Q. I keep getting the following message: “Windows — virtual memory minimum is too low”. What does this mean?

MM, West Cork, Ireland

A. You’re getting this message because the program you are running can’t access enough RAM — the temporary, electronic memory your PC uses to run the operating system and programs. It can also happen if your hard disk has no free space left, in which case you should make space by deleting unneeded files and defragmenting the drive.

Some software fails to handle RAM properly, and gradually hogs more and more memory until it consumes the lot and that error message is generated. The Firefox web browser, for example, is known to do this if it’s left open for many hours. The fix is to periodically close Firefox (and other open programs), or reboot the PC, to reset the memory.

It could be that you have too little RAM in your PC, and this is often the case when older machines run new, memory-hungry programs. Installing more memory should be the cure: RAM is cheap these days, and fitting it is not as scary as it sounds. Use the tools at www.crucial.com/uk for help.

Q. I have a TV, DVD recorder/player and a Freeview box that I want to connect together using Scart cables. Each item has two Scart sockets, confusingly labelled with names such as AV1 and Line 2. How is it best to wire them up?

KC, Oxfordshire

A. Scart sockets allow you to connect multiple devices, and it is important to connect them in the correct manner if you want to be able to view and record all available channels.

Although devices from different manufacturers can sometimes fail to get along, generally the advice is to connect the TV-out scart socket from your Freeview box to the AV2 socket on the TV; take the VCR output from the Freeview box to the AV2/Line 2 input on the DVD recorder; and take the AV1/Line 1 output cable from the DVD recorder to the AV1 Scart on the television.

There might be an appropriate diagram in one of your user manuals, or search for your exact configuration at the Sony support site at tinyurl.com/mrvob7.

Q. My Windows XP computer no longer plays the video files (with a .mov suffix) that I’ve transferred from my camera. It used to, and I am not aware of any changes I’ve made that could cause this problem. What should I do?

JT, Warwickshire

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