View Full Version : PC Memeory question..........
Amdathlonuk
19-09-2002, 00:39
Now I'm no idiot...........
I can build a PC from scratch...etc, and work out some problems with confliucts and such like.
However my PC is running SH!TE at the moment.
I've re-formated the drive andI'm running windows Millenium, however it sometimes only has about 11% free resources when I look at the 'system' tab under device manager.
It runs really slow and sometimes just crashes or say' not enough memory...blah, blah..'
I haven't a clue why it's doing this??:confused:
I am running Office XP with it, would that cause a problem; my specs are;
AMD Athlon (UK);) 1Ghz
512Mb PC133 Ram
DVD drive
CD writer
80Gb HD (60Gb free)
40Gb HD (20Gb free)
And the usual Printer, Monitor, 8 USB ports (6 used)
Any ideas??
Andy Dee
19-09-2002, 06:36
Did you have both HDD's In when you installed the O/S? Or did you add the 80Gig HDD Later?
I only ask beacuse i had a virtual memory problem when i added a larger HDD, and it fooked about with my pagefile size and i never even got to the desktop again. Had to remove the drive alter pagefile settings etc.
My guess would be a virtual memory or pagefile problem rather than physical RAM. 512MB should cope with most things.
dave_s13
19-09-2002, 08:19
Get rid of Win ME (its $hit) and upgrade to win XP. That should sort it.
sroberts
19-09-2002, 09:05
ME will also only use 128Mg of your 512
Simon
RichSeal
19-09-2002, 09:05
Originally posted by dave_s13
Get rid of Win ME (its $hit) and upgrade to win XP. That should sort it.
Agreed, ME is worse than win98 at sucking up resources! It only stayed on my PC for 2 days before I got rid of it. XP is far better, and will run faster on your spec PC
Amdathlonuk
19-09-2002, 09:09
When I put XP on before,
I have an copy of XP proffessional...
None of my hardware would work due to driver problems, can I download drivers from anywhere??
Basically when it loaded it said ' the followind devices may not work due to driver problems; Epson 895 printer, Mustek 1200 Scanner, USB Device, USB device, DVD card...etc.'
AArrgghhhhhh.............
Filmidget
19-09-2002, 09:25
Might be worth trying Win2000 then?
Works very well/stable oin my (low spec) machines.
Dunno what IT bods will say to that.
Cheers, Phil
Aye. 2k may be your best option. More drivers around for it now although I've had problems with my voodoo5 with it. It's got a proper memory controler unlike 9x/ME but is less fussy than XP about drivers.
I've put 98 back on my pooter to get around the probs with the voodoo5 as that was just for playing game's (MB Truck Racing :) ) and had 2k for doing proper stuff.
Next I will be putting Mandrake's Linux on for good mesure. :D
Basically when it loaded it said ' the followind devices may not work due to driver problems; Epson 895 printer, Mustek 1200 Scanner, USB Device, USB device, DVD card...etc.'
It said they "may" not work, but did they? I had that on my XP installation at work. I ran a Windows update which updated several drivers and everything worked fine. If you know what doesn't work, just go to the manufacturers website, most will have drivers for XP and if not, in most cases, the Win2k drivers will work.
Jezz_S13
19-09-2002, 11:18
We've seen error like that on web (NT) servers here and it turned out to be virtual mem.
Give it some more. Worth a try.
onionboy - s12
19-09-2002, 13:34
my fav op systems have been 98 with win ram turbo, or win 2k
i find win 2k the best for me... it all depends what you use the computer for mainly...
but i hate xp... absolute pants... and i will never be persuaded otherwise... i installed it and lost the use of dvd, most of my programs, my printer etc... had to download endless patches etc and got so fed up i got rid of it again.
i wish they would just spend the time in sorting out the million bugs in all the software they sell rather than keep bringing out more...
that would be a miracle though.
what programs are you running when you get the problem? and how many programs?
do you have anything running in the backgraound on startup? have a look just in case...
also... running xp software on a system that doesnt have xp might cause a prob... im only guessing at that though as i dont touch xp....
if only linux fully supported my software lol.
but i hate xp... absolute pants... and i will never be persuaded otherwise
If I had a pound for everytime I heard people say that about Win98 when it came out, I'd be up there with Bill Gates. Now that XP has Service Pack 1 it's definately better. I know many people who have upgraded to XP from Win98, slagged it off, removed it, put Win98 back on, only to go back to XP. Win2k is ok, but is more business related. XP offers more multimedia support than Win2k.
May be it just me but an Operating System should be a System of programs to Operate in not some piece of blote ware that playss/show's/index's all my vids/pics/mp3s and try to tell me what I should be doing.
Win2k seems better as it just supports programs running in it (i.e. handles memory properly, handles apps when they crash) rather thaan trying to be the applications as well.
Pauly_Boy
19-09-2002, 15:21
No doubt about it... Windows 2000 is the one to go for. XP is just a overly tarted up version of 2000, with loads of bugs in. Maybe its different with service pack 1, but i haven't seen any flying pigs today so i doubt it :D
Anyway, the problem might be the fact that you haven't installed all or the correct drivers for your PC, have you put on all you motherbaord drivers. Another factor could be that Windows ME to total kak!
Either choose 98 if u want most compatability, 2000 if you want something that actually works, or XP i u like having loads of pretty colours on you decktop for at the most 10 seconds, before you get a nice message like this.....
http://www.dmrt.net/pub/humor/pics/XP_kip-ei.jpg
wow!
LOL, that's helpfull :rolleyes:
If you have two hard drives then put your OS on one and office on the other. Should improve performance no end:D
AshT_200
20-09-2002, 10:08
Ok, A long shot, but might answer your question.
Don't confuse resources, with the amount of memory. You have 2 resources stacks in Windows 95, User and GDI, and if memory serves me correctly (excuse the pun) they are 64K each. (I believe that they were just double the amount of resources that you got with Windows 3.1)
NT based OS (Includes Win2K and XP) run 32 bit applications in their own window and allocate these 64K resources stacks to each Window.
Windows 9x APIs are thunked down to 16bit code, wherease NT runs them as 32bit.
Dunno if that answers your question, but adding memory, will not always free up resources. As everyone else has said, you need to upgrade your OS.
Then again, I may be completely wrong.... :confused::rolleyes:
No you are correct AshT_200
I was just trying to keep things simple by saying 2k, NT, XP had "better memory handleing"
Putting more memory in a 9x basid PC because it has low system resourses does no good what so ever.
How ever reducing the number of installed fonts and desktop toys (which all eat these sacrce resources) may help the problem.
See: -
http://www.aumha.org/a/resourcez.htm
http://www.forrestandassociates.co.uk/pcforrest/resources.html
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