512 megs not enough!? HELP!

[Moogoo112]

I jus got one of those dell 400sc 2.4c hyperthreading deals and transplanted everything from my old athlon xp rig over. Installed windows xp sp1 and all drivers and updates are ok and made sure dma mode was enabled. The problem is when i go to burn a dvd using nero or dvd decryptor my computer will start slowing to a crawl like it was short on buffer and system resources. My burning drops to .6x and unless i stop doing stuff on computer it stays all laggy and feels like its short on ram but i got 512 megs of crucial pc2700 in dual channel? Do i need to buy more ram!? Any opinions?

 

[nineball9]

Your system's memory requirements will depend on what else is running on your system and using memory.

You can get some basic memory utilization figures from the Windows Task Manager, Performance tab. As a rule of thumb, when your Total Commit Charge approaches (or excedes) your Total Physical Memory, your system is really thrashing due to excessive paging. Shutting down unneeded Processes and Services (as well as applications) would probably help.

 

[stevewm]

Simple problem, simple sollution. Sounds like DMA is not enabled.


To enable DMA do the following: Get to Device Manager, expand the ATAPI/IDE Controllers section, right click on the channel you drive is located on, choose properties. Go to the Advanced tab and make sure both drop down lists are set to "DMA If Available" If not, change them and reboot. Get back to the Advanced tab and then make sure Current Status says something to the effect of "MW DMA-2" or "UltraDMA Mode 2".

 

[Moogoo112]

ok i jus tried burning a dvd and same thing, only had ie and aim open. cpu usage is at 4% and DMA is enabled with all current drivers and updates


Physical Memory (K)
Total 523260
Available ranges 10000-15000
System Cache 382348

Commit Charge (K)
Total 312520
Limit 1279040
Peak 317652

Kernel Memory (K)
Total 51504
Paged 25900
Nonpaged 25804

 

[Mnementh]

Which version of Nero are you using and which DVD burner?

Mnementh

 

[lucky9]

and, do you have any other burning software installed? is xp's ability to burn off?

 

[Moogoo112]

windows xp pro sp1, nero 5.5.10.28, pioneer 105 dvdr drive and all latest drivers updates, btw how do you turn off the xp burning? thx

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Moogoo112
ok i jus tried burning a dvd and same thing, only had ie and aim open. cpu usage is at 4% and DMA is enabled with all current drivers and updates


Physical Memory (K)
Total 523260
Available ranges 10000-15000
System Cache 382348

Commit Charge (K)
Total 312520
Limit 1279040
Peak 317652

Kernel Memory (K)
Total 51504
Paged 25900
Nonpaged 25804

Available is that low? Geez, what's it all used on? Check your Processes tab and look for memory hogs there. I've only seen Nero take up about 90MB of RAM. My laptop here's got 464MB RAM usable (onboard video took some from that), and it has 251080 available right now according to Task Manager. That's with 6 background apps in the system tray, 1 IE window open, and of course, Task Manager.
The most RAM is going to:
iexplore.exe - 25,264K
explorer.exe - 18,428K
Seti@home.exe - 16,356K
svchost.exe - 14,832K
ccapp.exe - 9,240K

Other than that, every other process uses less than 4.5MB each.

 

[egale]

Just an observation but doesn 't the 2.4c have an 800fsb? If so, you should be using PC3200 not PC2700 I think.

 

[Moogoo112]

Yea my availabe is that low only when i start burning a dvd. Otherwise its fine n has at least 200-300 megs free, strange huh?

 

[Bug]

I've seen Nero consume a few hundred megs of ram on my machine, and I have a gig. On an older unit with 768 mb, it did the same thing. No problem with Alcohol 120%, which makes me think Nero has issues with memory leaks. Either that, or constantly applying updates over the original install introduced a leak somewhere.

 

[lucky9]

my computer right click the drive icon and choose properties, recording tab, enable is just above the middle of that. just deselect it.

i forget to suggest memory, i've had the same memory in my machine for 5 years. but it is a possible cause.

also, i run 384meg and have for those five years with nero and no probs. i burn at full speed with a lite-on 52x. i do set up nero with a large disk cache and let it use whatever memory it wants when i burn.

i never thought it was a biggy to reinstall nero. i keep a "few" upgrade downloads in case i have trouble with the latest one. i have not gone to 6 yet, and don't know if i will unless forced to by compatibility needs.:wine: