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adding memory to win 98 machine 1

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mdwebneck

Technical User
Jul 21, 2003
17
US
I just replaced two 256 sticks of memory with four 512 sticks of memory in my WIN98 machine (planned migration to WIN2000 later this summer) but in the meantime, the board had no problem identifying the memory but when WINDOWS starts it detours to a page that tells me I need to remove any memory resident programs in my autoexec.bat & and config.sys files.
IT also says there is not enough memory to initialize Windows!
what a joke!
THere are only a couple of lines in my config.sys file and three lines in my autoexec.bat file of which two were related to my audio card so I "REM"mmed them out.
still got the same message even though I used SAFE mode to go back in.
So short of speeding up my win2k migration what can I do to get WIN98 to cooperate with the new 2GB of SDRAM
 
This is a known issue with Win98. Remove all memory but 512M and things should be fine again. There have been many posts on this subject here, so you should be able to search and see the results.

Good Luck with it
 
Thanks for the effort but that didn't exactly the answer I was looking for.

However, an MCSA buddy of mine found the answer I needed on the microsoft site, which required making changes to memory addressing in the system.ini file.
I decided to go ahead and spend the evening installing WIN2000

for ref: the site he gave me was;
 
Just stick with 512 (win98se max unless you want the rest of the RAM unused).

Then get 2000 (or XP) which can cope with that 2GB you want. :)
 
mdwebneck,
That may not have been the answer you were looking for, but it was an accurate one.

The link your buddy gave you directs Windows to only use 768MB of RAM at a time. Therefore if you have 2 gigs, you're wasting a crapload of space in memory. In that situation, it would be just as easy and efficient to reduce the memory to 768MB or less.

Also if you look at this link, it will give you another glimpse of the flaw in Windows 9x/ME:

Here's a full explanation if you're still interested:
faq615-2438

Upgrading to 2000 will solve those problems...


~cdogg
[tab]"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources"
[tab][tab]- A. Einstein
 
Have seen this question and similar many times, so just had to put in my 2 dollars worth, know I'm late, but maybe for a future reference: I'm runnin'1280 MB on WIN 98 SE, but it's RDRAM ($Ouch!). Works just fine, really fine, but don't know about how SDRAM or DDR, etc. would do. Reckon it could depend on the Momboard and/or Processor, even the # of Processors. Will experiment with this and post again sometime (at least, will try with DDR, apparently SDRAM question has been answered many times over). SIMM anyone?
[machinegun] [pig]


Don't forget those who serve and protect: Your Armed Forces personnel and Disabled Veterans (DAV).
"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us."
George Orwell, author
 
warhog,
It isn't so much about whether Windows 9x/ME will run with large amounts of RAM, but instead, the real question is whether it uses that amount efficiently. The answer is no (not above 512MB).

It's true that some systems have problems with amounts over 512MB, while others can run as high as 2GB. But in both situations, Windows can only allocate enough resources to use 512MB at a time. So if you get away with more memory than the next guy, chances are that it's not doing you any good.

If you go to the links I posted, you'll see why.


~cdogg
[tab]"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources"
[tab][tab]- A. Einstein
 
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