How does memory usage work in Windows 2000 Pro?

[Guljee]

Hi
I'm fairly new to this forum, and hoping someone would be able to advise me with some troubleshooting tips on how to understand my computer memory running a Windows 2000 Professional Operating system.

I've had 128MB memory for awhile and I recently upgraded it to 384MB. I added two additional 128MB PNY memory to my machine.

The system recognizes the memory, but I feel it has made no difference whatsoever, the hard disk is still chaggin away and the system seems to shut down at times and reboot.
I checked the event viewer and didn't find any particular system errors etc.

Moreover, I changed my page file to 256MB but still I see no difference of any sort.

I'm quite confused if my memory is even being utilized or not as well as what is casuing the computer to crash randomly and reboot.

I am not using any particular heavy usage applications just basic browsing, office stuff and running some mpeg clips at times. However, the crash don't particularly happen when running the mpeg clips as one would think and i still can't figure out the deal with the memory.

If someone could advise or point me to where I need to go to manually allocate memory usage etc that woudl be great or what is up.

As for the OS, yes I did upgrade at one point from NT workstation, which was very robust and I had no complaints. However, after my upgrade i have done a clean format and reinstalled my os from scratch so I don't know what could possibly be causing the crash problem.

I've attemped to provide all info so hopefully I 'm not asking question other users have already asked in the forum.
Hope this helps.
Thanks in advance

 

[Accessdabbler]

Start with your memory. Are they all the same speed? You can mix speeds but the results can be unpredictable, especially if the memory is made from different manufacturers.

If this isn't the problem, try updating your BIOS for your motherboard. It's possible your motherboard has a problem with larger amounts of RAM.

Next, try updating the drivers for your motherboard. Make sure you get the latest versions for your chipset (best from the chipset manufacturer's website).

Finally, and this may be too obvious, is DMA enabled on your hard drive? I recently reinstalled Win 2000 and was puzzled by the garbled startup music. After some digging, I discovered that my ATA/ATAPI controllers were set to PIO instead of UltraDMA (change this in the Device Manager in Win2000).

Just some thoughts...

 

[Guljee]

Hi Accessdabbler

Thanks for the tips.

As for the speeds, if you are referring to SDRAM then all 3 are the same, they are all 128MB SDRAM two of PNY and first one is of another manufacturing I don't recall.

As for Bios and mother drivers where can I find the updated bios and for the drivers how can I tell who the manufacturer of my chipset is as I have a generic machine not a branded one.

It is an Intel Celeron 500Mhz machine.

Please advise.

Thanks.

The ATA/ATAPI controllers for set to DMA for primary drive and i don't have a secondary drive so I think that couldn't be the problem.

 

[Accessdabbler]

Memory can be different speeds. Your Celeron 500 runs on a motherboard that supports 66 MHz. Thus, you should use 66 MHz memory (you can buy faster memory, but not slower). You probably have added memory that was faster than your original stick. In theory, this should still work but it *may* cause a problem on your system. See if you can locate the original invoice for the parts.

As for the motherboard, to identify it, you must look at it. Somewhere on it should be a prominent company name such as ABIT, ASUS, etc. Also, look for a large, black, square chip (called the Northbridge) with the Intel name on it. Write down the numbers. This is your chipset that may need updated drivers. The website of the motherboard manufacturer should have updated BIOS and Chipset drivers there.

 

[Eguy]

Hi Guljee;


To find the manufacturer of yor motherboard, find the FCC ID# stamped somewhere on the mobo. Then go to:

http://www.fcc.gov/oet/fccid/

Enter the number and you should get your answer.

Ed Please let me know if the suggestion(s) I provide are helpful to you.
Sometimes you're the windshield... Sometimes you're the bug.

 

[Guljee]

Ok Thanks for your help.
I was able to locate my chipset, which is a VIA VT82C693 with VT82C596 South Bridge.

However, I can't find a particular VIA website. I find various techie sites, with drivers, but I'm hesistant to download any as I don't know precisely which driver I require and none of the sites specifically indicate what upgrade I would require for bios and drivers based on my specific driver.

Any suggestions how to go about it from here as I don't want to mess up my system.

Do I need to check anything in the CMOS under chip settings to see my current version etc?

 

[wolluf]

From your original post its not obvious if the machine was rebooting itself before the new memory. If trouble since then its almost certainly caused by it. Win2k is quite sensitive to memory configurations. Try running machine without the original stick (ie, just 2 new ones) & see if that stops rebooting (in fact, try all combinations of memory you have to see which if any allow machine to run with no problems). You can also often slow down memory speed in the bios - this is a good idea with you problems. It may sound daft, but changing which slots the memory sit in can have an effect too!

PS. If you were having problems before new memory I'd look at other options as has been suggested - but if not, one thing I wouldn't do is flash the bios. Its always a potentially dangerous operation and should only be done to incorporate a specific upgrade you need.
PPS. Win2k runs very well with 128MB memory - if you're not running that much, so increasing to 384 would probably only improve performance when you are running a lot of apps or something memory intensive.

 

[mikeindetroit]

VIA's site is:

http://www.via.com.tw/

Looks like this could be the chipset page:

http://www.via.com.tw/en/apollo/PRO_PLUS.jsp

This page references the VT82C693 and the VT82C596A (note the A). Might or might not be your board.

Here's a link for the drivers:

http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2

Looks like the top link (for the VIA 4-in-1 drivers) is the one you want. I just did a quick skim and could be wrong. Someone else verify for me?

If those are bad you can always uninstall those drivers and go back to the old ones...

Wolluf's post is very worthy of a try. Moving the RAM around/different combinations could be it. Easy to try too

Win2K runs a lot better with 256MB as compared to 128MB. Seen this to be true on a few systems with a wide variety of hardware configurations (aside from them all having 128MB RAM )

Hope that helps!

Mike