CPU USAGE 70% 933 PENT 3 512 MB RAM 1

[Impediment]

I have been trying to get my cpu usage down by adding memory and changeing the settings in my virtual memory and vcache. The current settings are 170 (max& min) virtual memory and 262144 ( max and min)vcache. I have looked for info on this but have not found much. Suggestions?! The computer also has 32 mb DDR on the video card.

 

[butchrecon]

First off your Virtual memory needs to be at least as large as you system memory ammount. What OS do you use?

 

[Impediment]

I have win 98se. The system runs out of memory addresses with this amt of Ram. From what I have read The more RAM one has the less virtual memory one needs.

 

[butchrecon]

Your second problem is that Windows 98 has a hard time cacheing large RAM ammounts. Anything over 396 I believe. 98 Will recognize up to 2 gig of RAM, it cant cache it though. take your RAM dowm to 256 and I am willing to bet the high CPU usage goes away. Give it a try and let us know.

 

[CitrixEngineer]

/QUOTE The more RAM one has the less virtual memory one needs. /QUOTE

Not necessarily. Virtual memory is more than just a way to compensate for not having enough physical memory.

For example, if you were working on a large image, audio or video file, Windows would want to hold a copy of that file in its working set. Guess where this working set is normally kept? Virtual memory is used in preference to physical RAM because it is less affected by fragmentation.

There are other algorithms that virtual memory works on, such as whether a file has been used for a certain period of time or not, but the main idea is that you have a swap/pagefile (the 2 terms are fairly close these days) that is at least the same size as your physical RAM.

My preference is to make it twice the size of RAM, and to fix the minumum and maximum sizes. This prevents Windows from constantly checking and resizing the swapfile, but makes it more prone to fragmentation.

A fixed swapfile is much easier to defragment, however. You simply boot the machine in DOS mode and delete it. Because you've fixed the size, Windows will re-create it when you restart.

VCache settings make very little impact, IME, but I think I notice a slight improvement around 8096, so I tend to keep it there.

http://www.howstuffworks.com

has some excellent articles on virtual memory and caching.

Hope this helps!

 

[Impediment]

I will try that. I should have checked my cpu usage when I took out my memory to check the modules one by one. Norton System Works was saying I had a problem with my memory at a certain address but when I checked the modules individually all was ok. It turns our NSW reports memory errors 60%(?) of the time with large amt of memory.

 

[Impediment]

I thought I would let Windows manage my virtual memory once again before taking out RAM (I recently bought). CPU usage went down below 10% and swapfile usage went up to 9M. I think I will leave well enuf alone, and monitor the situation for awhile. Thanks Very Much

 

[Impediment]

I have taken out one 256mb memory module and the computer is running faster, swap file use is 0 with two IE windows open and cpu usage has been staying below 25%. Presently Ctrl+del+alt works intermitantly and f8 does not work at all I don't think this has anything to do with the memory as It started before I took the second memory module out but I must have done something to cause this while trying to get the computer to work well with 512 mb memory. Any sugestion? In addition, PnP Bios is not in Device Maneger any more. Should I should run 98se over the top of my existing instalation ?

 

[Kazhbu]

You can also go to the control panel/system/performance and set the system to run as a server and not a desktop machine. That will cause Win98 to use more memory before writing to the swap file. I can't remember what percentage is used in desktop mode, but in server mode it will use 40%. You can get even more out of your ram with X-setup and the conserve swap plugin. You can get these at:

http://www.xteq.com/products/xset/