RAM
A few weeks have passed, and I am still chasing my memory issues. I have not yet even attempted a ramdrive, but I have found that with W98 there is no way my machine is going to be happy with more than 512M of free ram. With any more than that, even if I limit Windows to 512M and set limits on the cache file size there are some things that caue problems. In particular, Worldbook Millenium 2000 absolutely will not run with excess RAM in the box.
I'm willing to pay for W2000, but I hear that it is even slower than W98, and that concerns me. If slower means that my processor is going to be maxed out, then I have gained nothing. In what sense is W2000 slower than W98?
In the course of trying to get a clear picture of the alternatives, I have come across a couple of people who swear that W98 cannot manage more than 128M of RAM anyway (256M maybe for SE and ME). I expect there is some basis to their claim, but I cannot see evidence for it on my machine, and it makes no sense in the context of what I have read about Windows virtual machines. With 512M in my machine, I see appropriate looking numbers in System Monitor for Allocated Memory (just a bit less than 256M with my typical trading set up; but I can open enough programs to push it beyond 256M), and Unused Physical Memory to suggest that all programs are resident in physical RAM. I see absolutely no swapfile activity. I do see Page faults and some Page-ins, but few if any Page outs.
It seems to me the virtual memory should be mapped to any physical memory Windows can recognize, but one person I talked to is adamant that most of the memory is just a "big buffer" that W98 cannot manage, which implies to me that the contents of physical memory must be rearranged in order for Windows 98 to function. Is this for real? Does anyone have the straight scoop on this issue, and a reference where I can see it documented?
Besides all that, I am frequently getting memory errors when I boot up. I often see the memory test stop at 384M. Some times it jumps from 384M to 512M without running the numbers in between. And sometimes it test all 512M and is perfectly happy. I have reseated the memory several times, so I don't think it is that simple. If it failed consistently, I could easily find the bad module, but I'm not even sure I have one. Any ideas?
Dan |
