Windows Protection Error after I upgraded to 512 MB RAM

[Dodger67]

Ok I give up... I have searched all fourms and KB's and only once did I see someone else with a similar problem..

I have a...
P-III 650Mhz
Tyan Trinity 400 MOBO
2 sticks of 256MB PC-133 RAM (no name brand on sticks but I think it is Apacer)
Win89 SE (latest Win Updates downloaded)

OK.. It runs fine with just 1 stick of 256MB RAM. I add the 2nd stick and I get the "Windows Protection Error you must restart windows" before the desktop loads. I can remove 1 stick and it will work, I can also swap sticks and it will work. I can go from Dimm 0 to 3 and it will still give me the error (with 1 stick still in DIMM 2). Any combo of placements will give me the error as long as I have both sticks installed. I have updated all MOBO drivers and the VIA pro chipset drivers.

Any help would be great,

Dodger

 

[butchrecon]

Here is the problem. Windows 98. Although it is said as being able "see" up to 2 Gig of RAM, It can only CACHE "use" at one time 320-384 meg. So anything over that can cause instability, slow performance, and Page fault/protection errors. Take your system to 256 and it works fine. I suggest keeping it there or OBTAINING a copy of Win2K Pro. Win2K does not have such cache limitations. James Collins
Systems Support Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

Please let us (Tek-tips members) know if the solutions we provide are helpful to you. Not only do they help you but they may help others.

 

[Dodger67]

Will the vcache setting in the system.ini "MaxFileCache = 524288" help?

(I just found this little KB but it says it is for more than 512).

"The reason - when Windows boots vcache determines max cache size based on system memory - if this memory is greater than 512mb vcache will inadvertently allocate address space within the system portion of memory, leaving none left over for other functions."

(That was in another tech forum)

 

[butchrecon]

vcache and the system cache are not nessisarily the same thing. Large amounts of RAM has always been an issue with the Windows 9x line of OS's. Setting the Min and MaxFileCache in windows will not solve this problem. You will see many different opinions on this subject. If you find an answer on other forums that get by this problem, I would like to know as well. James Collins
Systems Support Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

Please let us (Tek-tips members) know if the solutions we provide are helpful to you. Not only do they help you but they may help others.

 

[cdogg]

Like butchrecon said, it's a bit more complicated than that. I myself have heard different opinions as to how much RAM Win98 can actually "efficiently" work with. That number seems to be right around 320 MB of RAM. Other colleagues of mine have reported that Win98 with 512 MB should function correctly with some minor tweaking, but any more RAM than that will cause trouble. In other words, I would just stick with 256 MB of RAM unless you plan on upgrading your OS to Win2K.

It is NOT recommended that you set the MAXFileCache greater than 512 MB (524,288 KB).

If you go to the following microsoft website, you'll find more info on this problem with Windows 95/98/ME and how to work with large amounts of memory.

http://support.microsoft.com/suppor...limit&rnk=84&src=DHCS_MSPSS_gn_SRCH&SPR=MSALL

 

[reghakr]

More from Microsoft:

Specifying Amount of RAM Available to Windows Using MaxPhysPage

------------------------------------------------------------
The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition
Microsoft Windows 95
Microsoft Windows 98

------------------------------------------------------------
If this article does not describe your hardware-related issue, please see the following Microsoft Web site to view more articles about hardware:

http://support.microsoft.com/support/windows/topics/hardware/hwddresctr.asp

SUMMARY
This article contains a table of MaxPhysPage values you can use to limit the amount of random access memory (RAM) available to Windows.

MORE INFORMATION
To use the MaxPhysPage entry to specify the amount of RAM that is available to Windows, add the following line in the [386Enh] section of the System.ini file


MaxPhysPage=<nnn>

where <nnn> is a hexidecimal number that determines the number of memory pages available to Windows. A page is 4096 bytes of RAM for 486 and Pentium processors.

When the MaxPhysPage entry is used, the following formula is used to determine the amount of RAM available to Windows:

4096 X MaxPhysPage (decimal) = Amount of RAM available to Windows in bytes

Therefore, to limit Windows to 32 MB of memory, use the following formula to determine the MaxPhysPage entry:

(32 * 1048576) / 4096 = 8192 (decimal) or 02000 (hexadecimal)

NOTE: One megabyte is 1,048,576 bytes.

The following table list some common RAM amounts and the corresponding MaxPhysPage entry:

Amount of RAM
available to Windows (MB) (Bytes) MaxPhysPage entry
--------------------------------------------------------------
960 1,006,632,960 MaxPhysPage=3C000
896 939,524,096 MaxPhysPage=38000
832 872,415,323 MaxPhysPage=34000
768 805,306,368 MaxPhysPage=30000
704 738,197,504 MaxPhysPage=2C000
640 671,088,640 MaxPhysPage=28000
576 603,979,776 MaxPhysPage=24000
512 536,870,912 MaxPhysPage=20000
448 469,762,048 MaxPhysPage=1C000
384 402,653,184 MaxPhysPage=18000
320 335,544,320 MaxPhysPage=14000
256 268,435,456 MaxPhysPage=10000
224 234,881,024 MaxPhysPage=0E000
192 201,326,592 MaxPhysPage=0C000
160 167,772,160 MaxPhysPage=0A000
128 134,217,728 MaxPhysPage=08000
96 100,663,296 MaxPhysPage=06000
88 92,274,688 MaxPhysPage=05800
80 83,886,080 MaxPhysPage=05000
72 75,497,472 MaxPhysPage=04800
64 67,108,864 MaxPhysPage=04000
56 58,720,256 MaxPhysPage=03800
48 50,331,648 MaxPhysPage=03000
40 41,943,040 MaxPhysPage=02800
32 33,554,432 MaxPhysPage=02000
24 25,165,824 MaxPhysPage=01800
16 16,777,216 MaxPhysPage=01000
12 12,582,912 MaxPhysPage=00C00
08 8,388,608 MaxPhysPage=00800

For additional information about MaxPhysPage, please see the following Articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Article-ID: Q134503
TITLE : Parity Error Messages May Indicate Bad Memory

I would defineately look at the bad or incompatable memory issue.

reghakr

 

[jacksplat]

i just formatted my hd yesterday and tried to reinstall 98 and i get that same error when i reboot after windows searching for my hardware and plug and play deveices. I tried to use my dads 98se cd but gets it gets the same error. I have 256mb of ram. I was running on 256 mb of ram for over 6 months before i decided to format yesterday. any idea how i might beable to fix this?

 

[reghakr]

Remove the CD when it starts to reboot.
Check this article:
thread615-98381

 

[butchrecon]

Reghakr's Idea above works, BUT its not really any better than physically removing the RAM and It is very hard to get Win98 to run effectively with large ammounts of RAM. I have tried different Mainboard and RAM combos as well as tons of registry and system tweaking. Still same results. Constant problems until I lowered the RAM ammount down. Finally after talking with MS tech support I got the answer I was looking for. And thats the issue with not being able to handle large ammounts of RAM.

Jacksplat
your issue is probebly bad RAM or as stated you just need to remove the CD. James Collins
Systems Support Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

Please let us (Tek-tips members) know if the solutions we provide are helpful to you. Not only do they help you but they may help others.

 

[jacksplat]

if it was bad ram, wouldn't i have gotten an error before i formatted and tried to reinstall...i'll try that eject the cd tonight, hopefully thats it.

 

[butchrecon]

Not necessarily. Setup uses memory a little differently than When 98 is running. But the CD thing may be your issue. James Collins
Systems Support Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

Please let us (Tek-tips members) know if the solutions we provide are helpful to you. Not only do they help you but they may help others.

 

[jacksplat]

yeah it was the cd...i just changed the boot order after the 1st boot and that worked fine.