More memory (512mb) -> instability?

[Frazas]

Hi guys,

Since I bought a new stick of 256 mb from Crucial I am getting some mpore instability on my ASUS P3V4X. I have random crashes on some games. Even when I am on the desktop. I am going to take one stick out on the weekend but I was wondering if any of you has had any problems like this. I have Win98se installed.

Thanks.

 

[lilnnjaboy]

Well it could be bad memory...but windows 98 does have a problem with memory over 256MB. The 98 kernel doesn't know how to use that much memory. 256 is perfect for 98...anymore would be wasted. And yes...you can have an unstable system...because it has too much memory. Never thought you would here that too much memory is a bad thing

 

[wasnlos]

at first i thought it could be the PSU, more power consumption with the new ram, but i checked your rig and don't think that this will be the problem.
take out the new stick and run your machine, if the errors don't occur then, i guess the new RAM is bad.
also try only the new one and see what happens.

 

[AndyHui]

Try checking to see if that stick of RAM is bad. Also check that it is fully secure in the DIMM slot.

Win98 also has issues with more than 512MB of RAM. See here for more information and a solution.

lilnnjaboy: The Win9x kernal can use up to 2GB of physical RAM, but can address up to 4GB.

 

[Frazas]

How can I test the sticks of memory? Is there any software that works 100%?

 

[novalogic88]

go to start-run, and type in msconfig , then you set the ram limitation to whatever. hope it works

 

[Shagga]

I'm running 512mb at the moment in WinME and am not getting the instability u seem to be experiencing. Cos RAm is sooooo cheap nowadays I've ordered another 256MB of Crucial. I'll report back on Friday if I experience and stability problems. Oh, I'm using the ASUS p3v4x as well.

 

[Jiggz]

You don't have to use science to check the rams. Install one stick at a time and then run the machine through all your programs. If you do not experience instabilities then consider that stick of ram good. Try the next stick of ram by itself and do the same. Hopefully, you'll see some instabilities on this one so you can consider it bad. If both sticks tested to be stable but are unstable when both inserted try moving the sticks in different combi to the DIMM sockets. If they are still unstable when both plugged then check the Bios setting and set it to Fail Safe Default Setting. Hopefully this will solve the problem. Also make sure you run registry cleaners to make sure it's not software related.

 

[Frazas]

Here goes:

Went home at lunch hour and remembered that I have Norton Systemworks installed. It has a Diagnostic feature to test several parts of the PC. And tested with the 2 sticks of ram (512mb total). It automatically gave me an error at some address (can't remember where tough). Then I tested individually each stick of ram and with the same test they both passed. So I guess it isn't a problem with the memory but it might be a problem in either the Win98se or with thechipset from VIA that controls the memory bus (it's the Apollo pro chipset).

Anyway I guess I will stick with the 256mb of ram intil a solution pops up.

 

[Whitedog]

<<but windows 98 does have a problem with memory over 256MB. The 98 kernel doesn't know how to use that much memory.>>

You people are soooo smart..

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..

I'd like to know where you people get this garbage anyway..

 

[Whitedog]

Frazas, this may sound funny, but I've seen compatability issues like that before where mixing two different memory's would cause problems. We had this one computer where it Wouldn't run Kingston and Simple memory togther at all... crashed left and right.. but would run one or the other as stable as she would.

If you've two different brands of memory, this &quot;could be&quot; your case. It's not the memory's fault, it's the Mobo's.

I don't know why anyone would want a VIA chipset mobo for Intel CPU's anyway?? Intels chipsets are Far superior.

 

[Frazas]

They are both Crucial sticks 256mb cas2 PC133.

 

[AMDPwred]

I've been having problems with 512MB in Win98SE also. I don't get any error messages but games will just cut out sometimes and my system doesn't seem to be as fast as it should be. I changed my virtual memory settings to 512 for both the values (saw it in an article in PC Gamer) and it helped alot. Even with that it just doesn't seem to be as fast as it should be.

I've got a stick of crucial (256) and one generic (256). I've taken out the generic and just ran the crucial but it still seemed the same.

 

[Frazas]

<< I changed my virtual memory settings to 512 for both the values (saw it in an article in PC Gamer) and it helped alot. >>



But did it still crashed? I had tried before with those settings but it didn't improve the stability.

 

[Boogak]

<< windows 98 does have a problem with memory over 256MB >>


I wish I had a nickel everytime someone said that. That way I could get my GeForce3

Windows 95 Can Access Up to Two GB of RAM

But like one of the posters above said, it will start getting problems when you install more than 512 megs of memory.

 

[Angus]

hey, i have this problem too
i had also run the norton, it also gave me a error message

but anyway, you can try, go to Control Panel ->system properties ->performance ->files system ->changes the &quot;typical role of this computer&quot; back to desktop.

it would give you more stablilty.

i had email to DFI(my motherboard's brand), they gave me a bios update and tell me this method to solve the problem. after this my comp. is more stable(never crash) but still doesn't solve the norton problem though.

 

[AMDPwred]

<< But did it still crashed? I had tried before with those settings but it didn't improve the stability. >>



No it doesn't crash at all. It just isn't as fast as I had hoped.

 

[Frazas]

Did some testing last night and I now have some conclusions to what might be the problem.

I downloaded a program called DocMemory from www.simmtester.com. It is a program that boots from a disk without any OS behind it. I tested both my sticks for over 3 hours on which there where 9 loop tests. It came out clean on every test.

So it can only be a problem from Win98 and it's kernel.

 

[AndyHui]

You have a total of 512MB of RAM in your system, correct?

Did you read the link that I gave you?

Did you make the changes to the vcache settings in system.ini? If you have not, then this is the source of your problem.

 

[bacillus]

Frazas,
Norton Diagnostics' memory test fails on systems with more than 256 megabytes of RAM!

 

[ukDave]

if you are overclcoking anything, return it to its original spec. i Had similar problem but when i returned my overclocked CPU to its original speed it was fine.

 

[Frazas]

<< You have a total of 512MB of RAM in your system, correct?

Did you read the link that I gave you?

Did you make the changes to the vcache settings in system.ini? If you have not, then this is the source of your problem. >>



Do you mean these settings?
[VCache]
MinFileCache=51200
MaxFileCache=56320

What would you recommend in a system with 512 mb of RAM? These same settings?

 

[AndyHui]

Yes, those.

Those seem to be reasonable values....I'm not too fussed about the size of the VCache. For 256MB I normally set about 32MB, so for 512MB, 50MB VCache, or probably about 64MB, should be fine.

 

[Angus]

thanx

 

[Angus]

thanx, it sure solve the problem