Tell me about RAM

Each weekend, little by little, I am currently going through a freebie computer here. It has already been mentioned.

I'd like to replace (upgrade) the RAM. The chips inside are 168 pin, and on the label someplace say SDRAM, and PC100-(222/322)-620. Is this the type I ought to be looking for, as for a eight year old computer this isn't too expensive today.

And, odd thing is when I go to System reporter, it always says I have 63, 127, or 255, RAM installed, not what it says on the chips, like 64, 128, or 256. Always one less.

Wm.

If you know the make/model number of the computer... go to crucial.com and follow the on-screen "wizard" to help you find correct RAM. Even if you don't have the make etc... you can still go to crucial.com and allow it to scan the system - for RAM style required. It will tell you what you have, what you can install etc.

They also have a brief "what does this mean" for each type of RAM.

Incidentally for a '98 installation the benefits of adding in more RAM are likely to be minimal over 128Meg. This unless you are running heavy (number crunching as it were) applications; and thus you might then benefit from more RAM - to a safe max of 512Meg. If you were to exceed 512Meg then there is an essential (registry) tweak to make to allow '9x to perform optimally...

Personally I'd be not very inclined to up the RAM - unless you are also considering a move to W2K (single OS - dual-boot with '98).

Unless it's a celeron, a 500 mhz cpu is going to have an FSB of 100 mhz. The RAM will run at the same speed so at least PC100 would be needed. You could probably use PC133 but some of those sticks specify they need to run at 133 mhz, although I don't think I've had problems running them at 100 mhz.

The 1 meg difference between what the system reports and the actual amount could be because some is shared with the video. Or I think sometimes the bios will use some for caching or whatever.

I plan to use it for some very large picture chunching. File size for them is around 130-140 meg. each.

I began with 128 meg of RAM. Software vendor said to go to 256 or 512 if possible. I found one chip of 256 in another computer, set it into slot and it cut time by about 1/3rd. According to their estimates it ought to require near 640 meg for the files. But 512 ought to be close enough by them to cut time in half.

Wm.

Just for the sake of correctness, the tweak to go over 512M RAM is in the system.ini file rather than the registry. Not that there is any good reason to go above this.

DerekW

Thanks Derek for the correction; had a pheeling afterwards I might be a little out there... and knew others would correct accordingly (for whyche agayne - my thanks).

No worries trvlr, with all the good posts I've seen from you over the years I reckon you've earned an insignificant little slip by now.

DerekW

"..odd thing is when I go to System reporter, it always says I have 63, 127, or 255, RAM installed, not what it says on the chips, like 64, 128, or 256. Always one less."

"The 1 meg difference between what the system reports and the actual amount could be because some is shared with the video. "

If the mboard does not have onboard video, some utilities and some computer bioses subtract one mb for the one mb of conventional memory.

I have Win98 with 288MB RAM. I understood that I could not go any further. I had wanted to go to 512 so that my computer would not lock up on me so often. Can that be done and is it advisable?

'98 is usually OK with 64Meg; 128Meg is perhaps the max benefit level afterwhich the benefits tail off pretty much; and even more so with 256 etc...

So unless you really need 512Meg... as in you're running some very heavy number crunching programme etc... '98 is more than adequately served with what you have. But you can go upto 512Meg without any tweaks (and if I'm wrong here Derek will (please) kindly correct me - again...)

One you go over 512 there is tweak to be made in the ini file (as per Derek....)

Mostly, up to and including 512M is fine, although I have heard of one or two rare instances where folk had trouble at 512M itself.

When I doubled mine to 512M I set the vcache to 75% because that is more than enough, so there seemed little point not taking the precaution. There were other reasons too but I won't bore you - suffice to say it is quite a good figure to use.

I did think there was a "slight" improvement with 512M at times and I still saw see my virtual memory peak to 140M (despite being set to "convervativeswapfile"). Goodness knows what I had been doing though. I accept trvlr's general point - most folk can whizz along quite nicely with 256M or less so don't expect much for your money.

DerekW

How much you can install also depends on your motherboard. You didn't list that. But likely a good P-III and above will handle 512 OK.

"I had wanted to go to 512 so that my computer would not lock up on me so often."
Lots of things can make 98 or 98SE lock up that have nothing to do with the amount of ram you have, at least if you have more than a minimal amount. If it's things like that causing your problems adding more ram will not help. E.g. if you don't have enough free space on the drive.

"'98 is usually OK with 64Meg..."
That's true, but I found through Sysoft Sandra benchmarking that the hard drive can't achieve it's full rated burst speed (e.g. 66 mb/sec) in 98/98SE with less than 96mb or so.

"...128Meg is perhaps the max benefit level afterwhich the benefits tail off pretty much; and even more so with 256 etc..."
I fully agree with that. You probably won't see much if any improvement by adding more ram than you already have.
I have been using 128mb for 98SE for years (on an Epox MVP3-G5 mboard that does not have onboard video) and for what I use the computer for it has been more than adequate. I've tried 256mb, and more, and didn't see much if any difference.

Are you using onboard video?

Lockups can be caused by "out of memory" situations.
If you are getting "out of memory" or similar errors that almost always is because
- you are using too many programs that require Windows "core" memory, which has a fixed maximum size, and after a minimal amount of ram (which with 288mb you greatly exceed) it has nothing to do with the amount of ram you have installed.
If you reduce the amount of Windows "core" memory being used, the messages will go away.
E.g. use Msconfig - Startup tab - disable anything there you don't actually need to load when the Desktop first loads.
- or your virtual swap file isn't large enough for what your using the computer for, usually seen only if it is set to a custom fixed max size, or you are using default settings and there is not enough free space on the drive.