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512 MB ram and above?


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Please post your hardware configuration.

He did - In the bottom of post #20 :) [duplicated below]

edit:

Hardware used:

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-7N400-L capable of holding up to 3GB Ram, manual see http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Motherb...Name=GA-7N400-L

CPU : AMD Athlon XP 2600+

Ram Modules: 2x512MB DDR 400MHz CL 3, 2x256MB DDR 400MHz CL 3, running at 333Mhz, installed for Dual Channel operation according to the motherboard manual (double sided 512MB modules in Dimm Slots 1 & 2, single sided 256MB modules in Dimm Slots 3 & 4)

Graphics : Ati Radeon 9600XT 128MB onBoard RAM with Bios Setting AGP Aperture Size: 128MB

Harddisk : Seagate Barracude ST3200822A 3.01 200GB

During POST the Bios recognizes 1.5GB Ram and enables Dual Channel Technology.

A MemTest86 3.0 test reports no errors.

My old debian installation, which resides on the harddisk behind the 137GB limit, recognizes 1.5GB ram, as well as the Knoppix 3.4 live cdrom does.

As for myself - Windows doesn't even give a message when it failed with over 1gb ram. It just instantly reboots which is why I'd tried the ramdisk workaround and then shared my results. However, I ditched the extra ram shortly after due to wanting to wait untill I get a 4th matching stick so I wouldn't sacrifice dual-channel mode.

My config would be found within my signature.

Edited by Chozo4
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seemingly the XMSdsk method works only To a limited extent...

Got ahold of a matching 256mb stick for a total of 4 sticks (2x512 2x256) w/ 1.5gb ram. Installed the extra 512 mb and set ramdisk accordingly. Windows will give the 'not enough memory to load windows' error without it and once in windows , win32 fails with 'out of memory' errors.

Interestingly enough to note: after win32 fails I get a whole host of failures ranging from exceptions in 'vmcpd.vxd' to exceptions in 'vmm.vxd' followed shortly after by explorer causing endlessly looping page faults in kernel32.dll. Though the common problem of the 'display adaptor being misconfigured' always shows up as well for the party.

Seems this system will only go as far as 3 sticks (1256mb -> 2x512+1x256+xmsdsk workaround) before 98 hits a brick wall. Was good in writing earlier but as said before by 'tscharlii' it may be good in theory but in practice is a different story... >_<

I will do a bit more testing later with maxphyspage and the like. Just cannot have too much downtime at once on this system as it's also my file/web server.

Edited by Chozo4
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I just tried D975XBX board with E6600 processor and 1GB RAM - and no luck, the
Insufficient memory to initialize Windows.

Quit one or more memory-resident programs or remove unnecessary utilities from your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files, and restart your computer.

message described in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/184447 appeared even if I set MaxPhysPage=30000 or MaxPhysPage=20000, and maxfilecache=522240 and smaller values - no success, Windows 98 SE never booted.

Petr

There seems to be a bug. If I make the virtual memory bigger than 768 MB, I end up getting the following

error message:

Insufficient memory to initialize Windows.

Quit one or more memory-resident programs or remove unnecessary utilities from your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files, and restart your computer.

This is despite the fact that it's not RAM!

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seemingly the XMSdsk method works only To a limited extent...

Got ahold of a matching 256mb stick for a total of 4 sticks (2x512 2x256) w/ 1.5gb ram. Installed the extra 512 mb and set ramdisk accordingly. Windows will give the 'not enough memory to load windows' error without it and once in windows , win32 fails with 'out of memory' errors.

Interestingly enough to note: after win32 fails I get a whole host of failures ranging from exceptions in 'vmcpd.vxd' to exceptions in 'vmm.vxd' followed shortly after by explorer causing endlessly looping page faults in kernel32.dll. Though the common problem of the 'display adaptor being misconfigured' always shows up as well for the party.

Seems this system will only go as far as 3 sticks (1256mb -> 2x512+1x256+xmsdsk workaround) before 98 hits a brick wall. Was good in writing earlier but as said before by 'tscharlii' it may be good in theory but in practice is a different story... >_<

I will do a bit more testing later with maxphyspage and the like. Just cannot have too much downtime at once on this system as it's also my file/web server.

Run MemTest86+ on the system for a few hours and see what happens.
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  • 2 weeks later...
I just tried D975XBX board with E6600 processor and 1GB RAM - and no luck, the
Insufficient memory to initialize Windows.

Quit one or more memory-resident programs or remove unnecessary utilities from your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files, and restart your computer.

message described in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/184447 appeared even if I set MaxPhysPage=30000 or MaxPhysPage=20000, and maxfilecache=522240 and smaller values - no success, Windows 98 SE never booted.

Petr

it looks like the Intel D975XBX mobo is not compatible with Win98/ME. Official downloads for D975XBX board are only for Win2000 and WinXP at the Intel support site. dont bother installing any 9xME version of Windows on an intel D975XBX or D975XBX2 mobo because they're guaranteed NOT to work.

There seems to be a bug. If I make the virtual memory bigger than 768 MB, I end up getting the following

error message:

Insufficient memory to initialize Windows.

Quit one or more memory-resident programs or remove unnecessary utilities from your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files, and restart your computer.

This is despite the fact that it's not RAM!

it might be your cpu & motherboard, RJARRRPCGP. what kind of mobo does your PC have when you had this problem? newer types of mobos can no longer handle Win98/ME correctly and require Win2000, XP or newer Windows OS

Edited by erpdude8
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I bought large ram for two reasons - standard system upgrade, and i was going to use some part of ram as RAMdisk (for TV Capturing and mainly for windows swapfile)

I've been using 1gb ram for few weeks without any trouble, no MaxPhys was needed. But i was unable to run more memory - i thought 1gb was limit. Then i tried one thing. I added 128 stick (3 slots - 512/512/128) but it doesnt work until i enabled Memory Hole in Bios. Then i was able to run 1,152 megabytes (1,150 in windows).

But recently i bougth three new memory sticks (512mb 133mhz SDRAM - they were too much expensive - i wanted to use them), so i tried to insert third one.

Motherboard sucesfully recognized 1,5gb, but the system never booted (although memory hole was enabled - it seems that 1mb which it has consumed helped to avoid crashing the system)

then i set MaxPhysPage=40000 and the system booted using 1Gb, the rest was unused. The largest maxphyspage that has been accepted was 45678 (nice number :) ). At this point i was able to run 1,1gb, but still not enough.

Then i found info about XMSDSK and it seemed to be an ideal solution (it enables large ramdrive before swapfile is enabled). This program gives great possibilities but has some limitatios.

XMSDSK MUST be installed after Emm386 is installed (UMBPCI didnt work, althougth motherboard is supported). If XMSDSK is enabled earlier system shall not boot.

If i use XMSDSK the largest memory available for windows is 786MB (or little bit more), rest must be reserved for RamDisk.

Example:

When 1gb was inserted in MB XMSDSK must use 262144kb or more, else system shall not boot.

When i used 1,5gb XMSDSK must use 786 432kb or more.

(i've been testing it recently, there is small reserve, i used 730 000kb and it still worked, but it shall take some time to test it, i suggest that smallest number shall be 720 896, 655350 didnt work)

So the result is i can use half of memory as Ramdisk (with swapfile), and second half as standard RAM.

Everything worked fine. Also i removed MaxPhysPage from system.ini and system worked (!!!).

Benchmarks and Crashtests:

(celeron 800mhz, radeon 9800pro)

Passmark - Most tests gived better performance except "large ram" test.

3dMark 2001 - 8300 - Swapfile on Ramdisk improved score by 900 points.

Oblivion - At first attempt it crashed. I've added MaxPhysPage = 3c000, enlarged swapfile from 128 to 524MB and it works. Previously in moments when game was loading areas the game has been stopped for aproximately 15 seconds. When the swapfile was moved to Ramdrive this time halved.

What makes me angry is fact that i cannot run 1gb of conventional Ram and 500mb of Ramdisk. That was my goal, but overally i am glad that i can use all capacity of ram.

Any idea how to reach my goal? (or change some settings in system.ini) :)

edit:

Oblivion crashed due to small swapfile. 128mb was too small for it.

The smallest size of XMSDSK is 720 896, else computer reboot itself or i get "not enough memory" message.

Effects of Swapfile size in 3d Mark:

- when swapfile was at size of 128mb test gived 15-160 frames and 8333 marks overally

- now the swapfile has 700 Mb and test gived 13-167 frames and 8200 marks overally

(quite usable for pc tunning)

Btw swapfile on Ramdrive has another effect. I need new cooling for RAM sticks :) Also i try to turn off "conservative" usage of swapfile, maybe it shall have some effects.

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Today I tried bigger memory in GA-K8M800M-RH motherboard and the results were:

Windows 98 SE with sesp21a:

Both 1536 and 1024 MB (-64 MB shared by on-board VGA) : no boot, black screen

In safe mode: the popular "Not enough memory message".

Windows Me with latest mesp202:

The system booted well both in normal and safe mode, all simple tasks, like logging to Novell server, copying files by Total Commander etc. were OK.

Everything worked even if I changed MayPhysPages to 50000 and 60000 just the memory on system properties has increased.

Problems started when I tried to run MS Hardware Compatibility test - they got frozen or had other problems with 1536 MB, with 1024 MB, even with 768 MB of physical memory. Only with 512 MB it was possible to run them.

Changing MayPhysPages had absolutely no effect, both in Windows Me and in Windows 98 SE - just the memory on system properties has changed.

The result of these tests is that it is not safe even to insert more than 512 MB to the motherboard.

Maybe that is the reason of my problems with D975XBX boards previously, I had 2 1 GB sticks only. Now I got one 512 MB DDR2 stick for testing so I may try it - but it is too time consuming, I'll see.

Petr

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some tweaks for XMSDSK users:

Put these lines in your autoexec.bat (this is example)

lh c:\xmsdsk\xmsdsk.exe 720896 Y: /c1 /t /y

label Y: Scorpion

Drive shall no longer be labeled as "MS-Ramdrive" and this allows you to adress ramdrive from Virtual memory manager in "This computer" > "properties" - no need to manual edit system.ini (in some cases manual editation caused "windows protection error - restart")

Also it will add some features in "This computer" window if you open properties of your ramdrive - "Compression Menu" and also it appears in FAT32 Converter. None of new procedures is not supported by XMSDSK driver - it will crash computer to blue screen of death.

Is there any possibility to format XMSDSK drive to FAT32 (just curious, maybe it shall help with some troubles)

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Yes it is just FAT16. Thats makes no trouble when i use it as swapdrive, but if i want to use it for newer aplications it may cause trouble.

What is also very positive is that if system crashes, Scandisk shall find no (or very few) lost data on Hdd.

Btw some friends of mine asked me to do this "tweak" with swapfile on ramdrive on their computer, but most of them use WinXP. I have no experience with XP. Shall XMSDSK start and shall XP put its swapfile on drive with FAT16?

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2000/XP, 98SE + ME all support FAT16 + FAT32.

Therefore you can place your 9x swap file [called paging file in 2000/XP] on any FAT16 or FAT32 drive/partition.

Try to load XMSDSK from config.sys [example]:

INSTALLHIGH=c:\xmsdsk\xmsdsk.exe 720896 Y: /c1 /t /y label Y: Scorpion

instead of loading it from autoexec.bat, or the other way around if you load it from config.sys.

Replace INSTALLHIGH with INSTALL if you don't load any upper memory manager [uMBPCI, EMM386, QEMM386, RM386 etc] from config.sys.

Reboot see what happens.

If you allocate too much RAM for xmsdsk RAMdisk, your computer performance will decrease significantly, or you may even experience errors/lockups with some apps/games.

If you are experiencing random errors with scandisk [scandskw], maybe you should consider disabling [some] overclocking features, i.e. bring back FSB or RAM timings to normal values.

HTH

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I usually recomend this tweak only for computer with 1,5 GB of ram or more, maintaining that 1gb shall remain as standard memory. in these cases it can boost acess to swapfile 10x and upgrade overall systen performance by 12 percent. Pretty nice trick for people with large ram :)

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