Swap files shortly after startup

Question

Hello everyone
I have a MacBook 13" late 2008, 250g HD, 4g RAM
I have an unusual problem - within minutes (literally 2 or 3) after starting up the machine and opening my stock apps (Firefox, Thunderbird, Word and iCal), my system spawns 2 or more swap files (128 or 256 megs), despite there being more than 2g RAM still free. I find this unusual as it doesn't make sense to use virtual memory on my hard drive in preference to available RAM.
The reson that it is actually an issue for me is that Word (Office 11, vers 14.1.4) then becomes unusuable when swap files are present.  It can take 1 minute (timed) between clicking on a Word file and it opening in Word. Closing can take up to 30 seconds. There are no lags when no swap files are present, but the presence of  swap files requires a restart if I need to use Word, and using Word after the restart until the swap files are spawned.
All software (system and 3rd party) are current.  I have looked in the Console logs but can't find any mention of virtual memory/swap files being spawned.
Any ideas? After several months, the preferred option is a large hammer into the laptop. It is usable in short bursts only if I have to use Word (and I do have to use Word to be compatible with my contractors etc)
Any ideas would be appreciated. Zeroing the drive is the absolute last option, and I have installed Lion and the combo updates a number of times, ditto Office 2011. Has anyone else seen this very strange behaviour?

Answer 1

EJW Tas wrote:
Interesting result from Activity Monitor is that Spotlight (mds) is using 100m of real memory but 2gigs of VM - I suspect that Spotlight is responsible for the extra swapfiles, perhaps as a result of a corruped index file?
That is suspicious.
The structure of Spotlight indexes was changed in Lion; you may have noticed it re-indexed everything when you upgraded.  It actually created a whole new index on every volume, internal and external.  There doesn't seem to be a major problem, but we do see occasions where the index gets corrupted, slowing down other indexing.  This is especially noticeable when the OSX drive is being indexed, and Time Machine is doing a backup, which also needs indexing.  The backup sometimes slows to a crawl, or even a virtual hang, until the OSX volume is done/fixed/excluded.  I wonder if you may have a similar situation here, but affecting the data for some of your apps instead.
Do you have any other disks connected?  If so, exclude them from indexing temporarily, via System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy. See what happens after a Restart. 
If not, or if that doesn't change, do the same with your internal HD.
That may provide an actual clue!