am I using this memory? 1

[wigz]

Running W98se on a pc100 system board with Intel Celeron 433 processor & 24mb ram.
Wanted to upgrade the ram(said would only take pc100 speed, or 66)
But it was suggested to me to try out 256(2x128)mb of pc133 ram.
Its in, and everything is a heck of a lot better than with the 24mb ram.
The only thing is...I keep coming across memory low, out of memory (and mmsystem007 error mssgs)

On boot up, I am told ive got 262mb nvram.
Performance tab says 248.00
Yoav Zobels 'system analyser 2000' says:
Mem Load: 27%
Physical memory: 247.5mb
Available memory: 146.01mb(58%)
Used memory: 101.48mb(41%)

I hope someone motices that things just dont quite add up here.
the only other memory on the system board is nearly 8mb of video ram.

Id ask for the location of a decent memory manger, but they seem to be adding up wrong...
Any ideas?

 

[CitrixEngineer]

This can depend on many things;

First, because you've given Windows more memory, it will use it. Up to 128Mb is not very unusual. Much of this is occupied with memory management caches and tables, and all goes to optimise the system, so don't worry about it too much.

Second, if you've got loads of things running on Startup, they will consume memory. Especially that horrible leaky FindFast - a Microsoft Office applet. Remove it from startup, and you'll have much healthier memory.

Third, Windows uses a different method to the BIOS to calculate RAM, so it's not unusual to see different numbers here. Again, as long as it adds up roughly to 256Mb, give or take a meg or two, it's not really an issue (as far as Windows is concerned!).

The Out Of Memory errors are worth noting, however.

I'd suspect you're using apps which don't release their memory easily - such as Internet Explorer. Try the tests on a freshly booted system, then compare the results after running some apps. This way you can track down the resource monsters. Granted it doesn't stop the memory leaks, but while there are utilities out there that claim to, the only thing that can is more careful programming by developers.

Another thing that can produce OOM messages is a lack of contiguous swap space. Even with 1Gb RAM, Windows insists on using the swap file.

My tip, as ever, is to fix it to a set size, by making the minimum equal to the maximum. If you can afford the disk space, make it a bit bigger than the amount of RAM you have.

These are my tips. There will be plenty of others - the best bet is to try things one at a time and see which work for you.


I hope this helps

 

[dakota81]

There is no logical reason why a setup like yours should have system resource problems - just the reason that the operating system is Win98. It is good every once in a while to wipe out your Windows directory and reinstall 98 from scratch. I personally do this atleast twice a year, whether I'm having any slowdowns or not. I recommend this to others too, reload everything from scratch twice a year. It'll keep Windows running smoothly and it gives you the chance to get rid of all those programs that never get used anymore.

 

[wigz]

Thanks for both the replies guys.

Citrix,
Start-up has been configured, Office2000 is on the machine(how did you know that?!

And, about the swap file.-
If I have 256MB and windows wants, say, 128MB. Do I optimise the memoryfor 128, or 256?(minSize0-Maxsize 32000 or min0-max64000)
Id really appreciate the reccomendation of a good memory mangement utility.
thanks

dakota81,
Thanks for the advice, The PC is not mine, but I have just freshly installed W98se onto a 6gig HD in the 433. Would you reccomend - as i have thought - just using W98 - not W98se ?
My personal computer, is...wait for it, a p133 with 96MB ram and 4.3gig HD
The 433 isnt my computer, so the upgrades it is getting are not of my choice.
Ive just popped a Trust Voodoo Dragon 3D card in, which has only 2MB vid memory
But things still seem very unsettled, and still - slow for the anmount of memory around....

you words of wisdom are appreciated, thanks very much guys (",)

 

[CitrixEngineer]

My method of configuring the swap file is to set the minimum and maximum to be the same amount. This stops Windows from resizing and re-calculating on-the-fly, which is unnecessary disk access time, IMO. I always set it to be a bit bigger than my physical RAM, so that there is enough space for system cache stuff and absolutely everything that might be in memory (Windows caches just about everything).

You might find that a defrag helps;

Set the swap file to 0 (min and max).
Reboot (it'll take a while!)
Defrag (it'll take even longer)
Set fixed swap file in new contiguous space.

Why would I do this?

If a single contiguous area of disk space cannot be found, then Windows will report Out of Memory. Not because there isn't enough, but because there isn't enough in a single chunk.

I hope this makes sense - it's fairly difficult to explain clearly.

Other people do it differently, but this works for me - and requires no utility.

I hope it helps