Win98SE suddenly slow - help me!

jeremy806

Senior member
May 10, 2000
647
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Hi everyone,

I recently ditched Win2000 because I was tired of jumping through hoops to get software working. So, I am currently running Win98SE.

Celeron533A, Asus P2B, 128 MB generic RAM,
GTS, SIIG 1394 PCI card, SB Live MP3+,
PCI NIC, ISA NIC, Aopen 36x CD, HP 7500 CDRW,
Western Digital 15.3 7200 and 5.1 5400 drives.

The OS and swap file are on the fast drive. The swap file is fixed at 256MB.


When I have several applications open and then go to open something new such as Photoshop or Wordperfect, the application doesn't open and in the system monitor the cpu usage stays at 100% for several minutes until the application opens. Everything else continues to work, I just can't get to my new application.

I am willing to buy more memory, but is that really the problem.
Several minutes of hangtime is longer than it would take to get stuff off the HDD, right?

Do I: a) buy another 128MB of memory, b) reinstall w2k on a different partition and dual boot c) Just don't run so much sh!t at once.

Thanks, Jeremy806
 

Panther505

Senior member
Oct 5, 2000
560
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Jeremy806

Looks like you are running into the 98se swap monster. I would suggest a larger swap file(especially if you are going to leave it static). My static swap files are around 500 to 750 MB even on the W2K box. Reason for that is you want a swap file that you will never reach the limit of... Especially if you are running memory intensive apps like Photoshop. The question that I have is- Are you seeing a lot of disk activity in the pause prior to the apps starting??? IF so that is the paging. IF not then try starting the app with out anything running on a cold boot and see if it is faster- If it is then start adding the other applications until you run either into the limit of apps that you can run at the same time or you figure out where the application incompatability is... Let me know if I can tell you anything else..
 

GT1999

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
5,261
1
71
I agree completely with Panther's explanation. I would like to add tha memory prices are very cheap right now, and it would make sense to grab an extra 256MB or so. I bought 2x 128MB CAS2 PC100 DIMMs together for $100 from ONVIA a couple weeks ago. Also, Windows 2000 in simply a better operating system than Win98, due to better memory management. Since you've already tried it out, I'm sorry that you don't like it, but it is more stable and manages resources so much better, I don't recommend anything other than Win2000 right now.

G|T
 

1ce

Junior Member
Dec 25, 2000
5
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0
A couple problems might have.

1. You might have a virus that's purpose is to slow down your computer. Get antivirus program.

2. You might have too many programs loaded into the background.

3. You might have too many dll's being loaded at boot. The only way I found to fix this problem is by FORMATING and reinstalling what you need. You'll be amazed at how much room suddenly appears. Or be totally discusted by how big your re-install is. Mine was 3-4 GIGS.

I have PII 350 with 160 MB of RAM and it runs nice and quick. I can't see why yours would be slower than mine. Paintshop pro 6 opens in about 10 seconds for me.

A couple of longshots

1. Your hard drive maybe really fragmented and it may make it hard for the computer to find the entire application and load. In that case yours windows disk defragmenter under Start>Programs>accessories>system or Norton Speed Disk if you have it.

2. You might have a hard disk conflict. For example if you have the one CD-rom and one Hard Disk on the same IDE connector you may have a problem. But I can't really see that because it is an application that your loading not a game and the CD is usually not need.

3. If you installed win98Se on top of Win2000 you may have a few windows 2000 system files that could be giving you these system problems.
 

jeremy806

Senior member
May 10, 2000
647
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0
Thanks for the suggestions.

This morning, I changed the virtual memory setting to "let windows manage" to see if Win98 can do better than my settings did.

I am running McAfee so I doubt its a virus (no other symtoms appearing). As for too many programs, that was the first thing that I checked and there doesn't seem to be that many. I had just done the install less than a month ago, so that better not be it. I never thought about the too many dll problem, that is a very smart guess.

How can you tell/adjust how many dlls are loading?


My money is on the swap file, I'll see how the computer acts over the next few days and post an update. Yeah, I think about buying another 256 MB all the time because it is so cheap.

Thanks everyone, jeremy806
 

circlek

Senior member
Oct 11, 1999
480
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I think I read somewhere where the swap file should be AT LEAST 2 1/2 times your memory...
 

Spanker

Member
Oct 13, 1999
99
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0
Cant help with WP but remember there is memory setting in Photoshop. Is it set higher than 75%?
 

discombobulated

Junior Member
Dec 28, 2000
6
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0
i dont know if you have donr this but go to run and type msconfig and remove a lot of programs from start up. this should help out if you havent done that yet, all so check out some web sites like tweak3d.net that show you how to set up a good win98 set up
 

jeremy806

Senior member
May 10, 2000
647
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0
Thanks.

I never knew about "msconfig"

That's pretty cool, I would always run sysedit or regedit to mess with things.

jeremy806