Windows 7 memory management

I have a Lenovo X201s with i7 L620 @ Ghz and 4Gb Ram
Windows 7 Professional 64bit is installed on it and
all 4Gb is visible from task manager and all other system tools

Virtual memory is set manually for initial 4096Mb and max 8192Mb
There is 22Gb free space on the one and only local disk where its configured.

When memory usage according to task manager reaches about 3.18 Gb (83%)
the machine starts to swap heavily and becomes very unresponsive.
Resource monitor says:

HW reserverd 205Mb
In use 3262Mb
Modified 6Mb
Standby 606Mb
Free: 17Mb

Available 627Mb
Cached 623Mb
Total 3891Mb
Installed 4096Mb

After a clean boot I have 1.2Gb used memory according to Task Manager
and 1.7Gb used after all memory hogs like skype and desktop gadgets are
loaded.

I have checked through fully with nod32 virus scanner (nothing found),
made sure that all the latest Updates are installed, ran memtest86+ overnight
(no errors)

I know Im not really using the memory too sparingly, can get carried
away with the number of browser tabs open and usually I have openoffice
or some other application running as well with some other utilities,
like calculator, notepad, winamp. However I just feel this is not really
out of ordinary extreme usage and 4Gb seemingly insufficient to handle it
surprises me.

My questions are the following:

1. Does the above way of operation (starting to swap around 80% of usage)
   seem correct, or is something wrong with my system? If something is wrong
   how can I trace it down? What are the most common fixes for similar situations?




2. If the system operates fine. Is there a way to improve the situation
   without changing my habits of using the machine (ie. avidly closing applications
   and browser tabs before I open new ones) or buying more RAM?
   I found http://www.koshyjohn.com/software/memclean/
   to be useful. I tried to track down what windows service could I disable which
   I do not need and consumes memory (I disabled quite a few already)

Answer

1. Yes this is normal.


2. If you really want to you can 'fix' this by disabling the page file. There are no good reasons to do that in your situation (and some would argue in any situation), so just leave it alone.