Negative Virtual Memory?

[DolfanJay]

I just built a new system:

Soyo P4I 845PE lite
P4 2.4b
512 PC2700
40 gig Maxtor
2 Optical drives

I'm using Win98SE, The problem is when I go to the Virtual Memory with Windows managing it Win98 displays a negative amount -29846 mb. This is very weird. The way I discovered it was I tried to launch a game and it said it didnt have enough swap file. I've used other games like Quake 3 and Undying and ran Prime 95 and 3Dmark2001 without any errors or problems. I've installed all my chipset drivers and everything is perfect under device manager. I even tried reinstalling windows from a clean format and it did the same thing.

Does anyone have any ideas as to why windows would show a negative number instead of its usual whatever free space is on the drive?

If I cant fix it would the best workaround just be to specify my own virtual memory settings? And if so what amount should I make it?

Thanks for any help anyone can offer.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Set your own size, then change it back and see what happens.

You can also look at the win386.swp file (man it's been so long, the filename is something like that) and see what the actual size is, see if it has any relation to that.

Or it could mean your hard drive is so full Windows has to use memory to contain everything.

 

[SigmaOrionis]

Hi Evermore,

I set my swapfile to 1024 min and max and it seems like it worked when i check the properties of the win386.swp file it shows my virtual as 1 GB. So it appears that setting it manually works but I can still see that windows has the the C: drive in the box listed as -28598 MB. My computer shows the correct amount of available space on my C: drive which is about 35 GB. Is it maybe because the chipset I'm using is to new for Win98 and it gets confused before I have a chance to install the chipset drivers?

Thanks Lord Evermore.

 

[Lord Evermore]

I suppose it's possible, but I doubt that drivers for the chipset are the issue. The drivers don't affect anything but physical access to the devices. I've never encountered or heard of this happening.

 

[SigmaOrionis]

Hi Lord Evermore,

I just called one of my friends who has an AthlonXP system running Win98SE and asked him to look at his virtual memory. His also was reading negative. The only similiarities between our two systems is we both have the same OS and we both have 512 MB of DDR memory. I dont know whats causing it but since his is doing the same thing I'm just gonna figure it is an OS bug and not a hardware problem. I would never have discovered this if it wasnt for Myth 2.


Thanks again for your replies.