance and is able to cause thrashing.  Optimizing any or every program's memory usage and commonly making more physical memory available reduces the number of page faults that occur, and get better the program's or the entire system's performance.

 

 


Related Discussions:- What is page fault?

What is an effector process, What is an effector process? The effector ...

What is an effector process? The effector process is a method that verifies itself.The effector process exists in particular criteria.

Operation on file system, Question : The file system is the most visibl...

Question : The file system is the most visible aspect of an operating system. It provides the mechanism for on-line storage and access to both data and programs of the operatin

Name the evolutionary process models, Normal 0 false false ...

Normal 0 false false false EN-IN X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

Define properties of time sharing operating system, Define properties of Ti...

Define properties of Time sharing operating system Time sharing:- T his systems uses CPU scheduling and multiprogramming to provide economical interactive use of a system. The

What is spooling, What is spooling? Spooling overlaps the I/O of single...

What is spooling? Spooling overlaps the I/O of single job with the computation of other jobs.

Define where a program generation activity aims, Define where a Program gen...

Define where a Program generation activity aims  Program generation activity aims at Automatic generation of program

Unix, UNIX Shell and History feature. 1.Creating a child process. 2.Creatin...

UNIX Shell and History feature. 1.Creating a child process. 2.Creating a history feature. Its exactly "programming project 1 - Unix Shell and History Feature (p.157-159)" in the Si

What do you understand by active directory domain, Question: a) What ...

Question: a) What do you understand by Active directory domain in Windows Server 2008? Support your answer with a diagram. b) Distinguish between active directory trees

Explain lru approximation page replacement, LRU approximation page replacem...

LRU approximation page replacement In this we are able to use the reference bit associated with the page entry to choose a page to be removed. The various algorithms used for

Write Your Message!

Captcha
Free Assignment Quote

Assured A++ Grade

Get guaranteed satisfaction & time on delivery in every assignment order you paid with us! We ensure premium quality solution document along with free turntin report!

All rights reserved! Copyrights ©2019-2020 ExpertsMind IT Educational Pvt Ltd