Name: Nagaforce Date: June 6, 2003 at 10:07:40 Pacific Subject: Lots of Ram, little to use. OS: win98SE CPU/Ram: 384 Meg
Comment:
I have 384 Meg of Ram, but I am using at least 40% of that just to get to the internet on DSL. with two sites open, say LA Times and NY Times, Ram usuage can be 60%. I tried Memturbo, doesn't help. Properties on MY Computer show that the computer is configured for optimum performance. If the Ram is leaking it's doing in in an hour, not a day.
Do you have a lot of programs open (in the background also)? Maybe there are too many processes. If you don't need some of the programs try shutting them down. Also remember to disable programs from Startup.
You probably have too many programs running in the background (via startup). Go to the run command line and type in "msconfig". The startup tab shows you everything you are running at startup. Inevitably, some of these applications are unnecessary.
On a Windows 98 machine (256MB RAM) with an anti virus program running, it is common to have 60% system resources declared (in use) at startup. This number will never go down by any effort of the user. In fact, it tends upward.
Your problem is Windows 98. It does not seem to release system resources properly. This is particularly true over 256MB. What is really happening is the OS cannot scale its memory management (i.e., have the same efficiency with 128MB that it can with 512MB).
Out of curiosity, why do you (think you) need more RAM than is available? Is your swap file being over used or what is the operational problem? Windows itself uses a whole bunch, but that's normal, and the swap file will handle peak demands that exceed what RAM is available. I ran W98SE for years with 384 (with Memokit, which is just about the same as Memturbo) and it got along fine.
When you are consistently using 100%, then you might 'consider' adding more RAM. When all your RAM is being used, the system must resort to the swap file. Which is no big problem but does slow you down a bit.
I have never once had an accurate reading from windows98SE on the system resources, so I use other programs such as this: http://www.simtel.net/pub/pd/60492.html I liked this one give it a try :-)
"System Resources" have nothing to do with RAM. In Win98 they are two little (64K) memory files that are used by Windows and its applications for housekeeping type stuff. There is nothing that you can do to increase their size. System information reports their utilization status at any given moment very accurately. Until either one or the other is 'used up' (available balance reduced to zero), how much is available has no effect on you system's performance. At zero the PC usually freezes. Rebooting restores.
Ahh! Thank you rac, for saying it first. These 2 limited Win9x "System Resources" files are affected by everything running though (as stated before), even shutting programs down (Ctrl+Alt+Del) doesn't return these resources well.
So go into msconfig and see what you can disable from the start menu, typically 50% or more of the programs that sneak themselves into there are not needed at boot up and are always there dragging your system down (running in the background needlessly).
Check your start up list to see what maybe actually needed here: http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_pages/startup_all.php#C
